speaking

Brainstorming before Speaking Tasks

 

Brainstorming is an activity used to generate ideas in small groups. The purpose is to generate as many ideas as possible within a specified time-period. These ideas are not evaluated until the end and a wide range of ideas is often produced. Each idea produced does not need to be usable. Instead, initial ideas can be viewed as a starting point for more workable ideas. The principle of brainstorming is that you need lots of ideas to get good ideas.

 

Brainstorming Encourages Better Learning

   Some learners are more successful than others. In order to find out why, Rubin and Thompson (1984:114, Rubin 1975) studied the characteristics of good learners. Four of these characteristics are discussed below. These may explain why brainstorming is a useful tool in our classrooms.

 

Good Learners Organize Information About Language

   Good learners try to organize their knowledge. As teachers, we can try to facilitate this organization by using suitable warm-up activities. A warm-up activity can remind our students of existing knowledge. At the same time, it can direct their minds towards ideas that they will meet in the main activity. In this way, it provides a link between new and existing knowledge.

       However, each learner has a different store of existing knowledge organized in a unique way. A textbook or teacher presentation can never use this knowledge to its best potential. In many warm-up activities, the teacher and students can be frustrated because the organization of language in the warm-up activity is different from the organization in the learners' minds. This mismatch is a block to good learning. Brainstorming invites the learners to organize existing knowledge in their own minds. Many learners have a large passive vocabulary which does not translate directly into productive capabilities in the classroom. Brainstorming can help to activate this. It works to mobilize the resources of the student by creating a series of connecting ideas. This leads to an organization of language. The links which appear on paper created in word mapping are visible evidence of this organization. At this point the learners will be better oriented to the topic and better motivated to fill the gaps in their knowledge.

 

Good Learners Find Their Own Way and Take Charge of Their Own Learning

 

       Students who do not take charge of their own learning are unable to take full advantage of learning opportunities. This is a problem that faces many Asian students who are generally more reserved than western students (Tsui , 1996). Many teachers find that lack of self-initiative is usually more of a problem than lack of ability in conversation classes. Brainstorming can help learners to take charge. Learners begin examining their existing resources and identifying gaps in their knowledge. The free association nature allows learners to become involved in the selection of language used in the speaking task.

 

Good Learners Make Intelligent Guesses

 

The good learner makes intelligent guesses, but the language classroom often works against this. Because of nervousness in a foreign language or fear of teacher correction, many students are afraid of using language unless they are sure that it is totally correct (Lucus 1984). This stops them making intelligent guesses and slows down learning.

 

Brainstorming can help students to learn to take risks. McCoy (1976) makes a strong argument in favor of learning problem-solving skills in order to reduce anxiety. There are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers in brainstorming and no danger of teacher correction. By carrying out a simple brainstorming warm-up, students can obtain a sense of competence and feel more confident in making intelligent guesses.

 

Good Learners Use Contextual Cues to Help Them in Comprehension

 

The good learner uses the context of language to help in comprehension but the foreign language classroom can often seem artificial. Brainstorming allows the students to create a context for the subsequent speaking task. Relevant existing knowledge (content schema) can be called up from memory and can provide a context which supports comprehension and production in the subsequent speaking task.

As discussed in this section, brainstorming can help our students to become better learners, but equally importantly, students will benefit just by working in groups. They will learn language from each other and by interacting together they will become better communicators.

Speaking

IELTS Example Topics For Speaking Test

مهارتهای خواندن (متون ) انگلیسی خود را افزایش دهید.

نکات کلیدی برای سرعت در یادگیری مکالمه زبان انگلیسی  

 ۵ سایت جامع و مفید برای تقویت زبان انگلیسی

The fater way to improve your English

Value of “Total Immersion”

For people who want to learn as much English as possible within a short period of time, the concept of “total immersion” has some value. While this is a drastic program for people who don’t speak English, it is actually a rather easy way to learn English. Basically what occurs is that non-English speaking people are taken to a resort or other place where they can stay where English is the only language used and their native language is not spoken. They are totally immersed into the food, the language, the customs, and even the hand gestures that are used.

This is often a method that is used by business personnel, professionals, and even executives to learn the English language. The value of this method of learning English is that failure is not an option and participants are essentially forced to learn to speak the language to some degree.

Practicing Online

One of the many easy ways to learn English is to practice online. While there are a variety of great websites online that will allow you to learn and practice English, something as simple as getting involved in English forums or writing to email pals that speak the language is good practice as well. Practicing is one of the best ways to learn any kind of skill, and the English language is no exception.

Reading aloud

Why read out loud?

If you come to the Writing Center for a tutoring session, you will probably hear your tutor say, "We always read papers out loud—would you like to read yours, or would you like to hear me read it?" Reading aloud has many benefits that we want to share with writers. Most people have far more experience listening to and speaking English than they do reading and editing it on the printed page. When you read your draft out loud or listen to someone else read it, your brain gets the information in a new way, and you may notice things that you didn't see before:

• As listeners, we need the order of ideas in a paper to make sense. We can't flip back and forth from page to page to try to figure out what is going on or find information we need. When you hear your paper read out loud, you may recognize that you need to re-order the information in it or realize that there are gaps in your explanation.
• Listeners also need transitions to help us get from one main idea to the next. When you hear your paper, you may recognize places where you have moved from one topic to another too abruptly.
• We all make errors in our sentences. Sometimes we leave out a word, mess things up as we copy and paste text, or make a grammatical mistake. These kinds of errors can be hard to see on the page, but sentences that contain them are very likely to sound wrong. For native speakers of English (and some non-native speakers, too), reading out loud is one of the most powerful proofreading techniques around.
• Sometimes sentences aren't grammatically incorrect, but they are still awkward in some way—too long, too convoluted, too repetitive. Problems like these are often easily heard.
• Hearing your paper can also help you get a sense of whether the tone is right. Does it sound too formal? Too chatty or casual? What kind of impression will your voice in this paper make on a reader? Sometimes hearing your words helps you get a more objective sense of the impression you are creating—listening puts in you in something more like the position your reader will be in as he/she moves through your text.

 

What are some strategies for reading out loud?

Reading your paper out loud has a lot of benefits, but it presents a few challenges, too. One issue is that a lot depends on how you read. It is very easy to read too quickly or to let your brain automatically "smooth over" mistakes, fill in missing words, and make little corrections without you ever becoming consciously aware that it's happening. If you don't read exactly what is on the printed page, you won't get an accurate sense of what is in your paper. Here are some strategies to help you read out loud effectively:

• Try working from a printed copy. This will allow you to make marks at places where something sounds wrong to you so you can return to them later.
• Try working from a printed copy. This will allow you to make marks at places where something sounds wrong to you so you can return to them later.
• As you read, follow along with your finger, pointing at each word. This can help you stay focused and not skip anything.
• Try to read at a moderate pace.
• If you are proofreading, consider reading your paper out loud one sentence at a time, starting at the end and working back to the beginning. This will help you focus on the structure of each sentence, rather than on the overall flow of your argument.
• Try covering up everything but the section or sentence you are working on at the moment so you can concentrate on it and not get lost.

One great strategy to try is to ask a friend to read your paper out loud while you listen. Make sure that your friend knows to read exactly what is on the printed page. Pay close attention to places where your friend seems to stumble or get lost—those may be places where you need to make things clearer for your readers. As your friend is speaking, you can jot notes on a printed copy of the paper. You don't have to be in the same room to do this—you could email a copy of your paper to your friend and ask him/her to call you and read to you over the phone.

 

How can your computer help?

You don't necessarily need to recruit a friend to read to you. There are a number of text to speech software applications and web-based services that will help you get your computer to read your paper out loud to you. One advantage of this approach is that the computer will definitely not cover up any errors for you! You can also control where it starts and stops, speed it up or slow it down, and have it re-read the same paragraph as many times as you want.

There are many text-to-speech programs and services you can try—far more than we can review here. Some are free; others may have a free trial version but cost between $10 and $80 for long-term use, or for versions with more features. Here are a few free ones that seem to be easily available, user friendly, and potentially effective. If you would like to explore others that may be available now or created in the future, do a Google search for "text to speech," "TTS," or "text reader."

Some differences to keep in mind as you choose the best reader for you:

• Voice quality and selection: how many voices can you choose from, and how natural do they sound?
• Controls: can you determine the speed and pitch of the speaker, where the reading starts and stops, etc.? Is there a pause button?
• Can you convert your text file into an mp3 or wav file, download it, and listen to it on your music player?
• Does the software highlight each word as it is read (which may be especially helpful for non-native English speakers and students with reading/writing disabilities)?
• How many pages of text or words can be converted to voice at one?
• How quickly does the conversion happen?
• Do you need to copy text and paste it into a new window, or can the program work directly within an application (like Word or Powerpoint) and just read the text on your screen?
• Do you have to install any files on your computer to use the system? If so, how big are the files?
• Do you need an active internet connection to use the program, or can you run it without internet access once it has been installed?
• Does it work with your operating system (e.g., Mac, or Windows Vista)?

آنچه باید در صحبت توجه داشت

تو speaking به چندتا چیز توجه داشت یکی intonation هستش و یکی دیگه معنی متن که بش میگن ( Freezing ) .

مقایسه بین /æ/ Versus /ɑ/

تلفظ Alpha - α

 

مقایسه Alpha -æو Epsilon- ε

تلفظ Alpha - æ

مقایسه Epsilon- εو ei

تلفظ واکه Epsilon-ε