How to Improve Spoken English

How to Improve Spoken English

------Glenn Yuan

Began 14 to 15/JAN/2008

hat is necessary to learn English well? Many of my classmates asked me so many times, they said they didn’t know how to do and what to do, some of them said they knew some of useful ways but it was bored and can’t been last long. Here I am, I am not to persuade you to follow them, but I may share my own experience I having (some of them were learned from the Internet, teacher…), and they need you to come to your own conclusion.
 Learning English require action and working hard in it. I know all the learning tips, but if I not donethesethings one day, I would always found something lost and felt achieved nothing. The fact is, I follow these tips and insisted them several years, finally found it useful, cheerful, and they can lead me to learn to speak English well. Of course theychanged my life a lot. Here are some examples of things you will have to do:

1,Read, read, read!

 The more I read, the more mistakes and problems start to"look" or "sound" wrong to me. Correctness will start to feel natural.     Though my vocabulary was not enough to read theSZ dailyfluently, I put an electric dictionary besides me, many meaning unknown word can be searched in it, this way was valuable, in the words, it killed several birds with one stone. Read passages in English least fifty minutes every day is my daily work to do.

2,Read out loud.

 I have a book entitledEvery Day English. Read out loud the passages, oral sentences, is my way to interpret their useful structures, and it makes me more conscious of their details.

3,Listen to English language radio or audio files on your MP3.

 It's good listening practice I think. This way needs time and allowance. It let my ear uncomfortable anditchingif I put the earphone on my ear exceeded 1 hour. Besides hearing words pronounced that aren't normally used in conversation, I also hear complex sentence structures. Try imitating the speaker's pronunciation.

4,Build my vocabulary.

Collect words I don't know. As I know a translator must be an expert also amixer,A Chinese to learn English is like this. I learning how to explain some Chinese food, living things name into English, or exchange them, an electric engineer as I am some technical terms is needed too.

5,Write e-mail message in English.

This is fantastic way practice my oral English and writing, I trained how to use the word accurate too. I don’t know what word is correct or suitable to choose in the e-mail some times, I would think them twice because I have time to write it, it doesn’t likely to a word I need to spoken it out immediately.

6,Practice writing.

Wherever I was, I would write daily, if possible. I built a personal blog in a Web site, I wrote many interesting topic passages, just like a dairy. When I found something interesting, thinkable, discussible, write it down, for instance, “What your aim in life”, ”What made us stayed in ShenZhen”, etc. In email and text messages, use complete sentences. That's writing, too.

7,Use English to explain about the things you see around you.

When I waiting my wife duty off at the industrial gate, I would describe the scene that something in front of me, for instance, “the security guard is doing his regular check”, “a ice-cream man is serving his customer”, etc. Walk down the street and build simple English sentences and word in your head when I saw some advertisements, food names, of course a picture dictionary is needed. I have one in hand which names” The.New.Oxford.Picture.Dictionary”. It is electric version that can pick everywhere.

8,Try to open my mouth, just do it.

Of course I am not afraid of making mistakes, it is ok at the beginning, and nothing lost. In my office there many listeners, but they never speak it out even if they knew some simple sentences. The scene may like this:

At the end of a meeting, the manager asked:

” anything else?”

No one replied, they just keep silent. (keep silent is the best way to reply, maybe, but bad manner.)

If I were attended the meeting, I would say:” nothing more.”

If I not want to open my mouth, may let an opportunity slip.

9,Try to get someone who can speak with you.

This is the best way, but not the only way. I may catch every chance to find a good English Speaker or the same level one to speak with. Try to express my mind in English, try to share some interesting things with my friends. My pitiful spoken English is at the beginning when I just entered the social activities, now, I can hold interviews with the interviewers in English fluently.
 
10,Pronunciation and tone are very important.

 Accurate pronunciation is the most important foundation. I try to focus on my way of expressing. When I can’t say something clearly, one word could affect the whole meaning of a thing I had expressed. I would try to found it in a soundable dictionary, and follow them. But words have different meanings in different phrases, sometimes pronunciation may lead to misunderstanding. When to greeting people, ask if there anyone at home may to use the word “Hello”. And also, if to make speech, the first word “Hi” indicated your mood most of all. I am here to recommend you have this book entitledAmerican Accent Training,its 5 CDs included.

11,Keep listen to the English program every day.

Listen to such asCCTV 9, Or some Business English movie,

12,Boldness and Confidence are your bridge also a must to perfect English.

Anywhere, I can speak English with your classmates and my teacher. I never be nervous and shy and don’t be afraid of losing my dignity. Last week, I had an interview in a foreign company, and gave the interviewer an impressive interview.

13,Insisting on interpreting Chinese-English novels or books is a most effective and easiest way.

First I read the English parts and then try to interpret them into Chinese and then compare our interpretation with the original versions so that we can find out the mistakes. And foundEnglish Salonis good one.

14,Retelling what I have learned.

Retell some articles or English stories in my own words.This is the way of improving oral English from the foundation. Sometimes I was retelling it from theSZ dailynews, articles, etc.

15,Learning to use short, active and vivid phrases.

I found it was useful when I want to express main meaning of something. The idiomatic oral English is abundant with these words, while Chinese tend to use long and big words. This is the obvious difference between Chinese and English.

16,Practice as much as possible, spend as much time as possible.

This is my final conclusion. Lack of time and practice will let opportunities slip. There is an old saying in Chinese: “10 minute performance on the stage must have 10 years hard practice at the rear stage”. Be patient, and keep on listening, writing, reading everyday. You will find you make a big progress after a short time.

17,Do these regularly.

The problem is that a huge one-time effort gives me nothing, while small, everyday activities will gave me a lot.

18,Attend some public English test and get the high score certificate.

It can let you own thedoor knock adobe when having an interview. Such as PETS, TOIEC,…….The year 2007, had a TOIEC test, and got the level 4 certificate, I will join the test again to get a higher level certificate in 2008.

These methods are the only for reference. I wish they are helpful and effective.

One day you’ll found that some mission you acted as a significant role in it, even manager, boss, CEO…