Sorry for this belated reply. My day was long. I´m quite behind technology, but this is the order I give Yahoo: purdue. edu + Online Writing Laboratory. (The spaces before and after the plus sign, count). Hope you and Natalie enjoy it.

Best regards,

Hilda

Thanks in advance.

Lilia - Thanks for responding.

Hilda - Thanks for the resource.

The Online Writing Laboratory at Purdue University (purdue.edu) has invaluable resources for teachers and students, including handouts, exercises, etc, etc. Natalie, I have experienced first hand how crucial it is for graduate students ( either native or non-native speakers of English) to improve the writing skills. Best wishes to both in this endeavor.

Sincerely,

Hilda

Perhaps you can find her a pen pal on the computer. Alas, I suspect that most of your readers are not in her age group.

No all of the books I will be giving Natalie to read are in English. We will review all material she reads to verify her comprehension. I just reread you comment and understand where you are coming from. The answer to your concern is Yes. She has watched several of the Grisham movies and likes him as an author. I realize that she has to be reading something that is interesting to her and she and I have discussed that.

Music, I had forgotten about. I will take some CD’s for the trip this afternoon. Good idea. The conversation portion we are working with continually, so I am not concerned about that one.

Good idea about her commenting on this site. I have had her read some of the posts and the comments and have found them to be helpful. My writing as well as the comments typically bring in phrases that are local to the writers part of the words and that is good for her.

I will see that she has an email address and ask her to start commenting. Great idea. I hadn’t forgotten about the written exercises and have coming up with some ideas, but yours about the comments is very good.

I’m not a native English speaker (Dutch) but I went to an English speaking school, long time ago, just for 2 years. In Holland all films, series etc. are in the original language with subs. Leave the subtitles on for more understanding.

Grisham is fun to read, and easy !! But is it a book Nathalie would read in Spanish? Find what she likes and give it to Nathalie in English.

Music? Pop music (and poetry) can be very helpfull. And just talking/singing in English is a must.

A little cheat on computers, if you know your way in Windows it doesn’t matter what language you speak, just click on the same icon!

Writing is another matter and you seem to have forgotton about it.
So: Nathalie…Read every blogfile and comment on this site. Think about it and try to remember what it is about and… write it in in English, using your own words.

Hope to be of service,

Rob

Great suggestion about Readers Digest. I wonder if ARROCHA or Rivilla carry it. Do you know? It would be good because it contains short stories and I hadn’t thought of it. However, I do have books and you use what you have.

She is using the TV. She had cut a piece of black paper to paste over the subtitles to force herself to listen more carefully. I will suggest she listen to CNN in English as it has not titles.

I had also thought about renting a few DVDs and not turning the subtitles on or strictly turning on the English subtitles.