如何学好英语英文版Word文档格式.docx

1、How to improve your English skillsActually,the essay comes from Google In English ,if you like it ,then enjoy it.Those are good suggestions. A good English class is a valuable means for acquiring and practicing English, but still the reality is that much of your progress will arise from your own sel

2、f-study strategies. As a teacher for close to 10 years now, I am often asked for advice on how best to self-study English for fast results. I suspect sometimes my students are looking for that magic shortcut or panacea1 which can deliver them from all the blood, sweat, and tears that often surrounds

3、 the process of learning a second language. There is, of course, no magic, but on the other hand, there may also be no need to engage in self-torturous2 activities that drain3 your energy. Part of the self-torture that students inflict upon themselves results from misconceptions formed along the way

4、. I would like in this article to discuss a few of these misconceptions and offer some alternative advice for self-studying English. A.H. Whitehead once said, not ignorance but the ignorance of ignorance is the death of knowledge. In other words, it is important to understand misconceptions before t

5、hey inhibit your self-study. Misconception If I communicate with a Chinese partner, my English will get worse. There is a common perspective here in Beijing that the only way to improve your English is by speaking with a native speaker. It stems from the perception that speaking to another second la

6、nguage learner has a negative effect, since the partner speaks Chinglish. Consequently, many desperately look for native-speaking partners, some paying a small fortune for the luxury of speaking with inexperienced expatriates4 who do little more than chat. Worse yet, opportunities to speak regularly

7、 with a Chinese partner at little or no cost are ignored out of fear. In short, the native speakers English craze is somewhat synonymous with the chinglishphobia5. The view that communicating with another student somehow damages your English rests on the age-old, erroneous6 assumption that language

8、acquisition is a linear progression, with the native speaker at the top of the hierarchy7. Perhaps native speaker teachers are guilty of feeding this perception by labeling courses, students, textbooks sequentially in terms of levels （i.e. beginner, pre-intermediate, intermediate etc）; in the arrang

9、ement of grammar structures from simple to complex; and in reading and listening passages selected by the number of words they contain （i.e. easy, moderate, difficult）。 Linguists who have studied the actual process of learning a second language know that developing a second language is * anything bu

10、t8 a linear process. It can follow patterns and steps but these steps and patterns frequently break down. Language learning often progresses randomly and chaotically9. We sometimes progress rapidly, at other times we learn slowly, there are areas we seem to master easily, and areas in which we never

11、 seem to * make any headway10. Sometimes the words and sentences come easily; sometimes they do not. Moreover, when we talk about the quality of English we must be prepared to acknowledge that it is very much a subjective and contextual evaluation. We know that formal standard professor may find her

12、 English very effective in front of her peers, but * next to11 useless with inner city teenagers in New York. Therefore, can we still say that her English is better than the teenagers? Obviously, it would depend on who was judging. With English, quality is often an issue of appropriateness as well a

13、s grammaticality. Researchers who have studied English language learning have found that people progress as they practice, and ultimately they self-correct what they say. It is unnecessary to have someone correct your English constantly, because mistakes most often derive from a lack of English inst

14、incts rather than a lack of awareness or knowledge of the correct grammar structure. The same student who never makes a mistake doing grammar exercises on paper will make them while speaking but ultimately he will adjust his structures as he continues to use them. Moreover, researchers who have cond

15、ucted studies of various groups of learners have found that learners who communicate with partners of a similar level tend to progress faster than learners whose partners levels are much higher or lower. One can understand why this is so when a learner communicates with someone at a lower level, but

16、 why is it also true of those who communicate with someone at a higher level? The reasons are mostly psychological. Having a partner whose English is much more developed discourages the speaker and the fear of making mistakes tends to stifle smooth conversation. However, the researchers found that t

17、hose who communicated with partners who were near their own level progressed faster. Thus, in fact your classmate who is at the same level of English as you may indeed be your finest teacher. Misconception If I want to learn American English, I should learn form an American teacher or my English wil

18、l not be understood when I go to the U.S.A. I have seen many good teachers here in China, both expatriates and Chinese, run into problems because of the way many students judge their accents. Students believe that the best chance of speaking like a native speaker is by having that ideal accent. If t

19、he teacher has an accent that is not form the target country that certain students want to go to, they are either rebuffed12 or rejected. Part of the misconception stems from ignorance of the distinction between pronunciation and accent. Pronunciation involves the stress, rhythm, intonation, and pho

20、netic sounds that facilitate communication. An accent is the distinguishable set of sounds that derives from cultural or regional phonetic patterns. Accents are essentially habits formed at a very early age and very difficult to change after the age of six. This has been verified13 by researchers wh

21、o studied the tongue and mouth positions of Israeli children at an early age of 5-6, and find that even after heavy immersion14 in American English for about 10 years, their mouth and tongue positions change very little when speaking, and thus their accents change only slightly. In other words, forg

22、et about trying to change your accent in a year or two, it is just not going to happen. Pronunciation can be changed and improved. Accents are entrenched15 and need not be changed. There is no shortage of superb English speakers and writers in my native country, Canada, who have excellent pronunciat

23、ion, but heavy accents from their countries of origin. In fact, two great Indo-Canadian writers Michael Ondaatje and Rohinton Misty both have slight non-Canadian accents in English, but are * Booker Prize16 winners. Do we say that their English is substandard, because they have accents? No, it would

24、 be absurd to make such a suggestion since their pronunciation is excellent and no one has any trouble understanding them. As I mentioned earlier, pronunciation is not the same thing as an accent. I tell my students to give up their hope of developing an American accent, since it is very unlikely to

25、 happen unless they stay in America over a very long period, and even then, the are still likely to retain some part of their Chinese accent. An accent is par of your character and heritage. That is not to say that the student shouldnt devote time to improving his or her pronunciation. A student sho

26、uld focus on those pronunciation aspects that make their communication more effective, not trying to mold their accent into another. Developing pronunciation skills that are universally learnt is a much more worthy pursuit of your efforts than trying to copy an accent that is unnatural for your tong

27、ue and mouth. Misconception I need a rich vocabulary before beginning to speak. Often I hear students complain that they become tongue tied, meaning that they cant find the right words. Students will attribute it to a lack of vocabulary and memorize more words to compensate. Then they find after a f

28、ew more thousand words that their English improves only slightly. Why? Your memory is a key element to learning a language and no one should minimize its importance. Without a memory, you wouldnt be able to speak. However, it is also true that a lack of vocabulary is not the culprit17 of communicati

29、on problems in many instances. It is important to look at other issues, before blaming it as the source of these communication difficulties. I have observed a great many CET-6 graduates who still have a great deal of trouble even uttering simple sentences, while other CET-4 students can speak with m

30、uch greater ease. How can that be, you might ask? The English language is composed of a hierarchy of vocabulary in terms of usefulness. Some words have broad and sweeping uses such as thing, getplace or do, while others are useful only for a very specific context such as exportendangeridentify, or i

31、nterrupt. Research has shown that with approximately 800 （some have even suggested 500） key words people can communicate very effectively in English, with few instances of getting stuck. In the times when they were stuck, they could easily ask for assistance. Now we know that 800 words is far below

32、the level most beginner students have even before they begin their GET-4 band level. Why cant all CET-4 students communicate with ease? We do not need a complicated linguistic answer to this question. When we think about it the answer is simple. The quantity of vocabulary has only an indirect relationship to the quantity and quality of speech. To illustrate, children learning their first language start out with a limited vocabulary, they do not know half of the words that a Chinese CET-6 student knows, but still the