The basics of grammar are essential if you want to be clearly understood in the written or spoken form and also, in order to gain high scores in your essays and in your speeches.
Poorly formed sentences with lots of grammatical errors detract from the message and make comprehension problematic. Learning the grammatical rules of English is highly recommended. Putting them into practice is tricky.
Parts of speech, punctuation, tenses, articles etc may seem to be boring aspects of language, however, if students do not understand how to use these, they will encounter huge hurdles in their speaking and their written work.
Pronouns are particularly problematic for students whose mother tongue does not distinguish between 'he' and 'she'. Chinese students, for example, experience this problem. They constantly refer to a man as 'she'.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Speaking 2
Students need to practise their speaking skills on a daily basis. Lack of confidence is one of the reasons students are afraid to speak in public to mother tongue speakers of English. They fear ridicule and they are afraid that they will appear foolish in front of others.
Students need to forget about these fears and they need to jump right in and start practising their English on anyone and everyone who speaks English. When out shopping, visiting, staying in homestays, on public transport, or wherever they meet people, they need to constantly practise.
Students should be made aware that most people want to help them. Friends who keep speaking their mother tongue such as Cantonese, Russian, German, Japanese, Korean etc to them, are not helping them to gain confidence in speaking English.
Responding to questions in class should be encouraged. Grammatical errors should not be constantly corrected as this will interrupt the flow of conversation. A few errors could be noted and commented on at the end of the lesson or at the end of each speech. Students should be positively reinforced to promote confidence.
Students need to forget about these fears and they need to jump right in and start practising their English on anyone and everyone who speaks English. When out shopping, visiting, staying in homestays, on public transport, or wherever they meet people, they need to constantly practise.
Students should be made aware that most people want to help them. Friends who keep speaking their mother tongue such as Cantonese, Russian, German, Japanese, Korean etc to them, are not helping them to gain confidence in speaking English.
Responding to questions in class should be encouraged. Grammatical errors should not be constantly corrected as this will interrupt the flow of conversation. A few errors could be noted and commented on at the end of the lesson or at the end of each speech. Students should be positively reinforced to promote confidence.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Speaking 1
Speaking is an extremely important skill as you are conveying a message to another person and you need them to understand what you are saying.
Proper pronunciation is essential as many words and phrases are not understood because of poor pronunciation. Phonetic exercises are placed in most Second Language books and listening exercises require repitition of words, phrases and sentences so that students can practise pronouncing their words precisely and clearly.
The content of the spoken message is also important. The main idea needs to be clearly and precisely stated so that the message is understood. Relevance and topic sentences assist in making a clear speech, especially for IELTS students who need to speak about subjects at length. Most students tend to go off the topic and waste time speaking about irrelevant and trivial aspects that detract from the content.
Vocabulary is also important. A limited vocabulary does not help a student who wants to gain a high IELTS score.
Proper pronunciation is essential as many words and phrases are not understood because of poor pronunciation. Phonetic exercises are placed in most Second Language books and listening exercises require repitition of words, phrases and sentences so that students can practise pronouncing their words precisely and clearly.
The content of the spoken message is also important. The main idea needs to be clearly and precisely stated so that the message is understood. Relevance and topic sentences assist in making a clear speech, especially for IELTS students who need to speak about subjects at length. Most students tend to go off the topic and waste time speaking about irrelevant and trivial aspects that detract from the content.
Vocabulary is also important. A limited vocabulary does not help a student who wants to gain a high IELTS score.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
LISTENING SKILLS 2
Music is a very good way to improve your listening skills because it is popular and most people listen to music during the day. Instead of listening to songs in your mother tongue, listen to English songs.
Lyrics for popular songs can be downloaded from search engines such as google. In this way, your listening and reading skills are being exercised as you follow the written words in the lyric while listening to the song.
As you become familiar with the song, leave gaps in the lyric. While listening to the song, try to fill in the missing word(s) in order to test your listening skills.
Lyrics for popular songs can be downloaded from search engines such as google. In this way, your listening and reading skills are being exercised as you follow the written words in the lyric while listening to the song.
As you become familiar with the song, leave gaps in the lyric. While listening to the song, try to fill in the missing word(s) in order to test your listening skills.
Monday, January 5, 2009
LISTENING SKILLS
When learning a language, it is essential to listen carefully to the speaker so that you clearly understand their message.
A good exercise for all English students, especially IELTS students is to listen to the news on the radio, the television, the mobile phone or any gadget that allows you to practise your listening.
The main ideas of the listening text should be precisely outlined so that you can follow the reasons, the examples or the ideas that are being explained.
Who is the speaker and who is the speaker addressing? What is the purpose of making this speech?
A good exercise for all English students, especially IELTS students is to listen to the news on the radio, the television, the mobile phone or any gadget that allows you to practise your listening.
The main ideas of the listening text should be precisely outlined so that you can follow the reasons, the examples or the ideas that are being explained.
Who is the speaker and who is the speaker addressing? What is the purpose of making this speech?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
