tips to improve spoken English
Prepare for small talk
Speaking English fluently is not just about making corporate presentations and giving long speeches. It is about expressing your views on the most mundane of things. How often do you meet a new person and face an awkward silence after the initial greeting because you don't know what to talk about? Worse, you may wish to initiate a conversation but may not be confident of putting something across correctly.
The ability to make small talk is very important in business and social conversations. Topics for casual conversation could include the weather, sports, current affairs, arts, hobbies, travel, etc. Read up on your area of interest and try framing sentences expressing your opinions. Talk about it with someone close to you so you can check for grammatical accuracy.
Then, gradually build up on your repertoire of conversational topics and start using them whenever you get a chance. Of course, when you talk, do not make it sound like a speech you have learnt by heart. Induce a casual tone and adapt to the occasion.
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Party networking etiquette
Make mistakes
Can you learn swimming by standing at the edge of the pool? You have to take the plunge, right? It is the same with language. Unless you use the language, you will never know how good you are at it.
Ask a few people close to you who are good at English to help. Make them interrupt you whenever you make a mistake and ask them to correct you. Be open to feedback. Do not be embarrassed to make mistakes, for that is the only way you will learn. That is how the process of acquiring fluency a language occurs. As a child, you may have made a lot of mistakes before getting a good grasp of your mother tongue. The only difference now is that you are conscious of the mistakes.
Books on grammar are a good supplement to strengthen your command over the language. The good old Wren and Martin for grammar and Word Power by Norman Louis for vocabulary should also help. A lot of web sites including
http://www.englishpage.com/" EnglishPage
http://www.grammarbook.com/" Grammar Book
http://www.better-english.com/exerciselist.html" Better-English etc will help you augment your skills.
Finally, all you need is a will to learn and the initiative to begin. That done, it is simply a matter of time and effort!
3 golden rules for effective communication
Have you been wondering how to put together an impressively-phrased Powerpoint presentation? Have you been wondering how to compose an e-mail that captures your strategies and goals effectively? It is time you did something about it.
As a young professional in today's global business world, it is imperative that you are competent in both oral as well as written communication.
Important forms of oral communication at the workplace include:
Building interpersonal relationships.
Giving presentations and debating viewpoints effectively.
You need to master oral skills for both in-person and over-the-phone interactions.
Similarly, important written communication includes:
Writing professional e-mails (sans SMS slang).
Putting together concise reports.
Creating visually powerful Powerpoint presentations.
And the key to acing oral and written communication is to spruce up your communication skills. And it is a lot easier than you think.
Here are some easy tips to do it on your own:
1. Improve pronunciation and diction
There are a few tricks to making a vernacular accent more globally understandable.
~ Try making sure that 'air' comes out of your mouth when saying the letters, 'T, P, K' and the sound 'Ch'.
~ Focus on elongating your vowel sounds. This will also automatically slow down your rate of speech.
~ Sing English songs out loud!
~ Watch news shows on channels like CNN and BBC.
~ The web site http://www.m-w.com" www.m-w.com is great for pronunciation help.
~ I would also suggest buying books on pronunciation and language that come with audio cassettes.
A good book that I found really useful was Better English Pronunciation by J D O'Connor. It is part of the Cambridge series, and some of those books come with cassettes.
2. Spruce up your writing skills
~ Believe it or not, you have to Read More!
~ Well-written magazines, like The Economist and India Today, are great to read not only to improve language skills but also to learn more about the world.
~ In terms of books, read what interests you. The basic goal is to read as much as you can. There are a plethora of good authors who are popular today. Some good writers whose language is easy to follow include Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri, Paulo Coelho, J D Salinger, Albert Camus and Roald Dahl.
~ People tend to forget basic grammar when writing e-mails. An e-mail is nothing more than a letter which is sent electronically.
Make sure salutations and content are professional. Use special phrases when attaching documents. For example, "Please find attached with this e-mail a report on..." This helps you sound professional.
3. Five exercises to practice every day!
i. Pretend you are a newscaster and read out the newspaper to your mirror.
ii. Do not read local newspapers. Focus on national newspapers.
iii. While reading a book, underline all the words you do not know. Look them up in the dictionary.
iv. Make a list of these words, and make sure you use at least five of them in a conversation during the day.
v. Most important, make an effort to speak in English to your friends and family.
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10 tips to improve the way you speak English
Part I: HYPERLINK "http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2005/sep/01accent.htm" \t "new"
Want to 'neutralise' your accent? Many deserving candidates lose out on job opportunities because of their vernacular accent.
Can I 'neutralise' my accent?
Yes, you can. All you need to do is train yourself to speak English as comfortably and perfectly as you speak your mother tongue.
How do you train yourself? By inculcating certain practices in your daily lifestyle. These will get you closer to sounding like a native English speaker and equip you with a global accent -- and you will speak not American or British English, but correct English. This is the first step to learn any other accent, be it American or British or Australian.
Lisa Mojsin, head trainer, director and founder of the Accurate English Training Company in Los Angeles, offers these tips to help 'neutralise' your accent or rather do away with the local twang, as you speak.
i. Observe the mouth movements of those who speak English well and try to imitate them.
When you are watching television, observe the mouth movements of the speakers. Repeat what they are saying, while imitating the intonation and rhythm of their speech.
ii. Until you learn the correct intonation and rhythm of English, slow your speech down.
If you speak too quickly, and with the wrong intonation and rhythm, native speakers will have a hard time understanding you. Don't worry about your listener getting impatient with your slow speech -- it is more important that everything you say be understood.
iii. Listen to the 'music' of English
Do not use the 'music' of your native language when you speak English. Each language has its own way of 'singing'.
iv. Use the dictionary.
Try and familiarise yourself with the phonetic symbols of your dictionary. Look up the correct pronunciation of words that are hard for you to say.
v. Make a list of frequently used words that you find difficult to pronounce and ask someone who speaks the language well to pronounce them for you.
Record these words, listen to them and practice saying them. Listen and read at the same time.
vi. Buy books on tape.
Record yourself reading some sections of the book. Compare the sound of your English with that of the person reading the book on the tape.
vii. Pronounce the ending of each word.
Pay special attention to 'S' and 'ED' endings. This will help you strengthen the mouth muscles that you use when you speak English.
viii. Read aloud in English for 15-20 minutes every day.
Research has shown it takes about three months of daily practice to develop strong mouth muscles for speaking a new language.
ix. Record your own voice and listen for pronunciation mistakes.
Many people hate to hear the sound of their voice and avoid listening to themselves speak. However, this is a very important exercise because doing it will help you become conscious of the mistakes you are making.
x. Be patient.
You can change the way you speak but it won't happen overnight. People often expect instant results and give up too soon. You can change the way you sound if you are willing to put some effort into it.
Quick tips
Various versions of the English language exist. Begin by identifying the category you fall into and start by improving the clarity of your speech.
~ Focus on removing the mother tongue influence and the 'Indianisms' that creep into your English conversations.
~ Watch the English news on television channels like Star World, CNN, BBC and English movies on Star Movies and HBO.
~ Listen to and sing English songs. We'd recommend Westlife, Robbie Williams, Abba, Skeeter Davis and Connie Francis among others.
Books to help you improve your English
Essential English Grammar by Murphy (Cambridge)
Spoken English by R K Bansal and J B Harrison
Pronounce It Perfectly In English (book and three audio cassettes) by Jean Yates, Barrons Educational Series
English Pronunciation For International Students by Paulette Wainless Dale, Lillian Poms