Search results for 'tag:English grammar tag:Speak english' matching tags 'English grammar' and 'Speak english'

Re: The Callan Method

Anonymous — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:45:46 GMT

Hmmmm... It is a well known fact that Polish people love this method. You're very passionate about this method aren't you ?

I think this method is great for about 3 or 4 months or until the student has got off ground zero in his or her ability to understand and speak English and attain a resonable level of competency. After achieving this level of competency the students are highly enthusiastic about grammar points. Although the Callan method does address grammar, the students are now able to ask more testing questions which the Callan Method teachers and the Callan Method books do not address fully.

The Callan Method courses are not supposed to go intensely and fully into grammar for every grammar point at any specific point in the course. Rather, the course believes in developing up grammar awareness and ability through practising English and so as the student progresses through the course.

However, Mr Callan should be aware of this one point - students do not have the patience to see it through to the end of book 100 :) and once achieving a good level of English competency, they go grammar crazy. And so, I agree with practically every Callan Method teacher that the method should be supplemented with dedicated grammar lessons additional to the Callan Method lessons, and that the Callan Method teachers MUST have a teaching qualification of some level to earn respect and maintain reasonable standards in the teaching of English grmmar. It is totally unacceptable Mr Callan that a school could say to a potential teacher that "oh, don't worry. you don't need any qualification except that you must be fluet in English to TEACH English using the Callan Method".

A doctor may not be able to teach Medicine.
An Engineer may not be able to teach Engineering.
A professional may not be able to TEACH others about his profession.

Teaching is a SKILL.

I urge Mr Callan to ensure that all schools using his method employ teachers who have a teaching qualification, are fluent in English and speak it with a reasonable clear accent, and not through their noses, their accents and performances are checked from time to time, and that they are reasonably competent in English Grammar.

Additionally, I am appalled in the selection process of potential teachers at the main school in London, England UK. Ageism and other forms of discrimination is unacceptable, and to have a policy that you can only apply once to the school is quite unjust and discriminative. There must be something irregular going on in the selection process because there are teachers there who are a complete embarassment to the profession. I feel both sorry for the students and worried for many students. Teachers should be able to speak English fluently and without strong accents, whilst still retaining the Callan teacher qualities. And teachers should always remain professional throughout their teaching career.

Also, the Callan Method schools should always make it crystal clear that currently the Callan Method certificate or School certificate is not recognised nationally by institutions within the UK, nor internationally. Many schools take advantage of students by giving false impressions and failing to inform students.

However, well done Mr Callan in bringing this seemingly simplistic yet effective method into place. Actually, I had already been applying something similar to this method in other academic subjects prior to you introducing the method. I think many people have, as it is intuitive, almost obvious, and close to a natural method of learning as one might imagine.
It is great for getting people started in becoming competent in English.

Well..I guess..I have said all I want to say here...except for one further, and very important point. But alas, I cannot mention it here for legal reasons.

Thank you.

Re: how to learn English

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:30:48 GMT

i. Observe the mouth movements of those who speak English well and try to imitate them.

When you are watching television, observe the mouth movements of the speakers. Repeat what they are saying, while imitating the intonation and rhythm of their speech.

ii. Until you learn the correct intonation and rhythm of English, slow your speech down.

If you speak too quickly, and with the wrong intonation and rhythm, native speakers will have a hard time understanding you.

Don't worry about your listener getting impatient with your slow speech -- it is more important that everything you say be understood.

iii. Listen to the 'music' of English.

Do not use the 'music' of your native language when you speak English. Each language has its own way of 'singing'.

iv. Use the dictionary.

Try and familiarise yourself with the phonetic symbols of your dictionary. Look up the correct pronunciation of words that are hard for you to say.

v. Make a list of frequently used words that you find difficult to pronounce and ask someone who speaks the language well to pronounce them for you.

Record these words, listen to them and practice saying them. Listen and read at the same time.

vi. Buy books on tape.

Record yourself reading some sections of the book. Compare the sound of your English with that of the person reading the book on the tape.

vii. Pronounce the ending of each word.

Pay special attention to 'S' and 'ED' endings. This will help you strengthen the mouth muscles that you use when you speak English.

viii. Read aloud in English for 15-20 minutes every day.

Research has shown it takes about three months of daily practice to develop strong mouth muscles for speaking a new language.

ix. Record your own voice and listen for pronunciation mistakes.

Many people hate to hear the sound of their voice and avoid listening to themselves speak. However, this is a very important exercise because doing it will help you become conscious of the mistakes you are making.

x. Be patient.

You can change the way you speak but it won't happen overnight. People often expect instant results and give up too soon. You can change the way you sound if you are willing to put some effort into it.

Quick tips

Various versions of the English language exist. Begin by identifying the category you fall into and start by improving the clarity of your speech.

~ Focus on removing the mother tongue influence and the 'Indianisms' that creep into your English conversations.

~ Watch the English news on television channels like Star World, CNN, BBC and English movies on Star Movies and HBO.

~ Listen to and sing English songs. We'd recommend Westlife, Robbie Williams, Abba, Skeeter Davis and Connie Francis among others.

Books to help you improve your English

Essential English Grammar by Murphy (Cambridge)
Spoken English by R K Bansal and J B Harrison
Pronounce It Perfectly In English (book and three audio cassettes) by Jean Yates, Barrons Educational Series
English Pronunciation For International Students by Paulette Wainless Dale, Lillian Poms

im dumb when it comes to speaking english

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:33:41 GMT

hi! everyone,jeez! well how will i say this..ahm..im a filipino and im from the philippines..i'd really like to learn how to speak english fluently and learn the right english grammar, can anyone help me?? please!

by the way hirs my nickname "under_the_influence"

i hope someone can help me.tnx!

Re: Complexity of grammar

Cool Breeze — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 09:35:32 GMT

Orpheus wrote:
Do you think that the complexity of grammar of a language reflects the elaborate thinking of its speakers?

No, not in the least. If that were true, present-day Anglo-Saxons' thinking would be greatly inferior to that of their forebears 1200 years ago. While Old English wasn't grammatically complex compared with the language I know best, Finnish, it was a lot more complicated than modern English. In many respects Old English grammar resembled modern German grammar: three genders for nouns, strong masculines, verbs inflected more than today, many plural endings etc.

In my opinion English-speaking people can be just as complex and articulate as speakers of other languages and they can have just as lucid thoughts as other people. The English language just isn't the best tool possible to convey these thoughts because the language is sometimes ambiguous and inexact even though the speakers aren't. There is more often room for misunderstanding when people speak English than there is when a more exact language is employed.

The absolute superlative is a good example. Many educated linguists say there is no absolute superlative in English! Yet they use the absolute superlative in their speech. Who's to know what they really mean when they utter their sentences? For a speaker of a language where there is always a difference between the relative and the absolute superlative it may occasionally be too demanding a task to figure out what exactly is meant.

Cheers
CB

Re: 'as' meaning 'although'

Jisu98 — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 04:56:52 GMT

Thank you.

My class is not an advanced class. But, strangely enough, we teach difficult grammar items and test them.

We, I mean most Korean, can't speak English but we know quite lots of English grammar. That prohibits us from speaking.

Thank you again. It was a good help.

Re: Make new friends with my msn!Also exchange english grammar skills!

Sosa88 — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:50:09 GMT

hello !!! nice to meet u danny

i just want to introduce myself cause i'm a new mumber:

i'm sara nd i'm 19 years old I study business administration in a french school of business i want to make a lot of friends from all over the world it 'll make me really feel soooo happy!!!!

I like tennis, taking pictures, drawing and travelling i can speak english nd french and i can say some sentences in german (looool)

if anyone want to chat with me this is my msn:

-----------------------------------------sosa.ahdalo@hotmail.com

Re: How to make sentences?

Yankee — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:50:28 GMT

Maverick9211 wrote:
I can't differeniate between ~~abt~~ nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.

I am not very bad at English. I do understand English very well. I can speak English, but not in fluently. I can't write it very well. Let's ~~make~~ do it this way: You give me some topic and I will write 10-20 lines about that topic. Then you will ~~come to know~~ be able to see where I am lacking or what ~~is the~~ my problems are. Or you suggest what to do.

Hi Maverick

Judging from your posts here, spelling, capitalization and punctuation are some of the things you need to improve.

If you want to practice grammar, you might try English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy.

Your idea about posting a few sentences isn't bad. You can post sentences for correction, but you should limit the number of sentences you post in each thread to a maximum of about 5. You can write about any topic that interests you. You can also post specific questions. This would be a specific question, for example:

What is the difference between "I do speak English very well" and "I speak English very well"?

Re: speak and pronounce english

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:23:53 GMT

firstly, I think you should master English Grammar and Vocab. I mean it's hard to believe that I could speak English smoothly and fluently if I have poor grammar structures and my English vocab is limited. Secondly, it's your opportunity to have conversation with other people (ie. English speaking environment), especially English native speakers. Practice makes perfect, you know.
Hope you find something useful from my comment.
Bye
Wish to see you again
Call me Nguyet. (I'm from Vietnam)

Re: Research Question about Danish Speakers Learning English

Cool Breeze — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:12:33 GMT

Hi Laura

As you don't seem to get any answers from Danes, I'll offer you one from a Finn.

It is easier for a speaker of a Germanic language to learn any other Germanic language. Danish - or Old Norse, or Old Scandinavian - is one of the languages English derives from. English grammar is easy for a Dane to learn because it is a simplified version of Danish grammar. A lot of the vocabulary is also familiar.

There are differences in people's ability to learn foreign languages, just as there are differences in their ability to learn their native language. You will have noticed that not all Americans speak English as well as you? Not all have a knack for math, and some could never sing the national anthem on key even if they practiced for weeks. All people look different; what makes you think they should be exactly alike in language acquisition?

In very rare cases is a speech impediment or something similar involved, but of course even that is a possibility.

Cheers
CB

Re: Native-speaker intuition.

Tam Sadek — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 23:06:04 GMT

One of the main problems is the source of English Grammar.

English Grammar 'Rules' were based on the written forms of English and basically ignored any reference to Spoken forms used by Native Speakers.

There was and it appears still is contempt for the spoken form of English. In fact even the term used to describe the Spoken form, the 'vernacular' has negative connotations to most so-called educated and enlightened people.

So, guess what? Native speakers don't sound like grammar books! Perhaps you're approaching the problem from the wrong source and should be asking the question, "Why don't English grammar books reflect the English language used by native speakers?"

Do you seriously believe "English Grammar" arrived before its speakers?

To even ask why native speakers don't sound like grammar books is to miss the point entirely. Of course they don't, and what's more they never did!

Grammatical analysis has been based on interpreting usage in written documents, novels, plays and trying to promote English to the level of Latin which was the language of Education. It was only when people tried to promote English that they then borrowed terminology from Latin and stuck on to English (usually not very well) that English became regarded as a serious subject.

Ever wondered why the 'verb+ing' is referred to as both a present participle and a gerund? Blame Latin!

French and German were given much higher importance in the Royal family - mainly because the last true-English King died at Hasting in 1066. In fact George I of England is reported to have never even bothered to learn English, and spoke for his entire reign using his first language, German.

Even RP, the/a 'standard' of British pronunciation gets its name from the fact that if you could only speak English, then you would not be 'received at the Royal Court' unless you spoke like that.

And so now our legacy is to have a set of 'Grammar Rules' (for the most part based on Pre-1900 literature) combined with 'Pronunciation Rules' for visiting Queen Victoria (in the 19th Century)... and you wonder why normal native-speakers in the 21st Century don't sound like what exactly?