I write this post on a foggy Saturday evening, feeling annoyed that a post I was intending to write about Fidel Castro was deleted mid entry. Thanks, Weebly (!) All I will say about Castro, the President of Cuba for over 3 decades whom died today, is his premier was a brutal dictatorship, censoring the press & freedom of expression overall while executing political opponents. Any good he did improving health and education services seems massively outweighed by his utter abolition of democracy and destruction of liberty. I hope his stained legacy will show developing countries how not to run a country and reinforce the idea that democracy is the best form of rule, even if one doesn't like the results produced.
On a, somewhat, more positive note, I will be spending the next week memorizing a German speaking assignment, roughly 300+ words in length, that potentially counts towards my GCSE German grade. As you can imagine, this is both daunting and terrifying, with the speaking element of German being my least favourite part of the subject. The German language itself is excellent; I long to visit Germany and try to speak, slightly broken, German without saying ''Sprechen sie Englisch, ya?'' once. I like the logic behind all nouns containing a capital letter; I enjoy the word order rules that apply to every sentence; the relief of fairly simple past and future tense and the clarity of language. However, the pressure of wanting to get a decent grade, remembering 300+ words with just 40 words as prompts, preparing for unexpected questions while maintaining correct pronunciation, intonation and high accuracy of language is a tough feat. Not impossible, mind. But a feat. For fear of accusations of sharing the task and ideas, I won't disclose specific sentences or information I intend to write in my task. However, there are lots of general things anyone can do to memorize any language for a speaking assignment. To help myself remember, and hopefully others too, I've concocted a list of general tips mainly for speaking (some can also be applied to writing): 1) Write out each paragraph in full in the order you intend to speak it. It's logical to copy this from previously written notes, to ensure grammar and spelling is accurate. When it comes to speaking, that's the least of your worries. 2) Now for the learning. Take each paragraph one at a time. Within each paragraph, do one sentence at a time. Read the sentence, before trying to write and/or say it from memory. Look back over and see where you went wrong/were correct 3) Repeat this for every sentence, gradually writing and/or speaking 1, 2, 3, 4... sentences from memory. Always go back over and check the sentence structure and accuracy to avoid learning inaccurate content. 4) For speaking, Google translate can be helpful - not for writing out sentences at length, but for hearing specific pronunciations of words. This has been handy for me with difficult that are spoken completely different from the way they are written. 5) Prompt cards can be useful for speaking, when deciding which 40 words to include on your prompt sheet. There is no point wasting the 40 words with easy to pronounce/spell words. Flash cards also make it easier to practice with family/friends testing you. 6) Most importantly, practice! Practice, practice, practice. Keep speaking the paragraphs to the best of your ability, keep writing out answers, so that when the exam occurs, you are as ready as you can be. Though, make you sure you practice accurate details. These tips are just a few of the little things that have helped me in my spoken language assignments. Whatever the language, whatever the brief, a diverse society where people can speak different languages but still integrate should be celebrated. Right, better put my tips into practice!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Author:Noah enjoys writing a blog and drinking tea Archives
September 2022
Categories
All
|