دروس مهارات التحدث اليومية

Hi Friends,
today we start our first Speaking lessons.
Let me start at some advice on:
Better English speaking skills


Improving your English speaking skills will help you communicate
more easily and effectively. But how do you become a more confident
English speaker?

Practise where you can, when you can. Any practice is good - whether you speak to someone who is a native English speaker or not.
It's important to build your confidence. If
possible, use simple English sentence structure that you know is
correct, so that you can concentrate on getting your message across.
Try to experiment with the English you know. Use words and phrases you know in new situations. Native English speakers are more likely to correct you if you use the wrong word than if you use the wrong grammar. Experimenting with vocabulary is a really good way of getting feedback.
Try to respond to what people say to you. You can often get clues to what people think by looking at their body language. Respond to them in a natural way.
Try NOT to translate into and from your own language. This takes too much time and will make you more hesitant.
If you forget a word, do what native English
speakers do all the time, and say things that 'fill' the conversation.
This is better than keeping completely silent. Try using um, or er, if you forget the word.
Don't speak too fast! It's important to use a
natural rhythm when speaking English, but if you speak too fast it will
be difficult for people to understand you.
Try to relax when you speak - you'll find your
mouth does most of the pronunciation work for you. When you speak
English at normal speed, you'll discover that many of the pronunciation
skills, such as linking between words, will happen automatically.
Remember, when speaking English…


Try to become less hesitant and more confident.
Don't be shy to speak - the more you do it, the more confident you'll become.
Remember to be polite - use "please" and "thank you" if you ask someone to do something for you.

Hi,
today our lesson is on
English Greetings

First impressions are important, so here's a guide to using the right expression.
Greetings



Two friends meeting
Friends often say "Hi" to each other. Then they often ask a general
question, such as "How are you?" or "How are things?" or "How's life?"
The reply to this question is normally positive.
"Fine thanks, and you?"
"Fine thanks, what about yourself?"
"Not bad." Or "Can't complain."
Greeting people you don't know
You can use "Hello" with people you don't know, but a more formal greeting is "Good morning / afternoon / evening."
The other person normally replies with the same greeting as you have
used and then makes polite conversation, such as "How was your trip?"
or "Did you find our office easily?"
Introducing yourself



At an informal party
"Hello, I'm Maria." Or "Hello, my name's Maria."
The reply could be:
"Hi, I'm Sarah." Or "Hello Maria, I'm Sarah." Or "Nice to meet you, I'm Sarah."
At work-related events
"I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Maria, from english@home."
Or, "Let me introduce myself. I'm Maria from english@home."
The reply could be:
"Nice to meet you. I'm Peter Mitchell, from Mitchell Creations."
"Pleased to meet you. I'm Peter Mitchell, from Mitchell Creations."
"How do you do? I'm Peter Mitchell from Mitchell Creations."
Introducing other people



Introducing a friend to a work colleague
"Sarah, have you met my colleague John?"
"Sarah, I'd like you to meet my colleague John."
Sarah says:
"Pleased to meet you, John." Or "Nice to meet you, John."
John could say:
"Nice to meet you too, Sarah." Or "Hello, Sarah."
Introducing clients
"Mr Mitchell, I'd like to introduce you to my manager, Henry Lewis."
Mr Mitchell could then say:
"How do you do?" and Henry Lewis also says "How do you do?"
Or Mr Mitchell could say:
"Pleased to meet you." Or "Good to meet you."
Speaking Tip


"How do you do?" is quite formal for British English speakers and the reply to this question is to repeat the phrase, "How do you do?" (as strange as that may sound!)
At a more informal party
When you introduce two of your friends to each other, you can simply say, "John, this is Sarah."
Cultural considerations


At work, one person may have higher status - your boss, or a client,
for example. It's polite to address them as Mr / Ms until the situation
becomes more informal.
If someone says, "Please call me (Henry)", you know you can use
first names. If someone uses your first name, you can use their first
name too.
People in European and English-speaking cultures often shake hands when they meet someone for the first time.
* Don't forget to smile! :-)

Hi,
Today we talk about better pronunciation
Improving your English pronunciation


Here are some tips to help you improve your English pronunciation.
First of all, don't worry about not having a native-English accent.
It's important to be able to speak clearly, so that people can
understand you. However, it's almost impossible to sound exactly like a
native English speaker if you are learning English as an adult in a
non-English speaking country.
However, there are many things that you can do to improve your pronunciation and your speaking skills.
1. Listen to spoken English as often as possible.
Listen to how speakers pronounce various words and phrases and "model" your pronunciation on what you hear.
2. Learn the phonetic alphabet.
Use the phonetic alphabet page (at the beginning of most good dictionaries) as a guide to pronouncing new words.
OR
Go to my site
[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]
linguistics menu >> phonetics
and download the audio and pdf files

3. Don't forget to learn the word stress of a new word.
Every English word has its own stress, or intonation. For example,
the word "believe" has two syllables (be and lieve), but only the
second syllable is stressed. We say be'lieve and not 'be lieve. Your
dictionary will show the syllable stress by an apostrophe (') before
the syllable to be stressed.
Word stress is important. In fact, it is more likely that someone
misunderstands you because of wrong word stress than because of the
wrong pronunciation of a sound.
4. Work out which sounds cause you most problems in English.
Depending on what your first language is, you may have problems with
certain sounds. For example, French speakers have difficulties with
"th"; speakers of Mandarin have difficulties with "r" or "l", and
Arabic speakers have difficulties with "p" and "b".
5. Practise the sounds you find difficult.
A useful exercise is a "minimal pair" exercise. For example, if you
have difficulty distinguishing between "p" and "b", try practising
pairs of words which are the same except for the sound "p" and "b":
For example, "pair" and "bear"; "pond" and "bond"; "pie" and "buy" etc.
6. Be aware of intonation and sentence stress.
Not all words in a sentence have equal stress, and generally only the "information" words (nouns and verbs) are stressed.
'Where's the 'pen I 'gave you?
'Where's the 'red 'pen I 'gave you?
Where's the 'red and 'blue 'pen I 'gave you 'yesterday?
The unstressed words (such as "the", "I", "you" and "and") don't
carry as much "weight" as the stressed words. They become much smaller
in length, and are almost abbreviated. For example, "and" becomes "un".
Changing stress
Sentence stress isn't "fixed" like word stress. In fact, you can
stress words that are normally unstressed in order to highlight
different meanings.
For example:
I 'love you. (Love, rather than just like.)
'I love you. (With the stress on I to highlight that it's me rather than another person who loves you.)
I love 'you. (And nobody else.)
Intonation
There are a couple of easy to remember rules about intonation.
Usually our voices go up at the end of the sentence to show a question,
and down at the end to show a statement.
Intonation is also important in "tag questions":
You know him, don't you? (With rising intonation on "don't you?" to show it's a question)
You know him, don't you. (With falling intonation on "don't you" to
show it's a statement you expect the other person to agree with.)
7. Learn to recognise spelling patterns.
For example, "tion" on the end of a word is pronounced "shun", while
"sion" can be pronounced "zhun". There are often many ways to pronounce
a particular spelling pattern, but it certainly helps to know what the
variations are. For example, the pattern "ough" can be pronounced "uff"
as in "enough" and "tough", or "or" as in "ought" and "bought" or "oh"
as in "although" and "dough".
8. Don't rush.
If you speak too fast, the danger is that you could skip over some
words, fail to pronounce them completely, or mix them up. If you speak
too slowly, you might end up sounding unnatural. But it's better to
speak slowly and clearly than too quickly.