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Advice This page contains ideas and advice for improving your listening comprehension and speaking skills. This page is aimed at learners of English who want to improve their oral English. The Oral English programme at the University of Nice is based on the three interrelated areas of listening, speaking, and theory. Practice and reflection in any one of these areas should pay off in the others, and good study skills can save you time in all three, so the advice on this page is organised around - practicising listening to English - practicising speaking English - understanding more about oral English - developed effective language study skills 1 LISTENING: How to listen more effectively There is a wealth of oral English materials out there: at the university, on the net, in the wide world beyond . . . How can you gain access to it, and what should you do with it? Listen to authentic English If you want to understand and converse with native speakers of English, it makes sense to take their oral production as your model. 'Authentic' also implies natural oral language which has not been produced especially for learners. Try to vary the accents you listen to: even if you use an American model for your own production, you need to be able to understand other speakers as well. The English Society lecture series is a good place to start. Listen to comprehensible English If you don't understand the essence of what you hear then you won't make much progress. - find sites for learners at your level - find sites with transcripts as well as audio files - choose topics about which you are knowledgeable, or compare French and English sites (e.g., news sites) - watch videos and DVDs in English, with English and/or French subtitles (using subtitles isn't cheating: it will help you to pick up more linguistic information and remember it better) Set yourself listening objectives If you don't listen with a particular goal in mind, you will have trouble concentrating. - take notes and write a summary of what you hear - transcribe a short section as accurately as possible - listen for pronunciation information: word stress in multisyllable words, weak forms in connected speech, particular phonemes Choose interesting, relevant practice materials Don't make yourself plough through the news if you have no interest in current affairs. If you know about a topic and are interested in it, it will be easier for you to understand what is being said. If comprehension is easier, then you have more time to concentrate on linguistic information (pronunciation, collocations, etc.). Look at our links, or current DEUG LCE or LEA listening programmes as a place to start. Don't do too much! Listening in a foreign language is hard work, so don't try to do too much at a time. Fifteen minutes several times a week is better than two hours in a single sitting. Advice from elsewhere listening skills taking notes making notes in lectures note-taking for interpreters Here are some internet listening resources; check out our links page for more http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Listening/ http://www.usingenglish.com/links/Listening/ http://www.soundsofenglish.org/links.htm 2 SPEAKING: How to improve your spoken English Find someone to talk to Get a conversation exchange partner from the English Society, or hook up with an Erasmus student in the Department, or talk to strange anglophones in the bars of Vieux Nice. Attend English Society events and talk to the lecteurs. Many students think they don't know enough vocabulary or grammar to speak English well, but in fact the problem is more often practice: they don't use the language much, and so even the words and constructions they know are hard to retrieve. You can even practice with other French students of English You may like to try and find a conversation partner online Use pronunciation practice materials If your problem is accent, you may need to take remedial action with specific pronunciation practice. There are some materials in the audio library, and other internet resources which can be helpful. You should know, however, that pronunciation is the area of foreign language competence which is hardest to improve. It is probably unrealistic to aim for a nativelike accent, and better to strive for a decent level of comprehensibility and fluency. Mine authentic listening materials for your own oral language Just listening to oral English may have a knock-on effect on your own oral production, but the effect will be greater if you make an effort to sift pronunciation information from what you hear. - listen to a recording for word-stress information, or for a particular phoneme - follow a transcript as you listen and mark pronunciations which surprise you. Then read the transcript yourself. - listen to poetry and learn a poem by heart Get feedback on your spoken language Use your teachers' comments on your spoken English as a place to start improving. Your lecteur may give you oral or written comments on your performance in class, and you may be also be asked to listen to a recording of yourself. (If not, make your own recording and try to listen dispassionately.) What is most striking about your English? Do you speak too quickly or too slowly? Do you make grammatical mistakes (and if so, do you recognise them yourself) ? Are there particular sounds, or particular words, which you mispronounce? Once you have decided what the main problems are, you can begin to tackle them. Speaking links pronunciation exercises http://www.soundsofenglish.org/activities/index.htm our own Phonemes of English site, created by Riitta Blum and Shona Whyte links to pronunciation sites http://www.kotesol.org/pubs/tec/webwheres_0211.shtml http://www.sunburstmedia.com/PronWeb.html http://members.aol.com/pronunciationsig/Psites.htm http://tecfa.unige.ch/~sun/Cool_links.html Advice from elsewhere becoming a better speaker 3 THEORY: How to improve your understanding of how language works Fully exploit the resources you have - attend the lectures - get the handouts - read the lecture notes - ask your lecturer questions Find complementary resources - in the library - on the internet: explore any links you are given, use a search engine to find relevant sites (google) Find opportunities to practice - test yourself on the material you have learned - ask and answer questions with other members of your study group Relate what you are learning to your own experiences - apply phonetics rules in listening and speaking classes: do they work? - do claims in second language acquisition lectures jibe with your own experience as a learner? 4 STUDY SKILLS: How to make the most of your time in class and out Do a little work regularly, rather than a lot at one time. Much of what you do when you understand spoken English or express yourself in English happens subconsciously: you don't necessarily control how your brain processes the words you hear and utter. If you try to consciously learn certain pronunciations or meanings, your memory will quickly become saturated, and what you learn may not be available when you next need it. But if you want to let yourself learn subconsciously, then you need time to pick up new sounds and meanings. Keep track of what you are learning. Note new and newly remembered vocabulary in a notebook. Even if you don't consult it frequently, the act of looking up a dictionary and copying an entry will help your memory. Keep a learning log, where you write down what language work you do when over the semester. Write a language learning journal, where you reflect on what you are learning and how you feel about it. These tools give you an additional motivational fillip when you look back at what you have achieved, instead of bemoaning what remains to be done! More details about language learning journal Find someone to work with. Motivation is greatly helped by having someone to work with. Find another student who wants to learn the same things as you do, or someone whose skills complement your own, so that you can trade skills. Create a study group of three or four students who can meet outside of class and work together. Advice from elsewhere becoming an independent language learner General language learning advice http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lang/languages/lang/reasons_en.html http://www.lingualearn.co.uk/learners/advice.htm http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/languages/learn/success.shtml
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