At the moment, there are already a great many different audio courses designed to be listened to in the car.
Leaving aside the question of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this technique, we have compiled for you a selection of several such audio materials. Listen and improve your English on the way to work.
Before you download this or that course, we highly recommend that you at least briefly understand what English audio courses are in a car, what you can expect from them, and what you should not.
Let's start with the fact that, in our opinion, such audio courses can never replace a full-fledged teaching of the English language. To be honest, in our teaching practice we have not yet met a single person who would learn to speak English only by listening to such courses in the car on the way to work.
"Classes" in English according to this method are severely limited by several obvious factors.
Firstly, due to objective reasons, you cannot concentrate 100% on learning English, because forced to drive a car in parallel, assess the situation on the roads, etc. Therefore, from time to time you will be forced to “get out” of the process for a couple of minutes and then return to the material you listened to again.
Secondly, by doing this, you activate only one of several channels for perceiving information, namely, the auditory one. That is, even when you hear a word, you don’t know how it is spelled, you don’t see its transcription, and you probably won’t be able to write it on paper without errors later. This no longer allows us to talk about an adequate process of learning a language.
Let it not seem to you that we are only opponents of such courses. It must be admitted that the methodology of English courses in a car has its undeniable advantages:
1) You can listen to the material every day for at least 30-60 minutes, without additional organization of time for classes. It's objectively convenient.
2) Listening to the material several times in the car, you willy-nilly begin to memorize it. The material is, as it were, recorded in the subcortex of your brain.
Practice shows that the most effective result from such courses can be obtained in addition to the basic English education at a language school or with a teacher (in any case, such training should be basic!).
That is, going through a topic with a teacher, you then fix it by listening in the car. In this case, with a certain system of training, a good result is guaranteed.
Here is a selection of some of these courses that can help you learn the language. Go ahead, try it, download it to your flash drives, listen. Perhaps for you it will become an indispensable support in English classes.
1) 1C. Driving English (audio course)
1C English driving - Part 1
1C - English driving - Part 2
ENGLISH READING CLUB. intermediate kit.(4 CDs)
ENGLISH READING CLUB. intermediate pack.(4 CDs)
Contains: "Dracula" (Bram Stoker), "The Sign of Four" (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), "The Woman Who Disappeared" (Philip Prowse), "The Speckled Band and Other Stories" (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
ENGLISH READING CLUB. Full kit. (12 discs, contains all levels and Collins COBUILD Student's Dictionary)
ENGLISH READING CLUB. Full pack. (12 discs, contains all levels, but without the Collins dictionary)
The English Reading Club course is based on a practice-proven method of learning and improving a foreign language through reading fiction. This course will be especially useful for anyone who needs to consolidate and develop basic knowledge of the English language.
When you open the eBook, you will see the table of contents. You can not only read, but also listen to texts voiced by professional actors - native speakers, and illustrations will help you understand what is at stake. Each chapter is preceded by tasks. If you come across unfamiliar words, the voiced electronic explanatory dictionary Collins COBUILD Student's Dictionary will come to the rescue.
The English Reading Club course comes in two packages: with a fully voiced Collins COBUILD Student's Dictionary and without it (if you already have one). In the dictionary you will find an explanation of each word from the texts of the course, its grammatical forms, examples of use and the exact meaning, taking into account the context.A special section of the program makes it possible to train the pronunciation of individual words and phrases.
A useful feature of the dictionary is the original technique for memorizing RE-WISE words (you can add any word from the text to your own dictionary and work with it using RE-WISE). The program will create for you the optimal individual scheme for memorizing and repeating words. This will allow you to save a large amount of learned material in memory. (Attention: the RE-WISE memorization technique only works with the Collins COBUILD Student's Dictionary.)
You can also train your pronunciation: voice dialogues, repeat sentences, compare your version with the announcer's, perform phonetic dictations.
E-books of the English Reading Club series are suitable both for self-study and for classes at schools, universities, and courses. Read, listen, speak along with their characters, and you will understand that English can be learned easily, interestingly, and with pleasure. Try it and see for yourself!
Today, knowledge of a foreign language (primarily English) is a prerequisite for career growth. Firstly, this is due to computer technologies that have firmly entered our lives, and secondly, the increasing mobility, when work and leisure involve active movement around the world, and thirdly, the increased requirements in the labor market. As a result, many often have to read foreign press and literature, conduct business and personal correspondence not in their native language, and some even communicate in a foreign language, which is even more difficult.
There are many ways to learn a foreign language that is so necessary both for communication and for reading various materials of a foreign language today. First of all, of course, this is attending language courses, which are good for everyone, except for the need to adapt to the class schedule, which is very difficult for a business person. It is much more convenient to study at any free time, without changing the daily routine depending on the course schedule - such an opportunity is provided by virtual courses, which are offered in many on CD and DVD discs today. Unfortunately, this method of learning has a serious drawback - real communication cannot be replaced by any virtual one. But such courses allow, at a convenient time and at an individual speed, not only to master the basic level of language proficiency, to study its vocabulary and grammar and accumulate a minimum vocabulary, but also to learn how to translate texts, perceive speech by ear and even acquire some communication skills. All this knowledge will help in real communication and significantly speed up language adaptation. True, this training option will not be effective for everyone, since some people are able to perceive material only in the form of classroom training, and someone may simply lack the discipline and perseverance for independent studies.
For virtual learning of a foreign language, a wide variety of courses are offered, among which everyone will find something suitable for themselves - for adults and children, for beginners and for those who already know the basics of the language, for a wide range of users and specialists. Consider the best of these solutions.
Developer: Auralog S.A.
Price: full course (Full Pack, 18 CDs) - 1650 rubles, Elementary level (6 CDs) - 810 rubles, Intermediate (6 CDs) - 810 rubles, Advanced (6 CDs) - 810 rubles.
The Tell me more series of interactive multimedia courses features a unique combination of traditional and computer language learning approaches and includes CDs for mastering English (American), Italian, German, Spanish and French. All courses can be customized according to the purpose of learning and the time in which you need to learn the language.
The courses include three levels of difficulty: elementary (Elementary), intermediate (Intermediate) and in-depth (Advanced), and therefore are suitable for both beginners and those who improve their language skills. The elementary level involves learning the basics of the language, the intermediate level - fluent reading of fiction and communication on everyday topics, and the advanced level - listening to television and radio programs and fluent communication with an English-speaking interlocutor.
A course of any level of complexity includes many tasks, an extensive grammar reference with examples and a voiced dictionary of the course's active vocabulary. The courses are based on interactive multi-level dialogues, in which common situations of everyday and business communication are played out, while the program allows you to conduct a free dialogue with a computer, the development of which depends on the student's answers. A variety of exercises that have to be performed during the study of the material expand vocabulary and consolidate knowledge of grammatical rules, as well as allow you to practice speaking and writing, reading and listening. Video clips in dialogues are accompanied by English text and its Russian translation, which facilitates understanding and develops the skill of understanding oral speech.
Thanks to speech recognition technology, you can have an oral dialogue with a computer by saying answers into a microphone. The built-in pronunciation visualization system (the program displays oral speech in the form of a graph, comparing it with the graph of the correct reproduction of the same phrase) and three-dimensional animation of the speech organs in the process of forming individual sounds, accompanied by comments, help to improve pronunciation and intonation. What's more, while practicing pronunciation, the program tracks mispronounced words using the exclusive S.E.T.S. (Spoken Error Tracking System) and draws the student's attention to them.
Support for the progress monitoring function allows the student to track their achievements and mistakes.
Developer: REWARD [email protected] software YDP Multimedia, Macmillan Publishers Limited
Price: Full Pack version - 2250 rubles. (9 CDs), Elementary level - 810 rubles, Intermediate - 810 rubles, Pre-Intermediate - 810 rubles, Upper-Intermediate - 810 rubles.
REWARD [email protected]- one of the most complete multimedia English textbooks on the Russian market, which covers all stages of language learning. It is based on the world-famous Oxford Reward textbook, which is considered the foundation for learning English as a foreign language. The course is designed for adults and teenagers and is perfect for self-study, but with no less success it can be used in classical education - in schools and universities, in various language centers and courses, especially in combination with the traditional Reward audio-video course.
REWARD [email protected] includes four levels: Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate and Upper-Intermediate, which in total contains about 200 lessons and 5 thousand exercises.
You can study the course sequentially - starting with the first lesson and moving forward step by step. But at any time you can go back (if something remains unlearned) or, conversely, skip this or that lesson if the topic being studied in it is familiar, or immediately start by doing tests. And if you need to refresh certain topics in your memory, then you can enter a request in the built-in navigator - and the program will search for the necessary topics of the lessons and select exercises for pronunciation, speech skills, writing, etc.
The course covers all sections of linguistics: vocabulary, phonetics, grammar - and allows you to accumulate a good vocabulary, master reading literature, and also develops the perception of oral speech. Vocabulary increases with each lesson, and new vocabulary is reinforced through active use in exercises. A special lexical module, consisting of a short English-Russian dictionary, a word search system and a mechanism for generating user dictionaries, provides convenience for working with new words, for example, a student can enter the current vocabulary into a personal user dictionary. The study of grammar is not limited to a simple acquaintance with the rules - they are accompanied by numerous exercises that allow you to better understand the topic. There are a lot of phonetic exercises in the course, thanks to which the user not only develops the correct pronunciation, but also learns to read phonetic signs.
REWARD [email protected] also greatly facilitates the acquisition of conversational skills. From the first lessons, the exercises are accompanied by sound examples - you can listen to any new word and phonogram for any exercise, which allows you to work out the placement of stresses, intonation and pronunciation. In addition, each lesson has special "listening" exercises. Their complexity gradually increases, and at the last stage of training, the student listens to a real conversation, which can be emotional, interspersed with slang, and the diction of the speakers is not always perfect. If at first the student needs to capture only the general meaning of the conversation, then later he will have to clarify the details, and then restore the dialogue verbatim.
For self-control, the program implements several mechanisms: you can make a recording, listen to it and compare your pronunciation with the reference pronunciation of the speaker, or make a visual comparison of phonograms, or use the built-in ViaVoice (tm) speech recognition system.
With the Forum and News features, the student can use their English to communicate online.
Developer: Intense Educational
Publisher: Intense Educational (http://www.intense.ru/)
Price: basic or advanced course - 100 rubles. (1 CD), basic course or advanced course with "Audiogrammar" - 170 rubles. (2 CDs)
These courses are developed in the UK and have received wide recognition in the world, and the basic course has also received the highest award from the largest international educational network - Aspect International Language Academies. They are a continuous unified learning system that allows you to study in a complex the features of English vocabulary, grammar and phonetics, learn how to compose dialogues and write dictations, translate and understand live speech, which is facilitated by both numerous methodological techniques and a very strict system of monitoring progress. The basic course covers the basic grammatical structures of the English language, and therefore is intended for users who are just starting to learn English or who want to improve their already existing initial skills in reading, writing, pronunciation and oral speech comprehension. The advanced course includes additional grammatical structures not covered in the basic course, and is designed for those who speak the language at an intermediate level and wish to continue studying it.
Both courses contain 20 lessons, in each of which a certain grammatical construction is studied along with a lexical block corresponding to the topic of the lesson. Each lesson additionally contains game colorfully illustrated exercises to check the learned material, spelling and ability to conduct a conversation on a given topic. All textual material is voiced, and most of the sounds are read by both male and female voices. The student's vocabulary is replenished by listening to new words and expressions, accompanied by viewing their text spelling and the corresponding bright, figurative picture that increases the level of memorization. At the end of each lexical block, it is proposed to perform the exercise "Tir", in which you need to have time to write the right word in a certain time. It allows not only to consolidate the studied material, but also to learn how to write without errors.
The study of grammar is carried out on the basis of the original method of representing grammatical structures in the form of changing “stamps”, supplemented by a “grammatical mosaic”, when it is required to assemble the answer to the question from the possible options, like from cubes. The rules are interspersed with a variety of practical tasks.
Both courses are accompanied by an audio trainer - a special program for practicing the correct pronunciation of English words and phrases. It can be used with any exercise and allows you to listen to the speech of a professional speaker, as well as record and listen to your own, which is useful when practicing pronunciation.
Developer: ZAO IstraSoft
Publisher: 1C-Publishing LLC (http://www.1c.ru/)
Price: for the new version is not defined, the previous version - 188 rubles.
Training courses “Professor Higgins. English without an accent! and “Professor Higgins. German without an accent! are a complete phonetic, lexical and grammatical multimedia reference-simulator for learning a foreign language. They are intended for those wishing (regardless of their initial level of knowledge) to learn to understand spoken English or German speech and speak grammatically correctly, with good and distinct pronunciation (in the case of English, the BBC variant, which is the norm of speech on English television, in the case of German - a variant of Hochdeutsche, the norm of speech on German television).
The courses include theoretical material (rules, diagrams, explanatory examples) and many exercises for practicing pronunciation and developing skills for the sustainable use of lexical and grammatical models and can be used both for self-study of the language and for teaching under the guidance of a teacher. The material presented in them is divided into several sections, which can be studied both sequentially (which is necessary for beginners) and in any order, based on the goals set.
When going through the sections sequentially, users first master the perception and correct pronunciation of speech sounds and their combinations, learn the rules for setting stresses and train in the pronunciation of letters and their combinations in commonly used words. At this stage, they are helped by the built-in 3D animation and visualization of the correct articulation of sounds, which give a visual representation of the work of the speech apparatus and allow the student to control pronunciation. To evaluate the results, you can not only resort to the classic visual comparison of your own pronunciation with the reference one (by ear and according to the graph on the monitor screen), but also use a special module for assessing the quality of pronunciation (this module will appear in a new version, which will be released in early 2007).
The next stage will be listening training, during which users will need to complete many exercises to develop their listening comprehension skills. At the same time, you can choose which groups of words or phrases (from those provided in the program) to train on.
At the last stage, stable lexico-grammatical models are studied and preparations are underway for effective communication, for which you need to perform a lot of vocabulary exercises that serve to train pronunciation, enrich vocabulary and speed up the pace of speech. Such exercises are based on real speech: common phrases often found in dialogues, proverbs, tongue twisters, poems and stories.
In addition, the course has sections "Grammar" and "Dictionaries". The first one outlines the basic rules of English grammar and contains a number of independent lessons with theoretical material and interactive exercises. The second contains a general dictionary and a dictionary of homonyms, any of the words in which you can listen, pronounce and conduct an acoustic and visual comparison of your own pronunciation with the reference one.
Developer: EuroTalk Interactive
Price: 119 rub. (1 CD)
The series is represented by two courses - “Learn languages. Level for beginners” and “Learn languages. Level for continuing education, and for each course there are versions for studying English (in the American or British version), French, German, Italian, Spanish and many other languages. These courses are suitable for both adults and children, and training can be carried out completely independently or at school under the guidance of a teacher (for example, the theoretical foundations of the courses can be used to explain the material, and exercises, games and quizzes to consolidate it). Both courses are interactive (the computer reacts to the student's successes or mistakes), they keep statistics and provide the ability to monitor achievements (which is especially important if the course is used to teach children). The theoretical material in them is presented easily, clearly and clearly, and the presence of various means of self-control (quizzes, games and exercises of different levels of complexity) helps to consolidate the studied material. The ability to record your voice and compare your own pronunciation with the pronunciation of the announcer (though only visually, since there is no automatic pronunciation assessment function in the course) will help in developing the correct pronunciation.
Developer: Young Digital Poland S.A.
Price: 810 rub. (3 CDs or 1 DVD)
Business Targets is one of the best solutions for learning business English, which is so necessary for all professionals working in the international market. The course is designed for users with an Intermediate level of training and is a unique combination of advanced computer technologies, distance learning opportunities and a traditional educational and methodological complex in one product. Thanks to interactivity, flexible lesson planning and regular, clear control of knowledge, combined with the use of advanced computer technologies, Business Targets can be successfully used both for self-study and for learning English in schools and universities, in language courses, during classes with tutor, etc.
The course allows you to learn business vocabulary (including terms associated with modern means of communication: mobile phone, Internet, e-mail), master the necessary lexical constructions and expressions in business communication and promotes the development of speech skills. In addition, it involves the study of the basic grammar of the Advanced level, includes extensive information about the business (of course, in English) and a variety of exercises to consolidate the material covered.
Developer: Auralog S.A.
Price: Full Pack version - 570 rubles. (6 CDs), level 1 - 199 rubles. (2 CDs), level 2 - 199 rubles. (2 CD), level 3 - 199 rubles. (2 CDs)
"Correct English without boring rules!" is the Russian edition of the internationally recognized electronic textbook Tell me More Kids by the French company Auralog. The program consists of three parts: "Fairytale House", where you can invite preschoolers from 4 to 6 years old; "Amazing City" for children of primary school age (7-9 years old); "Magic World", a journey through which is designed for 10-12-year-olds. Each of the options assumes an initial level of training. With the purchase of all three parts in the Full Pack, the course comes with a set of 60 colorful flashcards with English words that help reinforce the vocabulary learned.
Exploring the mysterious world of "Correct English", the child will acquire an initial vocabulary, and two funny friends will help him in this - the prudent Professor Albert and the restless parrot Kaliko. They will accompany the child on the journey and, if necessary, suggest what and how to do, praise or scold for the quality of the tasks performed, and their advice will not only provide invaluable support, but will not let you get bored.
During the journey, the child will have more than a thousand vocabulary games, many cartoons and fun karaoke. Fascinating games (find the difference between two posters, guess the words encrypted in a fun crossword puzzle, return stolen puzzle pieces to their places, etc.) contribute to the development of speaking, reading, writing skills and expanding vocabulary. In cartoons, all the characters speak English, and by voicing their favorite characters, the child will be able to develop the correct pronunciation and intonation. With the help of karaoke, you can learn funny songs in English and learn a lot of new words in between.
The study of English conversational speech proceeds smoothly and unobtrusively: at first, the child only listens to English speech (immersion stage), then in the tasks he is required to understand it, and at the final stage, real conversational practice begins, involving the participation of the child in dialogues along with the characters of the course. Pronunciation is assessed in an adult way - automatically (using modern speech recognition technologies) and graphically (using the built-in pronunciation visualization system, when the oscillograms of the speech of the child and the speaker are displayed on the screen for comparison).
Developer: Intense Educational
Publisher: Intense Educational (http://www.intense.ru/)
Price: 200 rub. per course
To know a foreign language like a native one, you need to start mastering it from early childhood. Interactive courses Bridge to English for kids can help with this, in which children are told fairy tales in English.
Each of the four courses in the series released so far is an educational video book with two fairy tales recorded on two discs: an audio CD that plays on a regular CD player connected to a TV, and a DVD that plays on a DVD player connected to a TV. The first is designed for children up to nine months and is played simply as a background so that the child learns words with the correct stress, pronunciation and intonation, in the future this disc can be used to listen to a bedtime story. The DVD is intended for children from nine months to five years old and contains colorful cartoons based on English folk tales, as well as age-appropriate interactive exercises.
TeLL me More Ultimate is a complete interactive language learning course that automatically adjusts to the user during the course. It can also be customized according to the learning goals and time available to the student. In addition to English (British), the series also includes programs for learning German, Spanish, French and Italian. The series has replaced the previous version of Tell me More, it uses new materials, functions and interface. The program draws up an optimal schedule of classes and conducts them step by step, replacing the teacher and native speaker. The program adapts to you as you progress through the course and offers only those tasks that are necessary for you.
With the help of customizable training modes, you can choose the optimal training scheme. "Free" mode provides an opportunity to choose the topics of lessons and exercises, change the settings of the program, independently planning your training. In "Guided" mode, the program will create an individual work plan for you in accordance with the initial level of language proficiency, learning goals and the time for which you need to learn the language. "Dynamic" mode is a unique training mode in which the program selects each next exercise in accordance with the results of the tasks already completed, as well as with the training goals. The longer you work in it, the better the program determines which exercises are right for you. In each of the modes, the program evaluates the results of tasks with the help of a control system. The capabilities of this interactive course allow you to extract audio recordings (dialogues, dictations, etc.), which can then be stored on your hard drive or burned to a CD. Thus, you will be able to listen and repeat the sentences and words learned in the program, even without access to a computer, for example, on the road. The program provides support in Russian, but you can turn off the translation and engage in full immersion.
Dozens of interesting and informative linguistic and regional texts will introduce you to the cultural realities of Great Britain (history, art, traditions, cuisine, etc.). Also in the "Linguistic and Regional Studies" section you will find: full translation of texts, translation of individual keywords, summary of texts, linguistic and regional quizzes based on texts, interactive geographical maps with tasks. The program uses the latest digital technologies to practice pronunciation: a speech recognition system, animated videos demonstrating the articulation of sounds, a speech signal graph, and a system for detecting errors in oral speech.
The three levels of the program Beginner (initial), Intermediate (middle), Advanced (advanced) comply with the standards of the Common European Framework of Reference for Foreign Languages (CEF) (certificates A1 / A2, B1, B2).
