join the Toastmaster

People, who lived in US for long time, can understand English very well. The challenge for them is to speak to the point without mispronouncing key words in a short impromptu speech to collegues or bosses. The skills can not be acquired through watching TV/movies, reading books, or taking a speaking course. I have gone through all stops to improve my spoken English, I felt good a month or so after each stop, and I still made key mistakes when I talked instantly with my collegue, since the words learned have not been used in a public speech for awhile, pulling those words out in a hurry frequently ended up in the enbarassment for me. Later, I discovered Toastmaster club at my company. I can recited a joke or a word of day, or gave a prepared speech. I can ask other members to watch out certain errors in my speeches. My goal is to make as many a mistake within the club to train myself with the awareness of speaking outside of the club to avoid errors I usually made.

Once I started my weekly participation of the clubs, I used the feedbacks to gradually adjust myself. I have reached the stage that I can start to assimilate American Accent to further improve my spoken English.

Since you are in United States, joining Toastmatser club is an effective way to improve your confidence, listening skills, and speaking skills. Since this is a self-pace and self-study organization, you must actively follow the manuals and participate the club meetings. Before you join a club, you could vist a few club from your comany and your community, find one you feel confort to stay.

Here is the link to help you to find clubs nearby:
http://reports.toastmasters.org/findaclub/

If you progress into the stage to give a speech confidently, I would recommend the book of Lisa Mojsin's Mastering the Anaerican Accent" to listen to and practice the your prepared speech before you give it in a club. If you search youtube for Lisa Mojsin, you can have 4 short videos to get a peek of her accent reduction program.

If you do not find a place to speak, you cannot improve the spoken English, which is a hard lessson I learned.

所有跟帖： 

• Thank you for your sharing, SVCarrier. -mouse742008- ♀ (0 bytes) () 06/28/2009 postreply 18:02:48

• 英語視頻：American Accent - R sound 來源: svcarrier -美語世界- ♀ (1236 bytes) () 06/28/2009 postreply 18:20:01

• If you could pull all four videos like this, it will be helpful -svcarrier- ♂ (59 bytes) () 06/28/2009 postreply 19:42:19

• Thank you. I only found two more videos. -美語世界- ♀ (4934 bytes) () 06/29/2009 postreply 09:59:29

• Quite agree and very good experience sharing - 回複：join the Toast -billnet- ♂ (0 bytes) () 06/28/2009 postreply 18:49:37