◎南區英語教學電子報 English Teaching e-Monthly◎

本期電子報讀閱人次:

作者：Mr. Stephen Russell Tredrea
　　　stevetrd@cm.nsysu.edu.tw
現任：國立中山大學管理學院講師
學歷：紐西蘭奧克蘭大學教育系碩士

You must study hard, memorize and practice whenever you can, and although there are no shortcuts, there are many efficient ways to learn.

When studying English, you should be developing all five language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing and understanding-together, not in isolation.

Do not memorize enormous lists of vocabulary or cram textbook readings into your brain without any reference to context, theme, topic or function etc… (use mental imagery, word association and creative visualization). In particular, do not memorize new words that you have found from the dictionary or thesaurus without knowing each word’s specific usage and meaning.

Read aloud to yourself (or someone else). This helps your enunciation, pronunciation and intonation. Also read silently-both are good habits, depending upon how you use them.

Grammar should be viewed and learnt as a support system to communication. Do additional exercises to reinforce your understanding of particular grammar points, but do this AFTER you have trained yourself in communicative skills like listening comprehension and using language for a purpose. Grammar should NEVER be studied before the communicative aspects of a language, and the communicative aspects should never be studied through a grammar-based approach.

The earlier you start learning English, the easier it is to acquire a proper accent. It is never too late to start learning however, and as long as you have the determination, the will and the stickability to succeed, age should not be a concern.

Some people try to listen to an English recording while going to sleep. Although there may be some retention of information during sleep, this is not a proven technique for learning. What seems to be more effective for learning is sleeping right after intensive studying-this seems to help retain the information that has been studied or memorized.

Don’t be scared of exams. They help you understand where your problems lie. Failure is a great teacher-everyone fails at some time, and there is nothing “face-losing” about failing. Nevertheless, if you don’t learn from your failures/losses, then you may become a loser.

Read some “recreational” English everyday. This could be a student newspaper, an English magazine or study magazine, a comic book, cartoons, a TV guide or a movie guide or a collection of short stories in English. Practice new vocabulary words that you get from the above contemporary sources, and use them in both writing and conversation.

Try writing English letters to pen friends or e-mail friends.

Use English when chatting on the BBS or in a chat room.

Join an Internet group or chat room in an English-speaking country that talks about a topic or subject that you are interested in. Don’t feel embarrassed-let the members know that English is not your native language, but that you are really interested in this topic.

Keep a diary. It is an excellent way of improving your written English and helping you organize your thinking-in English! Write briefly and within your command of English-don’t try to write long paragraphs, or use difficult words and structures taken directly from a dictionary. Who are you trying to impress? Yourself?

Language is for telling stories-not just naming. A memorized collection of names for things in the world does not make a spoken language. In Chinese, we have words for every possible family relationship, and this is not because they name precisely this or that person. They are naming places in a complicated social design, not people. This social design exists in our minds, but exists there only because of language.

Practice including and speaking English (mutually) in your conversations with your Chinese friends.

Spend time watching English programs on TV. Documentaries are really good to watch, because they have very clear, standard English pronunciation with English sub-titles for comprehension support. This also gives practice listening to different English accents from different English-speaking countries.
When watching movies on TV movie channels, if the program has Chinese sub-titles, cover these with a strip of paper sellotaped to the TV screen, tune in to the dialogue and try to follow the gist of the conversation.
To make this much easier, record the movies (or use VCDs or DVDs) then play the movies, stopping when you don’t understand the dialogue, then playing them again (reviewing)-if necessary, more than once, to get the meaning.
Soap operas are also good to watch (taped show such as “Friends” for example), because the language is usually very colloquial and easy to understand, but there may be a lot of slang and sarcasm included, as well as Occidental jokes which are based on double meanings (puns) and are quite difficult to understand. Body language, stress and intonation is usually really exaggerated in soap operas, which is very helpful for learning-and you can often guess the meaning, even if you don’t fully understand the dialogue. Watching these will also help you understand Western culture, which is quite important in learning the language.

When you read articles (or anything), you should be trying to read IN ENGLISH…by that I mean not continually translating the meaning into Chinese. If you ARE doing this, then you are reading texts which are too advanced for your present level. Choose material that looks fairly easy for you. If you do this, you will read and think in English without having to translate into Chinese, and you will build up your confidence to a point where you can proceed to a higher level.

When reading a newspaper, choose some articles which look interesting and read them carefully. Slow down, and read with care; read at a speed that is comfortable for you. Try to get the general theme and meaning of the article as a whole. You don’t have to understand every word. Consider making notes as you read also.

Train yourself in active listening. As you actively listen, try to paraphrase words, idioms or phrases you don’t understand into simpler expressions that you know, by guessing the meaning from the context.
As you listen, to conversations, speeches etc., ask yourself active questions about: Where?-What?-Why?-How?-Who?-Which?-When? Try to glean meaning from the context of a conversation. If you are talking directly to someone in English, and if you do not understand something that they say, then ask them to clarify, rephrase, give an example, or repeat themselves.

Finally, consider taking part in any other activity that gives you the chance of using English actively, as summarized here. Such opportunities could involve attending a summer or winter intensive English Conversation class at a university; joining an English book study club; joining an English speechmaking group such as “ToastMasters”; joining an English club like A.L.E. (Active Learning English); hiring your own private tutor for a short intensive course of your own; setting up your own informal English conversation or debating club with friends who are also interested in practicing their English; joining small tour groups headed overseas to English-speaking countries; listening to English pop songs while reading or singing the lyrics; and going to a KTV with friends and choosing English songs to sing together .

First of all, thank you very much for the interview. According to your listening and speaking teaching experience, have you ever encountered any difficulties in the courses?

　Thanks for inviting me for the interview. I do encounter some difficulties in teaching listening and speaking. As you know, most of our students come from vocational high schools. Some of them didn’t do well academically in English courses. In addition, most of the English courses in high schools emphasized reading and writing. So, the most difficult part is to get them to speak out in the public. Most of them, especially those who with lower levels of proficiency, are not confident. I think this is the most difficult part at the beginning of the courses. But fortunately, they gradually overcome the obstacles because they realize that they are going to work in the hospitality industry and they need to communicate with people.

How do you get students involved and increase their interest in the class?

　Students in our college have a very clear idea of what they are going to do in the future. So I try to relate my teaching of listening and speaking to their future career. For example, I asked them to design their own menu and they had a role-play on taking an order in the restaurant. One more activity is about direction and location, we made the classroom like a small town and they have to direct their classmates to the correct places. They like these activities because it is related to the real life. In the meantime, they practice listening and speaking together.

When students feel bored in your lessons, how do you motivate students, or how do you make the courses more interesting?

　There are some units in the textbooks which are a little boring but I still have to go through the materials because we have a common test. To motivate students, I sometimes play movies which are related the topics in the textbook and then we discuss the plots or the accents. In addition, they can learn foreign cultures more easily through the films. Moreover, I usually compliment students’ correct actions. Their motivation to learn increases as their successes increase.

What is your teaching methodology to make students concentrate more in listening and speaking lessons?

　I think that controlled practices of speaking, pair work or presentation are all good methods to make them more concentrate in class because they have to make efforts by themselves instead of following my lectures passively. I also provide some models of assignment in case the students have no idea to do the assignments. I try to encourage them to change some parts from the basic patterns and inspire their thoughts to make out their own presentation or paper work like conversations. The criteria of the assignments are easy to follow. Some advanced students could easily create their own conversation while the other students can follow the guidelines which I provide to them.

How do you deliver your listening and speaking lessons? Do students learn by a traditional way or from games? Or in any other way?

　Basically, I start with the conversations to elicit their background knowledge. Students listen to the CD. Then, I will point out some grammars or sentence patterns which are important or difficult. Afterwards, I will have students form pairs or groups to have the follow-up exercises. This is the basic pattern of my class.

　There is a long debate on which one to stress in class, accuracy or fluency? When accuracy is the priority, I will adopt a more traditional way of instruction. On the contrary, when I want to emphasize fluency, games or other interactive activities will benefit students more.

What kinds of games or activities do you usually do in your class for teaching listening and speaking? Could you share some useful games or activities? (Could you please give us two or three games or activities that you think are fun or useful?)

　As mentioned above (in Q 2), I will ask students to design conversations related to hospitality. Moreover, after holidays or festivals, I will ask them to share their interesting or unforgettable experiences. I like to ask students questions about their current activity. The most unforgettable experience was that some of my students went to Mayday’s concert. They shared their ideas and feeling as a class. Through the conversation, students will not feel learning English is hard, instead, to learn English is a lot of fun and interesting.

Can you recommend some useful listening and speaking books or websites?

　The following websites are links about teaching English in listening and speaking fields. The website is provided by British Council that you can apply some interesting activities in class. On the webpage, you can have the clear description and procedures on every activity and luckily, you can also have the lesson plans for reference.

Listening

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/listentry/listen_activites.shtml

Speaking
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/speaktry/speaking_activities.shtml

Thank you very much for your time. Finally, are there any helpful online listening and speaking practice references that teachers can use for this professional field, or exercise website?