Day 7 – Week 1 Resources

It is no secret that one of the best ways to practice your English is to get out and speak it, but what if you have no friends or family to help you practice. Meetups in your area are a great way to connect with people from around the world.

Most major cities host Meetup events on a daily basis. Check out the website and find a group that suits you. I know it can be a bit strange and scary to meet new people, but if you want to improve your English, you have to communicate.

You did a ton of work this week. Go back, read your notes, and listen to your answers. Try to answer the same questions again, focusing on just one or two weak points you would like to improve.

Check out the Nationality Pronunciation Guide. Find your native language and learn which sounds and parts of speech are most difficult for you.

First, try out the minimal pair practice and tongue twisters provided in the guide.

If you would like to take your practice one step further, do a Youglish or Google News search. Write down the examples you find and practice the pronunciation.

Activity #5: Voice Typing Check 

Each day this week, you were exposed to six different responses. Now, let’s have a bit of fun. Take the script and read it aloud while turning on the voice typing function in Google Docs (Docs → Tools → Voice Typing), there is also a keyboard shortcut (⌘+shift+s). When you are ready, start to speak and check whether it is picking up the same words.

Do not worry about getting this 100% right. There are things that voice typing gets wrong, even for native speakers. However, it is still a great way to get another judge for your speaking without meeting with a teacher.

If you do not have access to Google Docs, you can try Speechnotes as well.

One surprising thing about many Hollywood actors is that they are not American. Chris Hemsworth, Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, and many others play Americans in movies but are not American. To develop an American accent, they work with speech coaches for hundreds, maybe thousands of hours.

However, most importantly, they only need to have an accent for their lines in a movie. They do not have to learn every little thing about the American accent, they only have to say their lines well. Taking short lines from movies, TV shows, or even talk show interviews on Youtube is a great way to copy this method and condense the language.

Pick an actor or actress that you like (preferably with an American accent). Find a part in a movie they are in or a talk show they visited. Take a few lines of dialogue, write it out and try to shadow their voice.

You could take this one step further and identify the thought groups, stress, reduced sounds, and intonation in their speech.

Step by Step Guide to Better Pronunciation

“All right, here we are. Your Step-by-Step Guide to Pronunciation. We talk a lot about intonation, stress, reduced sounds, rhythm and flow, but you might have questions about specific pronunciation issues. You might have very specific sounds or words that you have trouble with…”

Top Down or Bottom Up

“Before I talk about these concepts, I have to make a confession: I’ve never been good at learning foreign languages. After six months of learning Japanese, I gave up. I guess the method wasn’t a good fit for me. I wasn’t involved in the process. That’s not how we learn. We learn from actively thinking, which is why I talk a lot about activity in this course…”

From One to Two Weaknesses

“Just a really quick announcement that we are going from one to two weaknesses and strengths. In your reflection part of the first section, when you respond, now you will say what are two strengths and two weaknesses. And, that is going to be the same when you work with Youglish. In the Explore section, you will look for two weaknesses instead of one…”

Speaking Spontaneously

“Here we are going to take another step in the right direction towards fluency. It is a slightly challenging activity, but something is really going to be helpful for you in improving your spoken English. It’s an activity called spontaneous speech. Be sure to check out the document that accompanies this unique activity…”