Several methods to improve oral English ability

Several methods to improve oral English ability

Tao wenhao

How to improve oral English ability is a question that English learners have asked for thousands of times. This is a simple and realistic question, but it is also a complicated and difficult question to answer. The most faithful and simple answer to this question is "say more". But how to talk more? Let's give the reader a real answer.

Understanding of oral practice

The common faults of China students are saving face, shyness, unwillingness to speak, fear of making mistakes, especially grammar mistakes, and always worrying about others laughing at themselves. In fact, the more you are afraid of making mistakes, the more you will make mistakes, and the more serious mistake is communication failure. When we speak Chinese, we pay attention to what we want to express. We may pay attention to the appropriateness of tone and choice of words, but seldom pay attention to the grammatical structure of sentences. According to its importance, the focus of oral communication is effectiveness, fluency, appropriateness and grammatical correctness. Learning spoken English can be said to be practiced and improved in the process of making mistakes. People who are afraid of making mistakes and dare not speak English can't practice oral English well. Making mistakes today is to avoid making mistakes tomorrow, so practice oral English actively, boldly, overcome shyness, make use of all available opportunities to speak English, talk and discuss with people, describe landscape monologues, repeat the content after reading, participate in English corners, English speech contests and so on. In this way, oral English ability will be improved faster.

Oral practice is a process, and the speed of progress is directly proportional to the time spent by the practitioners. At first, progress may be worryingly slow. But as long as you keep practicing, it will soon have an effect.

Dialogue is the most effective method.

As we all know, dialogue is the most effective way to improve oral English, so we should seize every opportunity to talk with English speakers. The fluency of oral English is directly proportional to the time of dialogue practice. It has been calculated that a person spends about 10 hours a day using his mother tongue, that is to say, he may spend more than 3000 hours a year speaking his mother tongue, and an English learner may not even have an hour to actually speak English a day. In other words, you have studied English for ten years and promised to speak for about an hour every day, which is equivalent to one year for others (mother tongue). Of course, the actual effect is much worse. Children's acquisition of spoken mother tongue is often not completed until 8- 12 years old. It should be understandable that you spend several years practicing your spoken English. Therefore, for those who want to improve their spoken English, dialogue practice is a race against time. Otherwise, it's a pity that you have studied English for ten or even twenty years and are still asking how to improve your spoken English! Unfortunately, even English majors seldom talk in English. There are many ways and objects to talk with people. Students can take a walk after class and talk in English in the dormitory. Students can also communicate with teachers, such as exchanging learning experiences and chatting with teachers during recess. Students can also make an appointment with the teacher to talk or ask questions in English. Interestingly, some students even practice oral English with their teachers by telephone, and the effect is very good.

Dialogue is the most authentic oral communication behavior, and the direction of dialogue is to exchange information, without paying special attention to whether the other party's speech conforms to grammar or whether the words and sentences are appropriate. In the process of dialogue, the speaker can get feedback from the listener in time. From the feedback, know the effect of your speech in time and adjust your speech style and strategy. In conversation, learners can practice various oral communication strategies and eventually form an unconscious language ability.

How to practice oral English without partner dialogue?

The goal of oral practice is to cultivate communicative competence. But how to practice oral English without anyone talking? Here are several ways.

Imitation: The first step to improve oral English is to imitate tape or radio, and imitate the pronunciation and intonation of native English speakers. Tapes mainly refer to British and American original tapes, such as common new concept English and kernel courses. When imitating, imitate word by word first, strictly observe the pronunciation and intonation in the tape, and don't change the pronunciation and intonation in the tape according to your usual reading or speaking habits. Beginners often find the tone of the original tape very strange and are not used to imitation. In the end, the original "foreign flavor" was transformed. In fact, as long as you persevere and practice word by word, you will eventually imitate it. Children's acquisition of mother tongue pronunciation and intonation depends entirely on imitation. Only by carefully imitating the original tapes and broadcasts can your spoken English have a "foreign flavor".

2. Read aloud: The second step to improve oral English is reading aloud. Reading aloud can also be said to be a second imitation, so it also requires clear pronunciation and mellow voice. When reading aloud, you should consciously read according to the pronunciation and intonation in the tape, and never go back to the original tone. If we persist in this way, we can form a relatively fixed English accent with "foreign flavor" and our own characteristics. When reading aloud, you can record your own voice and listen carefully, so that you can find out the gap and find your own weakness. Imitation and reading aloud are the first level to practice oral English. A person who can't even stutter in reading will definitely not be good at spoken English. There are many materials for reading aloud, and all kinds of simple oral books, including various oral textbooks, listening textbooks, intensive reading textbooks and even some extensive reading textbooks, can be used as reading materials. If there is a tape, imitate it first, and then read it aloud; Those who don't have tapes can also consciously read in English and American sounds, or read under the guidance of teachers. As long as you can imitate tapes or other audio-visual materials and read them effectively, many words, vocabulary and expressions will naturally become catchy and your pronunciation and intonation will be better.

3. Retelling: The third step to improve oral English is retelling. Retelling is after imitating, reading aloud, listening or reading a paragraph. Retelling is a creative process, which is more difficult than reciting. For people with good oral English, they can retell the materials they have read, heard or seen in their own words, or reorganize and create these contents completely out of the original text. For people with poor level, you can just repeat the central idea of the original text first, one or two sentences. Then, from less to more, from short to long. You can also use the sentence patterns of the original text first, and then slowly use your own words to express it. After a long time, the fluency of oral expression will naturally improve. In the process of retelling, some bad words and expressions may appear. In this case, first, look at the expression of the original text and remember to record it; The second is to find replacement words. If it can't be replaced, record it immediately, and then look it up in the dictionary and ask the teacher. Retelling is one of the most effective ways to improve oral English without dialogue.

4. Recitation: I can't help but recite something when I practice oral English. The traditional teaching method is to let students recite a large number of chapters and structures, but practice has proved that many people don't like reciting, so we might as well boil this method down to reading aloud and repeating. First read the original aloud, and then repeat it according to the steps. Read more and repeat a lot, and you can recite it. The practical significance is greater than monotonous recitation. But it is also necessary to recite some famous books. People with poor foundation must recite some common sentence patterns and expressions. For this kind of people, you can take a certain sentence pattern and usage as a sample, make more oral sentences, and make several sentences in succession from shallow to deep until you can express your thoughts fluently in English. The principle of imitation, recitation and retelling is the same, that is, to be loud and clear.

5. The relationship between "listening" and "speaking". The Oral English Course edited by Wu proposed that "listening" should begin before "speaking". After listening or reading, students can master some basic English knowledge, and then they can train their oral English ability. "Listening" and "speaking" are closely related and promote each other. This paper mainly discusses how to promote speaking by listening. From the perspective of speaking, we should first imitate its correct pronunciation and intonation, then summarize its general idea orally, or repeat the content of raw materials, and finally achieve the purpose of describing the content of raw materials in our own words. For example, if you listen to a report about the American missile attack on Iraq, you should tell its vocabulary and outline, missiles, launches, attacks, casualties and so on. And learn how to describe this situation, such as "the United States attacked Iraq with missiles last night, and there are no reports of casualties." You should learn to say that the United States launched a surprise attack on Iraq last night. There are no reports of casualties. From the listening point of view, you should know how to understand the news, and from the oral point of view, you should know how to express the information.

6. "How do you say this in English?" In the process of practicing oral English, there is a stage where you need to read out what you see and think. In other words, try to speak in English when you see something; When something comes to your mind, try to express it in English. For example, if you see tap water in the water room, you can say tap water or tap water, faucet, sink, sink plug or plug. Another example is how to say "using chopsticks" in English when eating; "Hold chopsticks"; "Japanese chopsticks are pointed and China chopsticks are round heads" (Japanese chopsticks are pointed and China chopsticks are round heads. ) and so on. These common and often thought things are not necessarily easy to express. Another example is "I have a headache after drinking a little wine." Generally speaking, we can say, "Even if I drink a little wine, I will have a headache." But it is not as real, natural and colloquial as "even a little alcohol makes my head hot" These examples are too numerous to mention. The main meaning is to use all specific situations, try to think and express in the above ways, say what you see, mumble and say complete sentences. It seems a bit neurotic, but in fact, oral English has improved rapidly.

7. Keep a diary. Keeping a diary in English is a very effective way to improve oral English and other aspects. A diary is a mirror that reflects your English thoughts. If you can express your daily affairs, your thoughts and feelings in English, that would be great! When writing a diary, you will encounter some situations where you can't express yourself well in English. You can look up dictionaries and notes. You can also leave it there or write it down in Chinese and ask your classmates or teachers later. Over time, you get into the habit of expressing your thoughts in English. Keeping a diary can use more spoken words and styles to express your thoughts. For example, when talking about the weather, try to use colloquial words such as get. Try to avoid using written language. Consciously consider it from the perspective of spoken language. It rained heavily last night, and it is sunny today. My mood is like the weather. I was bored last night, but I am very happy today. "There was a heavy rain last night, but the weather is fine today. I had a heavy heart last night, but I'm fine today. Try not to say that it rained heavily last night, but the weather is fine today. My heart is the same as the weather last night, but I am very happy today. The latter is more like Chinese, like word-for-word translation. Keeping a diary is a good way to promote oral English development through writing.

This paper talks about many methods, but in fact, we still need to "talk more" in summary, no matter which method is around "talk more" Imitating reading, practicing pronunciation and intonation, retelling, practicing language organization, thinking agility and vocabulary, listening to sounds, keeping a diary and talking with people are also ways to talk about how to "speak more" from different angles, so this article will not "speak more" and let readers "speak more".

References:

Tao, 2000, Reading Pictures and Speaking English. Anhui: Anhui Science and Technology Press.

Wang Haihua, 2000, Practical Spoken English Handbook. Dalian: Dalian University of Technology Press.

Wu, 1993, Elementary Oral English. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Wu, 1992, oral English intermediate. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Wu, 1993, Advanced Oral English. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Coe, Graham. 198 1, spoken. Routledge & Kegan Paul