Welcome back to season three of Les Bons Mots!

Have you ever lived in a second language environment or been immersed in one? Do you increasingly use your second language at work? This experience is the focus of the first episode of season 3 of Les Bons Mots.  In this episode, we are excited to speak to David Thibodeau, who is a radio producer for CBC/Radio-Canada, Canada’s national broadcaster. He talks about what it has been like for him and his family to move from Gatineau, Quebec to Vancouver, British Columbia - from a French-speaking environment to an English-speaking one. 

David talks about how his confidence in using English has increased, how he has improved his language skills, and shares some advice for anyone who is considering a move to a second-language environment, or looking to use their second language more than before. 

Our phrasal verb of the week is pick up - do you know how to use this phrasal verb to talk about learning? Listen and find out! 

Visit us at lesbonsmots.ca to check out our blog and language learning videos, or reach out to us at ACA to discuss your language learning needs. 

Is it there, their or they’re? Why is the verb tear pronounced differently than the tears we cry? Do I have to pronounce the ‘b’ in doubt? English and French are full of words that sound the same, but have different meanings, words that are written the same, but have different pronunciations, and silent letters! In this week’s episode, Britta and Clémence help you to understand some of the homophones, heteronyms and silent letters that can be challenging for language learners. 

This week’s guest host is Clémence Grison. Clémence is part of the teaching team at ACA, and has a bachelor’s degree in english literature along with a master's degree in English studies, and a master's degree in journalism. She’s taught ESL in France and Quebec, and has a deep understanding of the difficulties of mastering pronunciation in a second language.  

In this episode: 

Clémence recommends a podcast called Word Bomb, which is a deep exploration of a different English word in each episode. The words they choose are important and timely, and they go beyond the dictionary to contextual them. 

Britta recommends the highly entertaining book about the English language, The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way, by Bill Bryson. If you are curious about how English became the language it is today, a lot of the answers may be found in the history of the language, and this book is anything but dry. 

Did you know that the preferred term for policeman is police officer? A postman is now a mail carrier, and a stewardess is a flight attendant. If a fireman is now a firefighter, is a fisherman a fisherfighter? Join Britta and Johnson in the second episode on our series on the evolution of English. They discuss the naming of professions through the ages, and how the names for different jobs are evolving as the workforce changes and becomes more inclusive.

This week, our guest host is Johnson Bresnick. Johnson is the Director of Learning & Development at ACA, and has worked at ACA since 2011. He has also taught ESL and had extensive experience in curriculum development. He has a  background in Linguistics and is researching acquisition of grammar in second language learners.

In this episode: 

Comedy is a great way to engage with the language you are learning, and this week, Johnson recommends the Baroness von Sketch show. It features four amazing women and comedy which approaches awkward, everyday situations with humour. Here’s a link to one of their sketches so you can give it a try! 

Britta recommends the History Chicks podcast, where two women discuss the lives of important women throughout history in an engaging that is anything but dry. They provide a nuanced view of their subjects, correct misconceptions, and do it an entertaining way.  

Did you know there are three ways to pronounce the -ed ending in English? Does thinking about syllable stress and word stress make you feel...stressed? This week, Britta and Clémence demystify some of the mysteries of English and French pronunciation, and help you to make yourself understood when speaking these languages. This episode is essential listening for language learners! 

This week’s guest host is Clémence Grison. Clémence is part of the teaching team at ACA, and has a bachelor’s degree in english literature along with a master's degree in English studies, and a master's degree in journalism. She’s taught ESL in France and Quebec, and has a deep understanding of the difficulties of mastering pronunciation in a second language.  

In this week’s episode: 

Clémence suggests searching out video of Steve Ballmer’s “Developers!” chant for a fun way to remember the syllable stress on that word! Also, Season 10, episode 13 of Friends features Joey "learning" to speak French, with comic results. For another fun example of syllable and word stress, check out the scene from My Fair Lady, where Eliza Dolittle masters the phrase, “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.” 

This week, Clémence recommends The History of Swear Words, though only for adult listeners! It’s an interesting and well-researched program about the history of swear words in English. 

Britta recommends two great language resources for people learning French in Canada. The Banque de dépannage linguistique and the Grand dictionnaire terminologique provide excellent definitions, explanations, and usage examples focused on how French is used in Quebec. 

Sharent, deepfake, slow-walk… are any of these words new to you?  One of the most enjoyable parts of learning a language is learning new vocabulary we can use in our daily lives, at work and at home. Every year, more new words are added to English language dictionaries as well! Join Britta and Johnson as they discuss these new words, which reflect world events, social movements, and what people are saying on social media or in the business world. 

This week, our guest host is Johnson Bresnick. Johnson is the Director of Learning & Development at ACA, and has worked at ACA since 2011. He has also taught ESL and had extensive experience in curriculum development. He has a  background in Linguistics and is researching acquisition of grammar in second language learners.

In this episode: 

We discuss new words added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The BBC has an article on some of the additions to the OED as well.  Some of the new additions the the Merriam Webster Dictionary can be found here. Reader’s Digest magazine also covered some of the funnier words of the year. 

When we talk about deepfakes, Johnson mentions a deepfake produced by Channel 4 in the UK to raise awareness of this phenomenon, and starring… the Queen? 

Johnson recommends the Collins Cobuild Dictionary, a great dictionary for English language learners.  Britta recommends exploring social media in the language you are learning so that you can stay up to day with new words in the language you are learning. 

Whenever we learn something new like a language, making mistakes is part of the process. What is the difference between a mistake and an error in language learning? How do language teachers help learners correct their mistakes? Why don’t the people around us correct us when we make a mistake? Join Britta and Kelsey as they discuss these questions, and offer advice and suggestions to help us make the most out of our mistakes. Language teachers may also be interested to learn more about the effectiveness of different types of feedback in the language classroom. 

This week, our guest host is Kelsey Ulrich-Verslycken.  Kelsey fell in love with teaching English in 2013 when she moved to South Korea to teach English as a Foreign Language. Since then, she has worked as a teacher, a curriculum developer, an editor for EFL textbooks, and an assistant professor of English at a university in Seoul, completed her MA in Applied Linguistics, and is currently working with ACA and pursuing her PhD in Applied Language and Discourse Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa.

In our weekly recommendations, 

• Kelsey recommends forgiving yourself for making mistakes in the language you are learning. Try not to listen to your inner critic. 
• Britta recommends setting your digital assistant to communicate in the language you are learning. This will help you check your comprehensibility and pronunciation. Hola Siri! Bonjour Alexa!

Come check out our website, at lesbonsmots.ca. You can see our language learning videos, and read our blog posts on news, culture and language learning. We will also have our episode transcript available there. We’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. 

Here is some of the research we used in preparing the episode, if you want to read more about the research behind error correction: 

Li, Shaofeng. (2010). The Effectiveness of Corrective Feedback in SLA: A Meta‐Analysis. Language Learning. 60. 309 - 365. 

Lyster, R. and Saito, K. (2010) Interactional feedback as instructional input: A synthesis of classroom SLA research.  Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 1(2),  276 - 297

Mai, Zhou. (2009). Cooperative Principle in Oral English Teaching. International Education Studies. 2.

Nassaji, H. Anniversary article Interactional feedback in second language teaching and learning: A synthesis and analysis of current research. Language Teaching Research 20(4)

Sheen, Y. (2006). Exploring the relationship between characteristics of recasts and

learner uptake. Language Teaching Research 10, 361–392.

English and French have thousands of words in common - how can you tell which words have the same meaning in both languages, and which ones are false friends, words which look or sound the same, but have different meanings? Join Britta and Kimberly as they explore some of the similarities, and deceptive differences, between English and French. This week’s episode tackles verb tenses, parts of speech, and some essential business vocabulary! 

This week’s guest host is Kimberly Lamontagne. Kimberly studied psychology at Bishop’s University, and is originally from Baie-Comeau. She’s been part of the ACA team for the past three years. Her bilingual background has made her passionate about the topic of false friends. 

You can find visuals for this episode on Facebook, linked here. 

In this episode: 

Kimberly recommends the Great British Baking Show (also called the Great British Bake Off)  in order to learn some of the cooking terms which come into English from French. 

Britta recommends using the long winter nights to pursue your language learning, either with an evening class, or by pursuing one of your hobbies in the language you’re learning. If you’re interested in taking evening classes with ACA, you can find out more here. 

Come check out our website, at lesbonsmots.ca. You can see our language learning videos, and read our blog posts on news, culture and language learning. We will also have our episode transcript available there. We’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. 

Welcome to Season Two of Les Bons Mots! Join Britta and Taylor for a discussion of the business of language learning. How do successful organizations approach language training? Why does ACA invest in our instructors and our own made-in-Quebec curriculum? How has language training changed in the last decade, and what is next for language education and for ACA? 

This week’s guest host, Taylor ireland, is the president of ACA. Before he became president of ACA in 2009, Taylor travelled the world, worked as a second language instructor and studied finance. Find out how his experiences have shaped how ACA operates today. 

In this week’s episode, Taylor recommends the following resources for accessing business news in English: 

Business Insider

Inc. Magazine

CBC News | The National - CBC.ca

For those who would like to practice their English with a good comedy, Britta recommends the series Kim’s convenience, about a Korean-Canadian family living in Toronto. Taylor is planning to binge another great CBC series, Schitt’s Creek

Kim's Convenience - CBC.ca

Schitt's Creek - CBC.ca

Come check out our website, at lesbonsmots.ca. You can see our language learning videos, and read our blog posts on news, culture and language learning. We will also have our episode transcript available there. We’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. 

Explore language teaching with the Les Bons Mots Team, and get to know the creative team behind this project! What are some of the classroom activities we love to use? What challenges do our students face? What is our best language-learning advice, and what has teaching languages taught us? 

This week’s guest hosts are Lauren McIntosh and Nathan Elliott. Lauren has been teaching since 2014 and has taught English as a Second Language for the last three years.  She has a Master's degree in Linguistics from UWO and has recently finished her Ph.D. on communicative disorders in Alzheimer's Disease. Nathan has a Ph.D. in English Literature and has worked as a professor in Georgia in the US, on the island of Newfoundland, and in Montreal. Nathan has published creative non-fiction, fiction, research, and performed with the Montréal storytelling group Confabulation. Both Lauren and Nathan are part of the teaching team at ACA.

In this episode: 

Lauren recommends The Good Place, a charming comedy that she and her students use for present perfect practice. 

Nathan recommends the book Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, and if you are in the mood to hear colloquial English, the classic animated series The Simpsons.

Come check out our website, at lesbonsmots.ca. You can see our language learning videos, and read our blog posts on news, culture and language learning. We will also have our episode transcript available there. We’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. 

Do you attend meetings in French, or do you hope to attend them soon? Our French instructors and guest hosts Zoé Moamadi and Nicole Wirtz are here to help you, with some useful phrases to help you people who are learning French to participate in meetings. This week’s minisode is in French! 

Our guest hosts this week are Zoé Moamadi and Nicole Wirtz. Zoé has a master’s degree in visual arts from University Mark Bloch in Strasbourg, France, and has taught French to adults and teens. Nicole is from Belgium, and she has master’s degrees in sociology and adult education. She has taught French in private, university, and government contexts. Both Zoé and Nicole are French teachers at ACA. 

In our weekly vocabulary section, we look at a false friend, the verb rester/rest. Learn the difference between these words in English and French! 

Come check out our website, at lesbonsmots.ca. You can see our language learning videos, and read our blog posts on news, culture and language learning. We’d love to hear from you at [email protected].