Learn English with Friends!
A colleague asked me today how he could practice his spoken English. His listening and writing is fine, he just needs practice speaking. I understand this is pretty common.
I had a few suggestions:
- the classic, land yourself a foreign girlfriend. (friends, or badminton partners will also do)
- talk to your chinese friends in english
- take company training (e.g. we are running evening classes for our back office staff)
- read out aloud, either an easy book like the early Harry Potter books (Book 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)
- follow a TV show using the actor scripts, and read them out yourself http://www.friendscafe.org/scripts.shtml
posted by Kai @ 3:23 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
In my own experience, the best way to improve spoken English is actually to write more. For a Chinese person, the English grammar--not the pronunciation-- is probably the most difficult part, and the best way to have the correct grammar wired into a person's brain is to write as much as possible. A person has to think a lot more carefully about the correct grammar when he writes something down. In a coversation on the other hand, he probably most cares about getting his meaning aross, correct grammar maybe only secondary. Correspond with English-speaking pen pals would be a great way to gain the opportunity to write something meaningful.
In my own experience, the best way to improve spoken English is actually to write more. For a Chinese person, the English grammar--not the pronunciation-- is probably the most difficult part, and the best way to have the correct grammar wired into a person's brain is to write as much as possible. A person has to think a lot more carefully about the correct grammar when he writes something down. In a coversation on the other hand, he probably most cares about getting his meaning aross, correct grammar maybe only secondary. Correspond with English-speaking pen pals would be a great way to gain the opportunity to write something meaningful.
Really? So many people I meet here can listen and write well (including grammar), but are tongue tied when it comes to speaking.
The poor chap who I referred to was sat next to me. Rather than talk to me directly, he decided to MSN a message to me asking how he could practice spoken English. The irony.
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