Students learning English as a second language face a lot of barries to a satisfying conversation in English, that is why I, as their professor of FREE CONVERSATION I in San Martin University in Tarapoto, always ask them to bring realias in their classroom to create vivid conversations. The focus of this real situations is on learning by doing, making different mistakes, good mistakes, bad mistakes. Teachers should not pay attention to these mistakes, because the only important thing is speaking English, holding a good, deep, friendly conversations.
Students adore doing it and as you can see on the pictures they practice their conversations at the doctor's and then at the pharmacy establishing real communication and loosing their shyness to speak to the people next to them.
I want to give an advice to the teachers of free conversations in English:
LET YOUR STUDENTS SPEAK ENGLISH AND FORGET CORRECTING THEIR MISTAKES.
According to Howard Jackson and Etienne Ze Amvela in their book "Words, meaning and vocabulary" LEXICOLOGY may be defined as the study of lexis, undestood as the stock of words in a given language. Lexicology deals not only with sinple words in all their aspecs but also with complex and compound words, the meaningful units of language. Lexicology relies on information derived from MORPHOLOGY, the study of the forms and their components, and SEMANTICS, the study of their meaninfs. A third field of particular interest in lexicological studies is ETYMOLOGY, the study of the origins of words. We should not confuse lexicology with LEXICOGRAPHY, the writing or compilation of dictionaries, which is a special technique rather than a level of language study.
THE WORD
WORD is an uninterrupted unit of structure consisting of one or more morphemes and it occurs in the structure of phrases. THE MORPHEMES are the ultimategrammatical constituents, the minimal meaningful units of language.Foe example, the different forms of the verb SPEAK, SPEAKS, SPEAKING, SPOKE, SPOKEN are separate words grammatically. Now we should understand the difference between lexical ans grammatical words. LEXICAL WORDS are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. GRAMMATICAL WORDS are prepositions, articles, conjunctions, forms indicating number or tense. POLYSEMY refers to the situation where the same word has two or more different meanings. For example: BOARD 1. a long thin flat piece of cut wood. 2. a flat surface with patterns, used for playing a game on. 3. a flat piece of hard material used for putting food on. 4. the cost of meals. 5. a committee or association, as of company directors or gobernment officials, set up for a special responsibility.
HOMONYMY refers to a situation where we have two or more words with the same shape. In HOMONYMY we can differenciate HOMORGAPHS and HOMOPHONES. HOMOGRAPHS are the words with the same spelling but different meaning. For example: LEAD is a metal, LEAD is a dog's lead. HOMOPHONES are the words with different spelling but same pronunciation. For example: RIGHT and WRITE.
THE WORD
WORD is an uninterrupted unit of structure consisting of one or more morphemes and it occurs in the structure of phrases. THE MORPHEMES are the ultimategrammatical constituents, the minimal meaningful units of language.Foe example, the different forms of the verb SPEAK, SPEAKS, SPEAKING, SPOKE, SPOKEN are separate words grammatically. Now we should understand the difference between lexical ans grammatical words. LEXICAL WORDS are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. GRAMMATICAL WORDS are prepositions, articles, conjunctions, forms indicating number or tense. POLYSEMY refers to the situation where the same word has two or more different meanings. For example: BOARD 1. a long thin flat piece of cut wood. 2. a flat surface with patterns, used for playing a game on. 3. a flat piece of hard material used for putting food on. 4. the cost of meals. 5. a committee or association, as of company directors or gobernment officials, set up for a special responsibility.
HOMONYMY refers to a situation where we have two or more words with the same shape. In HOMONYMY we can differenciate HOMORGAPHS and HOMOPHONES. HOMOGRAPHS are the words with the same spelling but different meaning. For example: LEAD is a metal, LEAD is a dog's lead. HOMOPHONES are the words with different spelling but same pronunciation. For example: RIGHT and WRITE.
I am a professor in National University of San Martin in Tarapoto, I teach English phonetics and phonology.
An important purpose of the course is to explain how English is pronounced in the accent normally chosen as the standard for people learning English, and of course to present a general theory about speech sounds and how they are used in language, that is why this course we call ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY.
Students think that they will only practice listening and repeating English sounds through exciting and funny conversations but it's not true. It's important to explain to our students that it is necessary to learn theoretical background, because students need to understand the principles regulating the use of sounds in spoken English.
In any languse we can identify a small number of regularly used sounds (vowels and consonants) that we call PHONEMES.
Because of notoriously confusing nature of English spelling, it is particularly important to learn to think of English pronunciation in terms of phonemes rather than letters of the alphabet. We often use special symbols to represent speech sounds, using the symbols to represent each sounds, this we call TRANSCRIPTION.
After the phonemes of English, its important to teach to our students STRESS (the relative strength of a syllable) and INTONATION (the use of the pitch of the voice to convey meaning).
In STRESS we can differentiate WORD STRESS and SENTENCES STRESS.
In INTONATION we have RISING and FALLING INTONATION.
The best book I've found to teach ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION is English Phonetics and Phonology by Peter Roach (we can use this book to teach theory) and Ship or Sheep byAnn Baker.
An important purpose of the course is to explain how English is pronounced in the accent normally chosen as the standard for people learning English, and of course to present a general theory about speech sounds and how they are used in language, that is why this course we call ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY.
Students think that they will only practice listening and repeating English sounds through exciting and funny conversations but it's not true. It's important to explain to our students that it is necessary to learn theoretical background, because students need to understand the principles regulating the use of sounds in spoken English.
In any languse we can identify a small number of regularly used sounds (vowels and consonants) that we call PHONEMES.
Because of notoriously confusing nature of English spelling, it is particularly important to learn to think of English pronunciation in terms of phonemes rather than letters of the alphabet. We often use special symbols to represent speech sounds, using the symbols to represent each sounds, this we call TRANSCRIPTION.
After the phonemes of English, its important to teach to our students STRESS (the relative strength of a syllable) and INTONATION (the use of the pitch of the voice to convey meaning).
In STRESS we can differentiate WORD STRESS and SENTENCES STRESS.
In INTONATION we have RISING and FALLING INTONATION.
The best book I've found to teach ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION is English Phonetics and Phonology by Peter Roach (we can use this book to teach theory) and Ship or Sheep byAnn Baker.
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As I mentioned I was born in the USSR, exactly in Turkmenistan (before dissolution of the Soviet Union it was called Turkmenia).
Turkmenistan is a Central Asian nation. It shares borders with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Turkmenistan gained its independence in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Turkmenistan has a population of around six million people and it has a beautiful desert KARAKUM.
I adore my country Turkmenistan, but now I live in Latin America, in Peru, its an exotic country, it is characterized by different and spectacular traditions, cultures, food.
In 2007 I had an apportinuty to go to Moscow. The people who were born in the Soviet Union always considered Moscow as a capital for them. And I should mention that I was really impressed, because the capital of Russia kept its originality and it was the same as many years ago. I am really proud of being born in the Soviet Union.
On this picture you can observe the entrance to the RED SQUARE. You can see that Russian know how to keep their history, their monuments, their past.
Last year (in 2008) there was a food festival on Anniversary of Foreign Languages Department in National University of San Martin, Tarapoto. My students and I prepared national Russian food as PELMENI (something similar to ravioli) and BLINU (blinu are pancakes). They drew Matreshka (a typical Russian doll) and decorated with it and other typical things our stand. They also used a typical Russian clothes in that occation. It was really exciting to see them to participate in that festival. It was extremely new experience for them.
This opportunity the students of the first cicle of Escuela Profesional de Idiomas at National University of San Martin create a vivid conversation about a vacation they took and what they liked or didn't like about it. Past Simple, regular and irregular verbs, were implied in the conversation. I asked them to do this conversation outdoors because it could help them to improvise, lose shyness and be creative. They were happy to create their own dialogues outdoors because it gives them the opportunity to feel themselves in a real situation. It is always useful to ask students to learn some phrases and words related to the given topic before.
These are my funny and very talanted students. They can dance, sing songs and speak a little English.
First they were shy to speak and make some presentations in English, but later they tried to break the ice.
And I can tell you now that they are doing it nicely.