Learning English - Lesson Twenty Five (Speech Making)

In this lesson we look at the process of preparing and giving a public speech.

Learning English - Lesson Twenty Four ( Changing English )

In this lesson we look at informal English and corrupted forms of the language.

>>> GREAT IDEA

It was at a party and the host was getting worried because there were too many people and not enough refreshments. She was sure that not all of these people had been invited but didn't know how to tell which ones were the crashers. Then her husband got an idea.....

 

He turned to the crowd of guests and said "Will those who are from the brides side of the family stand up please?" about twenty people stood.

 

Then he asked " Will those who are from the groom side of the family stand up as well?" about twenty five people stood up.

 

The He smiled and said

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

"Will all those who stood please leave, This is a birthday party". 

Learning English: Second Condition

We can use the Second Conditional to talk about 'impossible' situations.

• If I had one million dollars, I'd give a lot to charity.
• If there were no more hungry people in this world, it would be a much better place.
• If we were in New York today, we would be able to go to the free Elton John concert in Central Park.

Notice that after I / he/ she /it we often use the subjunctive form 'were' and not 'was'. (Some people think that 'were' is the only 'correct' form but other people think 'was' is equally 'correct' .)

• If I were in Tokyo, I'd have sushi every day.
• If she were really happy in her job, she'd be working much harder.
• If IBM were to enter our market, we would have big problems.

Notice the form 'If I were you' which is often used to give advice.

• If I were you, I'd change my job.
• If I were you, I'd sign up for Pearson's fantastic English lessons.

We can also use the Second Conditional to talk about 'unlikely' situations.

• If I won the lottery, I'd buy my parents a big house.
• If I went to the moon, I'd bring back some moon rock.
• If you met him, you'd really like him.

Notice that the choice between the first and the second conditional is often a question of the speaker's attitude rather than of facts. For example, consider two people Peter Pessimist and Otto Optimist.

• Otto – If I win the lottery, I'll buy a big house.
• Peter – If I won the lottery, I'd buy a big house.
• Otto – If I get promoted, I'll throw a big party.
• Peter – If I got promoted, I'd throw a big party.
• Otto – If my team win the Cup, I'll buy champagne for everybody.
• Peter – If my team won the Cup, I'd buy champagne for everybody.

Notice that the 'If clause' can contain the past simple or the past continuous.

• If I was still living in Brighton, I would commute by train.
• If they were thinking of coming, they would let us know.
• If she were coming, she would be here by now.

Notice that the main clause can contain 'would' 'could' or 'might.

• If I met him again, I wouldn't recognize him.
• If we met up for lunch one day, I could take you to that new restaurant.
• If I spoke to him directly, we might be able to reach an agreement.

Also notice that sometimes the 'if clause' is implied rather than spoken.

• What would I do without you? ("if you stopped working here")
• Where would I get one at this time of night? ("if I went looking for one")
• He wouldn't agree. ("if we asked him")

IT IS TOO LONG ISNT IT? SORRY

Learning English - Lesson Twenty Three ( Faults/Bad Habits )

In this lesson we look at our faults and bad habits

Best poem of 2006

this poem was nominated by UN as the best poem of 2006, Written by an

African Kid

When I born, I black
When I grow up, I black
When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared, I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black

And you white fellow
When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you gray

And you calling me colored?

How to improve your English skills

My most important piece of advice is: "Do something (anything). If you don't do anything, you won't get anywhere. Make it your hobby, not a chore, but above all have fun!"

Don't be in too much of a hurry. You're setting off on a long journey and there'll be delays and frustrations along the way. Sometimes you'll be in the fast lane and other times you'll be stuck in traffic, but there will also be lots of interesting things and interesting people along the way. Take your time to really enjoy the experience.

There are many ways to improve your level of English, but only you can find the right way for you. Here are a few tips that might help:-

Improve your Learning Skills

Learning is a skill and it can be improved.

Your path to learning effectively is through knowing

• yourself
• your capacity to learn
• processes you have successfully used in the past
• your interest, and knowledge of what you wish to learn

Motivate yourself

If you are not motivated to learn English you will become frustrated and give up. Ask yourself the following questions, and be honest:-

• Why do you need to learn/improve English?
• Where will you need to use English?
• What skills do you need to learn/improve? (Reading/Writing/Listening/Speaking)
• How soon do you need to see results?
• How much time can you afford to devote to learning English.
• How much money can you afford to devote to learning English.
• Do you have a plan or learning strategy?

Set yourself achievable goals

You know how much time you can dedicate to learning English, but a short time each day will produce better, longer-term results than a full day on the weekend and then nothing for two weeks.

Joining a short intensive course could produce better results than joining a course that takes place once a week for six months.

Here are some goals you could set yourself:-

• Join an English course (and attend regularly).
• Do your homework.
• Read a book a month.
• Learn a new word every day.
• Visit an English speaking forum every day.
• Read a news article on the net every day.
• Do 10 minutes listening practice every day.

A good way to meet your goals is to establish a system of rewards and punishments.

Decide on a reward you will give yourself for fulfilling your goals for a month.

• A bottle of your favourite drink
• A meal out / or a nice meal at home
• A new outfit
• A manicure or massage

courtesy:http://www.learnenglish.de/improvepage.htm

Learning English - Lesson Twenty Two ( The Way You Feel )

In this lesson we look at ways to express the way you feel.

"How are you today?"

Learning English ( Fun & Conversation )

The latest news from China with a fashion show and song thrown in for good measure! (Listening skills can always be improved by watching and trying to follow what is being said)

Joke

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.;)

have a nice time dear members

Idioms of the day

A Slap On The Wrist ( a slight punishment ... )

A slap on the wrist is a punishment that is very mild. Example:"He should be in jail for what he did, but he got off with just a slap on the wrist."

When the punishment turns out to be less than was expected, it is considered a slap on the wrist. Criminals would be very happy to get a slap on the wrist instead of several years in jail. A businessman would be happy to get a slap on the wrist after making a serious error that cost his company a significant sum of money.

buy a lemon.....To buy something that proves to be worthless.

For example:"That car he bought is a real lemon."

Lesson Twenty ( More Slang Words )

In this lesson We look at more slang terms and expressions.

Learning English - A Short Story With Misterduncan

A short story called "One good turn", written and read by Misterduncan.

LEARNING VOCABULARY FOR SPEAKING AND WRITING

The aim of this leaflet

Most of us find it difficult to find the right word in a foreign language when we are trying to speak or write, even though we know the word when we see it written down. The aim of this leaflet is to introduce you to materials that you may find useful if you want to make your vocabulary more active, and to suggest learning techniques that you may like to try.

Choosing materials

• If you want to improve your vocabulary for speaking, it's useful to listen to conversations as much as possible; similarly, to improve your vocabulary for writing, it's useful to read as widely as possible. Both these methods will help you to see how words are used in context, which is vital if you want to use vocabulary appropriately. You can do this anywhere, not necessarily in the SAC.
• If you want to use commercial learning materials, you may find it useful to choose material which shows words in context, and gives a lot of information about words which are commonly associated together (collocations, synonyms etc.). Listening material that has tapescripts will be useful.  

Useful materials in the SAC

Vocabulary textbooks

• For material on collocations, use the SAC computer catalogue: under 'Language Skill' choose Vocabulary and then Collocations. Or try the following materials:
  A Way with Words 2, unit 4; More than Words 1, unit 5
• For materials on synonyms, use the SAC computer catalogue: under 'Language Skill' choose Vocabulary and then Synonyms. Or try the following materials:
  Cambridge Advanced English, units 12.5 and 16.5 (on the 'Coursebooks' shelf in the Audio area); Wordperfect: vocabulary for fluency ('Vocabulary' Shelf, Reading & Writing Area) - useful for seeing the 'shades' of meaning, e.g. between concerned/worried/flustered/hysterical/in a panic.

Listening material

On the SAC computer catalogue, choose Listening under 'Language skill', then Conversation and All Choices; you will then see a list of titles to choose from.

Pronunciation material

If you are trying to improve your spoken vocabulary, it's vital (a) to know the spoken forms of words, and (b) to know how they are pronounced in context, in connected speech.

• To know how a word is pronounced, we recommend:
  The American Heritage Dictionary or The Longman Interactive Dictionary (both on the CD-ROM Reference Station in the Reading + Writing area)
• To learn more about how the pronunciation of words changes in connected speech, and in particular, how words link together, you will find the following materials in the SAC useful (all on the 'Pronunciation' shelves in the Audio area):
  Speaking Clearly, Elements of Pronunciation and In Tempo.

For more information and advice on pronunciation, check out the Advice Sheet Selecting Materials for Pronunciation (P3).

Reading material

There is a variety of simplified readers in the Reading + Writing area, at different levels of difficulty. You can borrow them for up to two weeks.

Dictionaries

• For examples of how words are used in context:
  COBUILD English Dictionary, Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
• For groups of similar words together (these help you to see the difference between similar words):
  Longman Language Activator, Longman Lexicon. The Longman Language Activator helps you choose the right word or phrase to express your meaning, e.g. stumble/trip/collapse/fall flat on your face rather than just 'fall'.

Other reference material

These reference sources give extra information about what words normally go together:

• Wordpilot is a software writing tool that provides a huge amount of information about how English words are used in context. Its concordancer provides a lot of examples for each word (far more than in a dictionary), it also shows you word collocations , word frequency etc., allows you to make your own word lists, and can be accessed as you write your document. The program was designed at UST for Hong Kong Chinese learners of English, and is available on every PC on campus. Ask an Adviser for a demonstration if you want to find out more about its many features.
• COBUILD Collocations: on the CD-ROM Reference Station in the Reading & Writing Area.
• MicroConcord (see under Text Analyzer) and Monoconc (see under Autolang for Windows) are concordancers. You can find them on the PCs in the Video/Multimedia area (under Microsoft Windows).

Learning tips

Here are some tips for learning vocabulary for speaking or writing. You may already have your own method that works well for you. If so, that's great - stick with it. If not, you may like to try one of these:

• Read or listen as much as you can.
• Find lots of examples of how the words you want to use are used in context (use dictionaries, concordancers etc.). Learning common combinations of words or phrases will be very helpful for your speaking or writing.
• Read or listen to a lot of material on one topic (or a small number of topics). This helps you quickly become familiar with vocabulary on that topic. For example, for listening you can:
  • interview a number of fluent/advanced/native speakers for one or two minutes each on the same topic and record each conversation. You can then play back all the short recordings, noting the vocabulary used.
  • follow a major news story on the radio or TV over a period of time.
  • only listen to certain types of news story.
• Use diagrams to make connections between words that are associated together. See English Vocabulary in Use, unit 2 ('Vocabulary' shelf, Reading + Writing area); Learning to Learn English, pp. 35-37 ('Learning a Language' shelf, Audio area).
• Put the word you are learning into a sentence about you or what interests you at the moment. e.g. Categorise: I'm categorising the words into different topics.
• Ask an advanced/fluent speaker to check that your sentences are appropriate.
• Practise speaking or writing as much as possible.
• Check out the SAC computer catalogue for further techniques: choose Vocabulary under 'Language Skill', then Techniques for Studying Vocabulary.
• Read Chapter 7 of How to Learn a Language ('Learning a Language' shelf in the SAC Audio area).
• If you are not sure which words you should spend your time on, check out the Advice Sheet Deciding Which Words are Worth learning (V2).
• For tips about organising your learning so that it's systematic and you don't become overloaded, check out the Advice Sheet Organising Your Vocabulary Learning (V3).
• For tips about remembering words that you have learned, check out the Advice Sheet Remembering Vocabulary (V4).
• If you want to learn phrases or units of language that are longer than just one word, check out the Advice Sheet Learning Phrases or Idioms (V10).
• For tips on how to keep talking when you can't think of the right word, see the Advice Sheet Coping with Problems: Strategies for Speaking B (S3) and Learning to Learn English, p.39 ('Learning a Language' shelf, Audio Area).

N.B. The important thing is to find out what works/does not work for you and why. Do your methods help you to learn effectively? If not, what could you do that would help you learn more effectively?

If you do use an effective technique, please contact an Adviser or e-mail lcsac to let us know about it - we would like to hear from you!

Evaluating your progress

Here are some methods for checking on your progress that you may like to try:

• Keep records of your writing or speaking. (With speaking, you can tape-record your conversations.) Can you find evidence of progress? If not, try to focus on what is causing you difficulties.
• Keep a diary as you learn. Write down your feelings and comment on your progress as you go. This will help you to see evidence of progress and detect problems.
• Ask a fluent or advanced speaker or writer of English to check your speaking/writing. They will be able to comment on your performance or tell you if you have progressed after a period of time.
• Ask an Adviser on duty in the SAC for advice about evaluation.
• For more information, see the Advice Sheet Evaluating Your Vocabulary Learning (V5).

Need help or advice?

If you would like any help or advice, or just a chat about your progress, please get in touch - we are here to support your independent learning! This is how you can contact us:

• see an Adviser, on duty at the SAC Advice Desk;
• e-mail lcsac with your query
• ask at the reception counter of the SAC - if the receptionist cannot help you directly, s/he will pass your query on to one of the SAC advisers

Glossary

Antonym	A word that is opposite in meaning to another word.
Collocations	When two words often go together (i.e. one follows the other in speech or writing), they are said to collocate with each other. For example, an adjective that often collocates with rain is heavy. Heavy rain, therefore, is a collocation.
Concordancer	A computer program that searches through a large collection of texts and then lists all the examples of a particular word in context.
Connected speech	Fast, conversational spoken English ¾ i.e. the speaker does not stop to pronounce each word separately, but produces a ‘stream’ of sounds joined together.
Synonym	A word similar in meaning to another word.
Tapescript	The written text of a spoken audio or video recording. Tapescripts are available for most tapes in the SAC: ask at the SAC Office if you can’t find one for the audiotape or videocassette you are using.

Note
The introductory leaflet in this series is the leaflet Learning Vocabulary (V1).

This advice sheet is part of the Vocabulary series of leaflets supporting independent language learning, produced by the HKUST Language Centre SAC team. This leaflet written by Richard Pemberton, 1998. Version 1. If you copy from this leaflet, please acknowledge the source. Thanks. 

source:http://lc.ust.hk/~sac/advice/english/vocabulary/V8.htm

Lesson Nineteen ( RULES !!)

In this lesson we look at rules and how they affect our lives.

Lesson Sixteen ( Technology )

In this lesson we look at Technology and its effect on our lives. This lesson has been uploaded in "High Quality" for your enjoyment.

Lesson Thirteen ( Grammar! )

In this lesson we look at the hardest part of learning English...GRAMMAR!

Lesson Fifteen (SLANG)

In this lesson we look at English slang.

Lesson Fourteen (Body Language)

In this lesson we look at body language. With a little help from Mr Steve!

This lesson was first uploaded in February 2008 and has now been re-dubbed with different music. :-)

Learning English - LessonTen ( Fear ! )

(THIS IS THE NEW VERSION OF LESSON 10) Lesson 10 has been removed and is not available anymore. 

Lesson Nine ( F A M E )

In this lesson we look at fame and words connected with it.(Re-edited version)

Lesson Eight ( Friends )

Misterduncan talks about friends and friendship. He also say's hello to some of his online students in Spain! Thank you for watching...Chema and class in Murcia! :-)

Lesson Seven ( Health & Exercise )

Another short English lesson. Today we look at Exercise and Keep-Fit.

Lesson Six ( Office Words )

Stationery is a word which means small items and tools that are used within the office. For example..A pen or pencil and more commonly used to describe writing paper or exercise books.

Lesson Five ( Breaking News )

Another short video from Misterduncan. Giving good and bad news. Expressing shock and preparing someone for an unhappy surprise.

Lesson Four ( Idioms/Proverbs )

Today we listen to some "Idioms". Proverbial phrases,sayings and expressions are common in English.

Lesson 3 ( Saying "Thank you" )

Saying Thank you !

Lesson 2 - ( Accents )

Which is the best way to speak? American English or British English? The truth is that you do not have to sound like anyone! You create your own individual sound. As long as people can understand you, then that is all that matters.

Lesson 1 - Introduction

Misterduncan introduces lesson one! Why do we need English? (This is the original video lesson for what later became my series of English teaching videos)