English Conversation - Learn English Speaking : English course Part 2
Effective English speaking skills for beginners:
Did you try answering the questions in the previous part?
What was the English word he was looking for when he said portable bed?
What did he mean by the people in charge of looking after people that have had accidents?
Which of the Communication Strategies was he using in both cases?
Compare your answers with these:
The first word the Danish speaker did not manage to remember (or did not
know) was stretcher. The second was paramedics or ambulance crew. In
both cases he used paraphrase to resolve the problem.
Now let’s us go to
The second task
For this task you will need to have a partner you can speak to in English. (If you don’t
have someone you can work with face to face, , you could use web software such as Voxapop at http://www.voxopop.com/
Think of something special or unique about the culture of your region. It could be a sport, or a dish, or a piece of clothing, and so on. It is important that your partner is not familiar with the things you have chosen, because that means they will have to make an effort to understand you.
Describe it to your partner in English. When you find it difficult to find the right words,
use a communication strategy.
Conversational repair
A different sort of problem can occur when you are talking to someone and you use a word which they do not know or understand. The term covering the various ways in which this sort or difficulty can be resolved is conversational repair.
Again, we may need to use this sort of repair in own language, too. In fact, our next example involved two native speakers of English: A, an American woman visiting Edinburgh, and S, a local resident. A had asked S for advice on where she could go for a cycle ride.
To understand the problem, you need to know that cobbles (or cobblestones) is the name for the squared stones that you see in the older streets in Edinburgh, such as the Royal Mile.
Now read the conversation. What was the misunderstanding over the underlined question?
A: What about going down by the Firth of Forth?
S: That should be fun, shouldn't it? Yes, you could. You can ride right along the edge,
you know, without having to keep to the main road. That should be great, actually. You
could do that.
A: Is it very rough down there, though?
S: Well, there are no cobbles as far as I can remember. Have you tried riding on the cobbles?
A: No, but I was thinking rather more... rough in terms of the people.
S: Oh I see. Well, I don't think so. I don't know. Parts of it are quite poor, particularly the
Pilton area.
Source:
Tony Lynch and Kenneth Anderson, English Language Teaching Centre, University of Edinburgh 2012
Did you try answering the questions in the previous part?
What was the English word he was looking for when he said portable bed?
What did he mean by the people in charge of looking after people that have had accidents?
Which of the Communication Strategies was he using in both cases?
Compare your answers with these:
The first word the Danish speaker did not manage to remember (or did not
know) was stretcher. The second was paramedics or ambulance crew. In
both cases he used paraphrase to resolve the problem.
Now let’s us go to
The second task
For this task you will need to have a partner you can speak to in English. (If you don’t
have someone you can work with face to face, , you could use web software such as Voxapop at http://www.voxopop.com/
Think of something special or unique about the culture of your region. It could be a sport, or a dish, or a piece of clothing, and so on. It is important that your partner is not familiar with the things you have chosen, because that means they will have to make an effort to understand you.
Describe it to your partner in English. When you find it difficult to find the right words,
use a communication strategy.
Conversational repair
A different sort of problem can occur when you are talking to someone and you use a word which they do not know or understand. The term covering the various ways in which this sort or difficulty can be resolved is conversational repair.
Again, we may need to use this sort of repair in own language, too. In fact, our next example involved two native speakers of English: A, an American woman visiting Edinburgh, and S, a local resident. A had asked S for advice on where she could go for a cycle ride.
To understand the problem, you need to know that cobbles (or cobblestones) is the name for the squared stones that you see in the older streets in Edinburgh, such as the Royal Mile.
Now read the conversation. What was the misunderstanding over the underlined question?
A: What about going down by the Firth of Forth?
S: That should be fun, shouldn't it? Yes, you could. You can ride right along the edge,
you know, without having to keep to the main road. That should be great, actually. You
could do that.
A: Is it very rough down there, though?
S: Well, there are no cobbles as far as I can remember. Have you tried riding on the cobbles?
A: No, but I was thinking rather more... rough in terms of the people.
S: Oh I see. Well, I don't think so. I don't know. Parts of it are quite poor, particularly the
Pilton area.
Source:
Tony Lynch and Kenneth Anderson, English Language Teaching Centre, University of Edinburgh 2012
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