iBT 115 - 如何提高英语发音及口语水平

sdcar2010

There are a few points I would like to shed light on, regarding how I worked on my English.

First I will talk about Accent. This is probably the hardest part to improve, mainly because old habits die hard. It is imperative to learn how to speak English right in elementary school and in high school since that is the very foundation, on which your future skills of spoken English are built. As a Beijinger, I was lucky in that regard. Throughout grade school and college, my English teachers taught me standard English and proper pronunciation.

For those of you who were not as lucky as I, you have to improve yourself one word at a time. Learn how to SOUND the vowels and consonants right. Then learn how to combine them together. These are the baby steps leading to the path of perfect spoken English.

Another trick, or training in my eyes, is to imitate English speakers whose style of giving a speech you like the most. Mr. Obama might be your choice. Ms. Hillary Clinton might be mine. I also listen to NPR –National Public Radio– whenever I have a chance. Not only would you keep abreast with the current news and analysis, you would also pick up a few new phrases here and there. In addition, you could learn how to present an argument, how to be objective when commenting, and how to pronounce the word right. In fact, when I am driving the car alone, instead of listening to music, I tune to NPR radio and use my own voice to follow, “word-for-word”, the broadcasting news or comments.

Of course, if you have an American friend, or a British one, you can practice oral English by talking to him or her. As a matter of fact, I knew a few people even tried out the online dating service as a way to practice English. I think that was morally wrong and I would not go that far for safety and privacy reasons. But internet definitely provides a lot of opportunities for Chinese to improve their oral English.

The key is to open your mouth daily and learn how to SOUND each word/sentence right. In the TOEFL test, if you have an accent as close to the native speaker as possible, you would get a better score.  Furthermore, by learning the way the Americans present their viewpoints from radio program or TV shows, you would have a better chance to organize your thoughts within the 45 sec of preparation time, then speak clearly, confidently and concisely. Keep working on the way you speak and you will become a fluent English speaker and a top scorer in TOEFL in due time.

Finally, you need to improve your oral English not only for a better chance to get into a top-notch business school, but also for a better preparation for the challenge you might face beyond business school.  Enjoy the process during the upgrade.

哼哼

NN sofa~
Ding~

robbiezy

有语法错误啊

avalon9527

that's a great thread. but this idea will surely take a lot of time. i mean, certainly, it is foremost to improve your English abilities; yet, toefl is just an exam. so, there might be some more practical skills that can be used when you don't have such plenty time to start over. what's your suggestion? i really don't want to hear "haste makes waste" anymore....

无敌西红柿炒蛋

lz is a female

sandychen168

Wow, not until now did I know that SDCAR posted such a thread here in the IBT zone. It's amazing to read you again since the GMAT test. Of course will I reply to your post since I'm your fan, haha!

Now, I still have a question toward speaking and listening. It's not a very academic one, but a pragmatic one. That is: I can understand when American people talk directly to me, but I can't catch them when they speak to each other.

They use so many slangs, and tend not to pronounce very clear when speak to native speakers. And one of the questions is that they don't pronounce those "little words", such as "at, on, in", very clear, so it's gonna kill me when they slide over those words. How do you figure out these kinds of problems, such as liaison?

babybearmm

居然刚刚才发现这篇（无意中google到了），居然这篇还不是精华.....
sdcar大神的贴子一贯的经典，果断分享

abjure

紧随BABYBEARMM的脚步。大神的逻辑让我佩服。

一粒黄豆。

It will be better if sdcar could talk about the specific details about how to practice speaking  
For example, I want to express"好吃的不干净，干净的不好吃，又好吃又干净的又很贵"..... I really don't know how to express this in English

Here's my expression:" Tasty food may be unhealthy, and healthy food may be untasty, while food that is both healthy and tasty is expensive."   Is that right? I'm not conficent about my expression, and especially be afraid of speaking chinglish

zhangyanlele

Great Suggestion！！！