About Spoken English

About Spoken English

Although I have been in this big city for months, the chance I have to speak to

native English speakers is still rare. We have US professors to give lectures from

time to time, it is still difficult for me to speak English with easy mood and

correct pronunciation.

Since the day I came to the college, I and my roommates made up our mind to speak English in our dormitory our on our way to school. As time passed by, I can remember clearly how many times we have spoken English at daily life, and I don’t

make any improvement in my oral English. There are so many foreigners on the Wanfejing Street whom I can meet if I want to; there are so many English learners

around me who are eager to speak English like me; there are so many foreign professors to come our college; there are so many… I, however, don’t often open my

month to speak English to them. I don’t go to out side often; I don’t speak English to my classmates often; I don’t talk to foreign professors, because of my laziness and business. I have excuses for not speaking English, that’s all about it.

I know only speaking English once a week at English corner is far from enough to

a beginner of learning English; I know if I want to improve I must speak English everyday; I know the importance of speaking the language… Well, I know all about them. But knowing it is one thing, doing it is another.

Yesterday we had an interesting English corner. There are ten Americans who were

invited to the corner, one elder woman and an elder man and eight young people.

After they played guitar and song, we were divided into ten groups to speak English together. I talked to the old woman in English and knew her story. The old

man was her husband and the two youngest children of her eight children with them in Beijing, they came to our English corner voluntarily, because her children

liked such activities. She and her husband worked as English teachers at a college here, but they taught little, because they did many things to make her children happy. What a different opinion from most Chinese parents!

Talking about spoken English, she gave me some useful tips. One is that I should

record my voice, then listen to it, and then correct them. It is really a good

piece of advice for me. Because I can tell what kind mistake others make in spoken English, but I can’t tell the mistake made by myself. What a shame! If I tape my own voice, it will be easier for me to tell my own mistakes.

Before I wrote the article I knew there was a hot discuss about oral English on

the forum. I even don’t have enough courage to submit it. But I am changing my idea now.:)

Dragonfly