NEW FILMING CAMPAIGN - Please contribute questions

New Filming from October 23 to November 15, 2009 in the USA (Florida and California). Have you got an idea for a question I should ask? Please give me new ideas. I will give you credit on the related lesson page on the RE site.

Real English Site Back Up

Or sort of back up. The important point is that students and teachers can access all the important stuff without any problems. If I am wrong, please let me know.

I am still doing research about my home page problem.

Real English Site Down

The Real English site has been having server problems. Tomorrow, September 10, everything should be back to normal.

Walk Score ™

I finally finished the Walk Score™ section of the Real English site. There are 8 main videos and 7 lessons (90 exercises) for ESL students. The videos will probably be of interest to the general public as well.

What is Walk Score? It's a website for Americans who want to avoid driving as much as they do, and have a walking lifestyle. Suppose you are going to move and you want to find walkable neighborhoods. This is your starting point.

Walking is obviously better for your health and the health of the planet.

Mike Mathieu, founder and CEO of Front Seat, is the creator of Walk Score. He speaks naturally but clearly, providing our "voice", explaining the site in some detail. We also interviewed people on the street to get opinions concerning his creation, and the whole idea of leaving the car at home as much as possible.

One day later: the first blogger to comment on the WalkScore / RealEnglish combo.

The Sick American Health Care System

The USA is the only developed country in the world which has a health care system based on profit for health insurance companies. ALL other developed countries (with no exceptions) set up Government-sponsored health care systems at the end of World ...War II. The USA is 60 years behind the times, and has become a 3rd-world country in terms of people getting the health care they need.

American Health Care companies are responsible to their shareholders, not the sick people who buy insurance in the first place. It is also well known that these companies often find very dubious reasons so as NOT to pay for health care services, citi...ng "previous conditions" and other nonsense to avoid paying. Obama's health care reform might not work. The insurance companies are strong, rich, and have great influence over lawmakers in both houses of Congress. Americans seem to be afraid of "socialism" even in cases where it makes a lot of common sense.

Jeff Lebow and José Rodriguez of EFL Bridges Interview Sarah Lilburn of the Daily English Show, and Myself

Mike Marzio and Sarah Lilburn, creators of Real English and The Daily English show respectively, are interviewed by Jeff Lebow and José Rodriguez. Here's the live webacam talk. Many Thanks to our hosts at Edtech Talk! The people who watched this live show made text comments during our talk, which you can read in the EFL Bridges chat log.


EFLBridges uses live, interactive webasting and a variety of other collaborative tools to help EFL learners and educators connect, learn, & collaborate. José and Jeff have created a site which is as communicative as you get. Real time communication. This is what I'd like to do with Real English - with several students for example and myself or another teacher as "host". Jeff & José show the way!

Jeff interviewed Sarah Lilburn and myself. I was flattered to be invited, and extra happy to be co-guest with Sarah, since I'm one of many enthusiastic fans of her Daily English Show.

You can watch the recording (ustream) of our interview here. As I watch myself, I think of better answers to Jeff's informed questions. Too late to be clever!

Thank you Jeff and José!

The Monkey Waiters

Just made a new lesson for ESL EFL students using, for the first time, a video which is not mine: http://tinyurl.com/m9atp2

I only did the sub-titles and the lessons.

And the WalkScore project continues!