Learning To Speak English

[a269652]

A lady I teach asked me after class today if I could recommend how she improve her speaking fluency & accuracy.

I told her to use the skills learnt in class & speak to her friends/ family/ work colleagues in English at every opportunity. She said that none of the aforementioned wanted to speak to her in English, which possibly is a sad reflection on Thai society in general.

What advice can I give her other than that which I did?

[toptuan]

Good advice.

A second-best suggestion would be to immerse themselves in English-language movies (via DVD/VCD soundtracks) and English-language TV (dual-languages broadcasts on Thai TV). Then mimic what they see & hear. I have a good Thai friend who speaks beautiful English learned primarily through this means. Pick up a lot of slang & idioms this way, too!

[a269652]

^ Thanks.

Is there anything particular online you can recommend that may be of some help?

She is at the intermediate level.

Edited July 17, 2006 by a269652

[sukhont]

I think u give her a good advices.

many Thais are shy to speak in English. my family and friend dont' speak with me in English as well. One of my English teacher teachs me like that as well coz it's the way to get more opportunity to use English.

so i change to watch TV, VCD, DVD and news in English version and repeat some sentenses after listening. recorder is still work too i think. just record when we speak and compared to the sentense that we hear from tape or CD.

there are many online metials.for example - http://englishtown.msn.co.th/sp/portal.aspx - a lot of speaking lesson.(sorry for refer to Thai version website)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learning...mar/index.shtml

normally i also listen to clip video about news via online to learn more vocabs.

If she is in a class, u can ask her to keep in touch with the class mates via using English.or keep in touch with u

most of Thais scared to speak English because they are stick with English tense and English gramma. just scare to make mistakes.

i went to study in Australia so i think finding opportunity to use English skills as much as we can is the best way. My teacher said just keep talking if it's wrong today. u remember and make the right one tomorrow.

Song is the best way to learn and it's fun.

sukhont

[farangsay]

I think TOPTUAN is giving good advice re DVD's etc

Talking to Thai friends may not help that much , depending on their level of English

I improved my French years ago by immersing myself in French TV , movies etc.

Also I adopted a very thick skin , not taking any notice when the locals sneered or

treated me like an idiot when I used my French.