Trần Thảo Nguyên - Elementary School Teacher

Hello Nguyên, could you introduce yourself a little to the program?

I'm an elementary school English teacher, but I'm currently on maternity leave. Since I've been on leave a long time and tend to get forgetful after giving birth, I've also been trying to take the chance to brush up on my English a bit, to sharpen my memory and build up other skills too.

What do you find different about WELE compared to other online English learning programs?

I've tried quite a few free websites for self-studying English, and right now I find WELE the most suitable for anyone who wants to improve their listening skills. WELE has a wide variety of topics, from easy to hard, so learners don't get bored. I really like the English At Work topic — it has practical idioms that hardly any book teaches, and it's also told like real-life stories about issues that come up in the office.

Do you have any tips or a message for the other members of the program?

One tip I used back in the day, when I was completely deaf to certain words and couldn't catch them at all (even though they were words I already knew), was to read the script — listening while reading along — then listening again on my own. That way you can picture how that word is actually pronounced, and from there you gradually get used to their pronunciation, their stress, or how they swallow certain sounds, and your listening improves.

I wish all WELE members great progress in their listening skills and hope you hit the targets you've set for yourselves.

I wish WELE continued growth, with more and more new members.

Note from the WELE Team: the read-along-with-answer feature is now live on the website