Well – let’s start with just 2! This young person is fluent in 11 langauges. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17107435 OK so he is a student! – but how did he do it? Watch the clip. Living in a community helps. (Learning in context). He also talks about learning songs. Most of you are learning three languages. Is it impossible? Not if you find the right method and love what you do!
As you sit on the MTR, you can play games or watch silly YouTube videos – even music. This will help you to relax. Another possibility is to link in to some useful lessons for English. Two I saw in a recent newsletter are:
Rachel’s English and
English with Jennifer
There are lessons on pronunciation as well as grammar. These will reinforce what you learn in class. Looking at something once is not learning it. You need to go back over vocabulary as well as key pronunciation. A little bit every day will make a huge difference.
During the first cycle, many classes watched this video :
In groups, you wrote down the tricks you could remember. We discussed why this task was difficult. Important things we noted were:
1. In the Speaking exam, it is important to pay attention to what the others are saying. Do not sit there thinking about what you are going to say next.
2. VOCABULARY is very important. If you don’t know the words, it can be hard to say anything. If you are taking too long to think of a word, it will effect your fluency.
3. Spelling doesn’t matter in the Speaking exam. Your notes should be short and readable.
4. Get over your bad HABITS. Habits are things we do regularly and often without thinking. Make sure the habits you have for your speaking exam are good ones.
You can find some comments about the Form 6 speaking exam here: final exam 2011 comments Form 6 Oral.
It was great to hear the range of ideas you all had on the topics discussed. This report does focus on areas for improvement. Many of these are similar to the areas we looked at after the first exam. You must take note of this when doing discussions in the future. Make sure you do some speaking / listening everyday.
Go to http://skhsslmc67.edublogs.org/ for examples of short activities you can complete. Also, do the the summer assignment tasks which will include taping and uploading a presentation.
You can also leave comments on current issues – or comment on the comments of others by going here : http://skhsslmc2talk.edublogs.org/
At this site, you can find many talks on some curent topics and great ideas. AND …. the talks have subtitles in English. Many are also subtitled in Chinese.
Start by looking at this one about “English Mania“. You can watch here, but to get the subtitles, you must watch it on the TED site. (click the link English Mania“.)
1. Watch the video WITHOUT subtitles. Try really hard to listen to the words and understand.
2. Watch the video again – WITH subtitles. Be aware of the words you missed before.
3. Watch the video again – this time with Chinese subtitles. Take note of any important words you didn’t know when you watched the first two times.
Choose two words to learn really well – definitions, related words, pronunciation! We will discuss some of these next year in class. Think about them now and the class discussion will be so much easier!
And while we are on the subject of English, if you missed the Pearl Report on June 27 about English in Hong Kong, you can catch it here : http://programme.tvb.com/news/pearlreport/episode/ along with other past episodes that will develop your knowledge about many things in Hong Kong!
mmmm. . . . . maybe not “fun” though some of the links do have some fun. So – to improve your speaking (especially fluency) during the holidays, there are some activities posted on the Form 6 / 7 blog. (just click the link!) There are 4 main areas which will also help to develop your listening, reading and writing skills (especially by developing ideas and vocabulary!)
Do a little bit every day and you will be amazed at how much your speaking will improve.
Giant Speaking game: This is one of the games developed for use on English Speaking day. It was a good chance to have some fun through charades and tongue twisters as well as 30 second speaking challenges.
The clip art for the mats came from: http://www.phillipmartin.info/ it is brilliant. There’s a great range and it added life to the activity.
We were able to keep fit as well as doing lots of speaking in English.
For English Speaking Day, students watched the video “We’re all in this together” – then wrote their own message on their passport and shared this with others including their teachers and the English Ambassadors. It was great to hear so much about what everyone sees as really important. There was a lot of “English Speaking” happening and many prizes were collected.
amazing ……
We’re all in this together