Listening comes before talking - a baby listens to her language 24/7 and so
should you! Soon you will hear correct forms and develop an 'ear' for what
is correct or not correct English. However, as you are an adult (yes?) you
do not have a decade to learn the language. Also babies have an advantage -
they have a LAD; language aquisition device - to quote Chomsky, a
psychologist interested in language development some years ago. (he wrote
some fascinating theories about language learning). You need to create short
'dialogues' with another person about a specific subject. Example: at the
doctors - describe your symptoms, describe parts of your body, feelings,
moods, use the past and present perfect to describe events leading to your
visiting the doctor. You will see you need a lot of information and most of
that is WORDS in a specific order. If you know lots of vocabulary then you
can explain in more detail. So they are most important. Spend time creating
mini-maps of words associated with each other. See how some prepositions go
with verb, noun, adjective patterns. Learn some phrasal verbs and feel
confident using them in conversations.
Learn as many of the irregular verb forms too - you will need them!
I also know of a good CD ROM produced by skysoftwarehouse.com called Active
Listening in English. They also make a few other good products such as
Phonetic chart and Similar Sounds practice. These will help you clarify your
listening accurately to spoken, natural English . The exercises are for
Pre-Intermediate speakers. If you can read and understand this email then
you can understand the CDs.
Hope that history lesson helps.
Take care,
Keep practising!
Kim.
"lite" <spam@somalia.sm> wrote in message
news:AsLMa.261$NW1.39703@news20.bellglobal.com...
> Hi there. I'm also struggling with the same problem. More than that I'm
also
> trying to
> improve my conversation skills which are very lousy.
>
> I use to listen to the news, all day editions. Even though most of them
are
> not that new in the evening, I end up understand them easier. I could say
> that I manage to learn them by heart. And you can hear a lot of words from
a
> broad field of subjects. You can carry a mini radio with you; there are
> plenty of news stations out there.
>
> Now I have a question of my own. How can I improve my conversation skills.
I
> know that I should talk a lot, but being not so comfortable and confident
I
> find it very hard to express myself.
>
> Thanks.
>
> gl
>
>
> "XiMo" <x_ximo@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3EFF54F7.3070303@hotmail.com...
> > Hello,
> > I'm from Spain. I'm trying to improve my oral english understading. I
> > can read english very well but its difficult for me the oral. I've tried
> > last week listen some online radios and watch channels like cnn and bbc
> > but I can understand only a few words.
> > I wonder if someone can tell some techniques or ideas to improve my oral
> > understanding. I will get tomorrow some dvd movies to watch them in
> > original version.
> > Thanks for any comment.
> >
>
>
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