Recently I teased myself saying that my English level have fallen down. I would like not to believe it, but I found I had a problem in English speaking, which may exist long time ago but wasn't taken seriously. When I wanted to say something, I usually plan for the structures I will use or even in more details. But sometimes when I was suddenly asked and haven't prepared, I will be struggling to think of how to express it. I doubt I have had the ability to express things as I like. And I even feel that I didn't make much progress in speaking in the last 3 months. Since there are only 44 days left for English course, I think we have more pressure to reach a certain level, especially in speaking.
First I think the consideration of structure is not wrong, but I am little in lack of proficiency. I need to be more familiar with more structures and reduce the time to think of one. That will need accumulation of some common structures and good sentences. Even though this kinds of recitation is not flexible, I think it is a good way to help us be fluent in daily communication as a beginning. Second, sometimes I don't know how to translate the words in Chinese into English when speaking. The translation is also habit that people won't accept it as a good language learning method. But I think if a person can translate as he like and avoid some common errors, he has been very efficient in communication. The problem is we don't have enough words or collocations to use. So it requires us to memorize more words and phrases. We can take notes when we are watching the English-speaking movies or series and review them afterwards. The meanings and usages of the new words are also very important, so we could look them up and take them down on our vocabulary notebook. The third one is that I should practice more in class. I should not be silent because it will do nothing good to myself. In addition, I used to feel good about my tones and pronunciation of speaking but I recently found I'm not very good at it, especially compared to some English-speakers. So maybe I can record my voice regularly and find the defects and change them, but it is not very easy. These ways sound good, but if we don't follow them, actually they are of no use.
Days are passing by. If we don't make progress every day, then when will we make a change. I think I will pay more attention on English learning and try to practice more on speaking.
Mengdi,
ReplyDeleteWhen you learn a new language, you must wish to take the risk to make mistakes. You need to constantly, and I mean constantly, speak in the language you are learning. Otherwise, you may never improve. A another thing is to keep monitoring yourself so that you keep correcting yourself when you make mistakes. Only then will you be confident and make fewer errors. Good luck! Ask me question or talk to me when you need to.