Speaking class and the Role-play as midterm test

We had to spend all of our time to prepare not only for Reading mid-term tests but also for the role-play of Speaking. And at the end of the day, everything seemed to be comfortable and relaxed. Today was so wonderful! I could see the effort of everybody through our tests. Just several lines, but I would like to give my own opinions about what we got during speaking class.

The first thing I would like to say is that speaking class helps me to have more functions to use in practise. I have functions used to speak with the older, friends, colleages, ... I can apply them for either many formal or informal situations. Functions show me how to interrupt the speakers politely and not to make them feel insulted, or how to avoid a topic which is rather related to someone's private life cleverly.

The second is that I can feel more confident. Many role-plays is like many chances for me to practice English. In particular, I can improve my English vocabulary, my skills in solving various situations, my ability in using functions that I have just learned properly. Most students have a fear of speaking in front of the audience, and I am not the exception :) However, speaking skills, you know, are very important in world communication, especially in our future career.

Whenever our group has to perform any role-plays, I am also scared. I'm scared that I will forget all the things I was allocated to say. I'm scared that I won't say influently. Everything sometimes does not go in right way, and I'm scared that I cannot react suitably. Of course those will affect the result of our group. In speaking class, even though you're afraid, you still have to speak, or perform role-play. It gives you the chance to deal with your own fear and shyness. Through these chances, you find yourself more self-confident, more active in many activities. From my point of view, that is also the main aim of speaking class.

Besides helping you in using suitable functions and being more confident, the speaking class moreover gives you enthusiasm in what you learned, are learning, and will learn. Speaking class is interesing itself. It encourages the speaker to find the best way to express her/his ideas so that you can improve your grammar and pronounciation. Speaking with influence, confidence, good grammar and an important thing - good pronunciation is always the dream of many people when enrolling speaking class. Due to speaking class, you spend more time to prepair for the lesson, for the presentation, for roleplays. Unintentionally, you prepare for your pronunciation as much as the grammar so that everybody can easily understand what you're saying. It's convenient!

For all things, you can see the effectiveness of speaking. Hope that you and I will try to reach its last goal!

* * *

Now, our group have some opinions about the roleplays, which were hold today and were also our mid term test, to share with you

I could see very clearly that all of you tried your best to act, and your performances were actuall exciting. They made us so suprised.

F5 had an interesting situation which related much to our day life. It was funny and easy to understand, and it also included various functions. One more thing, we really appreciate the show of Quynh, the mother-in-laws. She gave us an excellent performance.

The situation of Happy Family was quite good. They used many different functions. But there is one weak point: They all just stand in one fixed place so sometimes it made the audience a little bit bored while watching.

Vivavietnam has a good scenario, but at the end of the perfomance, their voices became a little bit lower so the audience found it hard to follow.

3 snakes and 1 cat also made interesting situation. They expressed their emotion very well. One more thing, the pronunciation of some members was extremely wonderful!

The robbery bank of All4one seemed to lead us to a real robbery. Although some of your members had some mistakes in pronunciation, it still made us feel enjoyable. But in our own opinion, it might have been more surprising and interesting if you had let the police be the robber's accomplice ^^ hehe

And the last group, Born to Shine, I'm sure that all of you were born to shine ^^ can see very clearly that everyone in your group prepared carefully for this roleplay, and you acted sucessfully.

All things above are just our own opinions. If you want, share your ideas with us by your comments. Thanks ^^

_. Nha Trang ._

[ editted a little by Bee hihi ]

Our experience from the Presentation with Power Point

Maybe we are the last group which has the review for the mid-term presentation last Wednesday ^^

Frankly saying, I don't intend to analyze carefully our mistakes when presenting in this entry, 'cuz I personally think that every of us can realize what we should avoid and what we should pay more attention to develop after attending the show and reading many blog entries written by other groups in our class.

I just wanna write down my own experience after doing this task, I mean, group presentation with power point.

The truth is when I heard Mr.Speaking said that one part of our midterm tests was presenting with power point, I felt a little anxious although this was not the first time I had to stand in front of the class and present with this program +__+ The reason for my anxiety is that we don't have enough time and enough chances to get together and discuss the project with each other at school, 'cuz we come to class at 6.30 and leave at 11.30; after that, almost all of us feel tired and just wanna go home for having lunch and taking a nap then. All we can do is just dividing our work logically into 4 small parts for 4 members in group. And another important reason is that not all of us has a personal computer at home. At first, our group considered this must be the main problem 'cuz doing like that, we counldn't unify our ppt file :((


blah blah blah

...



' What happened after that? What is actually the problem? Or you are making up something just to say? '


One of my friends asked me those questions above when I asked him what I should continue to write :">

Yeah, sorry for exaggerating the difficulties of our work, but they were not sth I made up myself ^^ Actually, our group had some troubles with this project at first, but they were not big problems. We all tried our best to arrange to finish it as perfectly as we could ^^

Doing this assignment not only helps us to improve our speaking skills and put aside our shyness when presenting in front of the class but also helps us to master the new technology which must be useful for our career in the future. I have to admit that I haven't done anything related to power point since I was in grade 11, so when being back to deal with this program, I had to learn again every little thing, such as how to insert a picture, or how to add animations, ect. I used to think it was so terrible to find out step by step such normal things like these, but then, it really made me feel interested :D

We find that our classmates' pictures in our powerpoint presentation is another interesting thing :D Like every other group, we were very confused about the appearance and the content of the slideshow. We also wanted it to be informative, artistic and easily comprehensible as well. And then, I realized that 4 people with 4 crazy brains is much better than just 1 person with his own brain ^^ If this had been an individual work, I would have never thought to change the lessons and their examples into such funny pictures and situations like that :"> And our group was very pleased to hear that almost of you were interested in our ppt file ^^

What's more, I am sure to say that it helps us much to work better with our teamates and to understand the potentials of each other more thoroughly. For example, I had never known that Nha Trang was such an expert in Photoshop until I saw her treat some low-quality pictures :D And I also hadn't noticed that Bi' and Hien were always fond of taking various kinds of pictures :))

In brief, this helps us a lot to become more confident in such tasks in the future ^^

***

All above is just our group's experience which we really want to share with you. And if you like to view our ppt file once again, you can go to this link [ ~ 20mb ] and download it. But please ask us if you want to use it for any purposes ^^ Thanks !

_. Bee ._

Oxygen

Oxygen

You touch my skin
Change the mood I'm in
Teach me how to fly
Just by looking in my eyes

Every word you say
Sets my heart on fire
Every move you make
Takes me higher

I get so high up here
When I touch the sky
It hurts me when I breathe
I need oxygen

Whenever you are near
I can hardly speak
It hurts me when I breathe
I need oxygen
I need oxygen
I need

Suddenly
Suddenly I see
How great my life can be
Sailing in the wind

With you my love
Every day is brighter

I get so high up here
When I touch the sky
It hurts me when I breathe
I need oxygen

Whenever you are near
I can hardly speak
It hurts me when I breathe
I need oxygen
I need oxygen
I need

With you my love
Everyday is brighter

So sweeeeettt song :x :x :x Hope you like it :x

But don't leave any komments here, plz. This song is just for you to relax ^^

Keep your komments for our up coming entry ^^

Ending conversation

Link for the pic

You make phone calls every day, at least one call a day? You start your calls with 'Hi, How are you?' ?... But how about the way to end your phone conversations?

I would like to tell you some functions used in this situation :


+ If you made the call, repeat why you called with I just wanted to...:
I just wanted to call and hear your voice :D

+ If the other person called, thank him/her for calling:
I'm really glad you called.

+ Say you have to go because something is happening:
I'd better go.
There's someone at the door.

+ If you expect to speak to or see the person again, mention when:
Ok, I'll call you again next week.
Ok, see you on Thursday.

+ At the very end of the conversation, use an expression for goodbye:
Goodbye.
See you later.



Here are some ways to end a telephone conversation. I hope they can help you avoid the sentence Hey, I have to stop here, my phone account is running out [ of course, we are students ^^ ].

----- Bi' -----

Ways to give comments or to interrupt

In our class, Mr.Binh has shown us many useful functions that we can apply. Today, our group would like to introduce some more in order that we can use to make our speaking more diversified.



1. Commenting:

If you want to give your comment, the best way you should do is acknowledging what someone has just said, and then stating your own idea. Some phrases such as:

That's interesting. I think that...
Interesting point. I would add...
Hmmm. I hadn't thought of that before.

Questions can also be a useful way of bringing new ideas into a conversation:

What do you think about...
Have you considered...
What about...

Sometimes a more direct approach is appropriate:

Can I add something here?
(Do you) mind if I interject something here?



2. Interrupting:

When someone is speaking, it's impolite if you don't know how to interrupt appropriately. Use some of these:

Excuse me,
Pardon me,
Sorry to interrupt,
May I interrupt (for a minute)?
Can I add something here?
I don't mean to intrude, but . . .
Could I inject something here?
Do you mind if I jump in here?



I hope this post can help you have more ways to express your speaking suitably.

Thanks for reading ^^

[eslgold.com]

.: Nha Trang :.

Lessons from Speaking class

It has been nearly a week since we learned the speaking lesson of how to give our own opinions, how to agree or disagree with someone :D To understand more, you can click these below links and feel free to leave comments ^^

More expresssions on stating and response an opinion

How to agree with an opinion

Giving opinions, agreeing and disagreeing

Improve your Speaking skills !!!

Debating method

For me, lessons I could gain from the Speaking class last week were not only the ways how to express my own opinions but also the way how to care about every problem happening to our country or even our world.

I will not forget the feeling I had when Teacher asked me what I thought about the obesity nowadays. Frankly speaking, I had nothing to say about this problem at that time bcuz I didn't use to really care of it. What a shame :">

I myself feel that Mr.Speaking was right to say that we should care more about what was happening on the daily news and we should prepare for ourselves some fixed knowledge and some points of view to use in case we could be asked. Without doubt, being able to show exactly what you think about a problem in a debate can affirm your respectability in others' thought :D

After the last class, I think I should pay more attention to what is happening on the news or TV everyday ^^ I don't like to be thought that I am a cold person who don't care about anything around me :">

_. Bee ._