Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[yasuharu519]

Hi,

I have been in U.S. for 4 months as an exchange student. My writing and reading skill are getting better, but my speaking still sucks.
I'm looking for a way to improve my speaking skill.
If you know one way or have an idea, please let me know.

yasu

[Shinae]

Hi,

I am an amateur here but let me try to give you a pointer.

I think the best thing you can do in order to learn any language is to go out and speak. Don't be shy, reserved or afraid to lose your face. The more talkative you are, more better off you will be in the long run down the road. Also, try to immerse yourself in the language by exploring deeper into your interested areas.

Hope this helps

[ebb]

Going out and speaking is a great method. One problem is that people may be too polite to correct you, because your skills are already quite good and they may feel that it is impolite to correct you; make sure you tell them that you WANT to be corrected and that this is doing you a favor !!

I would also suggest finding examples of fine speech, oratory or rhetoic, and simply reading these out loud. You can even read them over and over, and work on memorizing them, so you can recite them by heart. Here are some examples -- there are many of course.

Strive both to understand the meaning, and to use your voice, tone, volume, timing, intonation and emphasis to convey the meaning.

If you have a friend to practice this with, that is also an excellent enhancement.

By Sir Winston Churchill, one of the greatest orators in English, during WWII, before the American involvement and when England stood alone:

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. . . . You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.

.....

. . . our losses in material are enormous. We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the opening days of the battle on March 21, 1918, but we have lost nearly as many guns -- nearly 1,000 -- and all our transport and all the armored vehicles that were with the army of the north. . . . Hitler has plans for invading the British Isles. . . . We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.

Two weeks later .........

... the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."


This is from Shakespeare (you can find on the Internet), and is very literary and the language is antiquated, but if you can learn it, recite it and understand it, your skills will increase dramatically (sorry for the pun).

To be thus is nothing;
But to be safely thus.--Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear'd: 'tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety. There is none but he
Whose being I do fear: and, under him,
My Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,
Mark Antony's was by Caesar. He chid the sisters
When first they put the name of king upon me,
And bade them speak to him: then prophet-like
They hail'd him father to a line of kings:
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my grip,
Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If 't be so,
For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind;
For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd;

Note - "filed' = "defiled"
"unlineal" = not in the line of succession to the throne from Macbeth


_________________
"This is insolence up with which I will not put." Winston Churchill, upon reading a newspaper�s criticism of his having ended a sentence with a preposition.

"You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than with just a kind word." Al Capone.