Gortat will school you -- in a good way
As an ESL teacher in his other identity, yours truly was happy to find out about a website called “English, Baby!” and was even more intrigued to find that the faculty includes Rodrigue Beaubois, Marc Gasol, Marcin Gortat, Sergio Rodriguez and Sasha Vujacic.
English, Baby! is something of a full-service website for those interested in learning or refining their skills in English as a second-language, with information about TOEFL exams, in-house teachers to assist with questions, forums, and lesson materials.
Essentially each “lesson” on the website – and there appear to be thousands of them – is a webpage which includes a short video done in actual interview style plus seven to twelve vocabulary words, a primer reading to prepare for what you’ll see/hear in the video, a transcript, grammar points (don’t worry; they’re mostly painless), quick quizzes and discussion topics. You can even download the whole thing as an MP3 file once you register with the site.
Seriously, teachers, if you’re lucky enough to have basketball- or sports-wacky students, this website is a godsend: A minimum of preparation is necessary to fill 45 minutes, BiE’s telling ya.
The favorite feature at the English, Baby! website among students must surely be the celebrity lessons, mostly featuring international athletes and musicians. (Okay, so BiE buys Ticha Penicheiro’s ability to impart a little knowledge, but Insane Clown Posse as English teachers? Whoa.)
Here, you can check out Pau Gasol teaching myriad meanings of “post.” Marcin “Polish Hammer” Gortat talks about his own polyglot skills and shot-blocking slang here, and here Rodrigue Beaubois gets stumped on the French origins of the term “alley oop.”
BiE can recommend English, Baby! as a nice resource for ESL students and teachers in general, plus as they say, if you’re not careful, you just might learn something. And it’s a heck of a lot less scary than one of my lessons, heh heh…
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