I watched Mao’s Last Dancer after having read the book and thought it was a good movie.
The book was fantastic – inspirational for people wanting to achieve a dream.
If you have a dream and you are getting a bit frustrated at seeing any tangible results, watch this movie or read the book. It is bound to inspire you to keep focusing on what you want until you have it!
Listening to MP3s is a quick and efficient way of learning to speak English naturally and quickly. It does not require long hours of study. It requires short, intensive study through listening and speaking. This method is similar to actually living in an English speaking country. You get to hear natural English everyday and then you can start to practice the sentences, idioms and phrases that you hear. However, there are some key things that you need to do for maximum success:
1. The conversations should be short (no longer than 4 minutes on a given topic)
2. The conversations need to be real-life and authentic, just as if they were spoken by native speakers
3. You should be able to read the conversation you hear so that you can become familiar with it before listening
3. You need to listen to the same conversation as often as possible, over and over again until you feel confident that you know it well
4. You can add conversation after conversation on topics you enjoy
You should begin to see results after one week and amazing results after one month if you are consistent.
The best time to listen is when you wake up and just before you go to sleep.
You can walk around with conversations playing through your earphones all day if you want! If you want to try it, I can send you MP3′s and the written conversations (transcripts) to try.
Contact me now to receive free audios and conversations.
It is good to use a textbook when you are learning. Textbooks I would recommend are:
1. Cutting Edge
2. Total English
3. Headway
These texts have online resources that you can use online. If you want to practice speaking live with someone, find a friend who is also learning English on skype or find an English speaker to help you.
TED Talks Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.
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It’s really exciting talking to people live around the world through skype! Skype have really improved their service and it really is just like talking to people right next to you. In the last few days I have spoken to people in Greece, Japan and the USA who are wanting to coach or learn spoken English.
Here is a humorous example of understandable spoken English with a Pacific Island accent. You would also need to understand a bit about Pacific Island life in South Auckland, New Zealand to understand the joke and you would best get that from living in the country! See if you can work out what is being said and what it means…
One day Sione was cudding the grass when all of a sutten da
ampulance went going by. Sione straight aways drop his
sapelu and run after da ampulance.
Da ampulance driver look to his side mirror and see a man in
a lafalafa running after him. Afraids for his live becos he
was in Otara’s, da ampulance tryver stepped on da cass.
His ampulance go very, very farce. But Sione farce too.
Sione loose one chandal, but he keep runnings, Sione’s
lafalafa starting to falling downs but he keep runnings.
Da ampulance tryfer look in da side mirror and he is amaze
dat da man wiff da falling down lafalafa and one chandal is
not giffing up!
Da ampulance dryfer is now concern finkings Sione chase him
because he need medical asistance. Sione, was please to see
the ampulance was stoppings for him.
About 3 minute later, Sione catch up to da ampulance.
The ampulance dryfer open da backs toor and say to Sione,
“What is da matters? You needs help?
Sione with his hands on his knees, buffing like hell looks
at da ampulance tryfer and say. “I haff da one snow-cone
wiff da chocolate flakes
What is the first goal that a second language learner of English should aspire to? Is it being able to speak exactly like a native speaker of English or being understood in English?
It takes years of practice to sound like a native speaker and you would need to immerse yourself in the language. The easiest way to do this is to live in an English speaking country, live with an English speaking family and “hang out” with English speaking friends. What is more achievable is to be able to speak English well enough to be easily understood by any English speaker whether they come from the USA, England, Australia, or New Zealand. The key to communication is being able to express yourself so that you are understood and being able to listen to a range of accents and understand what is being said.
That’s why it is important for you to speak to a range of different native English speakers from different English speaking countries, from different backgrounds, ages, and interests. Once you are used to a certain teacher and their native spoken English, try your skills with another teacher.
Having a variety of English speakers to converse with will greatly assist your English and this is the most natural way to learn. You will, with consistent practice, begin to speak more naturally and make yourself understood. This is a far easier goal to reach when you are learning English than spending hours trying to pronounce words and sounds exactly like a native speaker. However, you will probably find that your pronunciation will naturally increase anyway especially if you practice regularly with English speakers.
So a few weeks ago, the newest blog from Digital Maori: Hori 3.0 was created by our CEO, Potaua Biasiny-Tule of TangataWhenua.com. In it Potaua mentioned the interesting parallels between Maori and the Na’vi, the people from the block-buster 3D movie Avatar by James Cameron (director of Titanic).At the heart of the similarities were the [...]
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Don’t put off tomorrow what you can do right now. If you really want to accelerate your English then you need to consider:
1. Speaking every day by yourself, with friends or with anyone who will practice with you
2. Speaking with native speakers on a range of topics as often as possible
3. Watching and listening to English movies and videos
4. Learning English at a language school or through a good language software programme
5. Reading and writing in English on a range of topics that interest you
6. Singing in English to songs where you know the lyrics
7. Having fun while you are learning and not being afraid to make mistakes
You really get to understand a language by using it as much as possible in a range of different situations!
News and gossip from The Hobbit movies. Keep up to date with what’s happening during the making of The Hobbit movies.
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