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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Teaching English overseas and Giving Speeches In English to speakers of other languages


Many people stand up and apologise for their poor English and everybody nods politely and protests and reassures that the speaker is just fine. But in some countries such as Singapore the speakers join clubs specifically to improve their English.
   Clubs could have an educational on clear speech. At the start of the year do an educational on pronunciation. See how many people have problems with each letter of the alphabet and each vowel. Give the club an evening rating on how many members and visitors need and/or would like help. Ask for volunteer mentors. Put people in pairs to practise vowels or consonants for three minutes. Bring them back and see if the club's rating has improved. Either congratulate them on progress or on identifying the problem and finding a helper. Tell them to keep up the good work.
   I once gave an evaluation on a speech and told a speaker it would be improved by props. She thanked me profusely. At the end of the evening I asked if she had any questions. She asked, 'What is 'a prop'?'
   We used her Chinese-English dictionary to find several translations, translated them back into English to find the correct translation in context.
   When I was teaching English, I spoke slowly. We used to have two translators standing by the whiteboard, one for Chinese, one for Malay or Hindi. They wrote translations whenever anybody raised their little finger to show they needed a word translated.

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