5/9(Tue.) What Makes It Difficult? (Host: JD)

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Rock
YOYO member
文章: 2162
註冊時間: 週三 10月 31, 2007 9:03 am

5/9(Tue.) What Makes It Difficult? (Host: JD)

文章 Rock »

Dear fellow members,

Learning English can be fun! Let’s have fun learning and exchanging some basic ideas about listening and speaking in English.

Session one: Listening: What Makes It Difficult?
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140709 ... -difficult

Questions for discussion:

1. Is listening in English difficult for you? Why or why not? Please share some poor or great listening experience in English with your group members.

2. How important you think listening in English is? Is it more important than other abilities like speaking, reading or writing?
If you had to rank those four abilities, what would it be? How so?

3. What do you think are better ways for us ESL learners to improve our listening comprehension? Are there any kinds of methods or materials you would suggest?

4. Have you tried watching English TV shows or movies without subtitles? Did you think it's easy to fully understand one or not? How come? Would you come up with any practice that could help us pull it off more easily?

=========================================================
Session two: Funny misunderstanding caused by mispronunciation.

From time to time, I've heard about some amusing incidents that resulted from mispronunciations. Not sure if all of those incidents actually happened in real life, but here is quite a funny one : A man joined a tour group for traveling to a tropical island country. It was a 5 day package tour featuring 6 hours daily of water activities that began from the very first day he got there. So some of his tour group members packed up lots of light food and refreshments from home for the sake of energy supply. When the tour group arrived at the airport in the country and waited in line at customs, a customs officer questioned one of the group members who was standing in front of him with a duffel bag crammed full of snacks.

The officer said : “Sir, your bag looks fully packed with stuff. What's inside?” The group member replied : "My bag? Oh, snakes, all snakes, a lot of snakes." Wow! All of a sudden, the officer became very nervous, and pulled out his night-stick to poke the bag while calling up other officers to come to help. All of the group members were nervous too, because they were not sure what happened there. Fortunately, after a short while, everyone found out that it was mispronunciation causing the disturbance. The "snakes" turned out to be "snacks"……Well, this funny incident proves that sometimes poor pronunciation is no laughing matter! (I’ve still got some other hilarious mispronunciation cases to tell you later during our meeting, and it will be great if you can also prepare one or two funny cases to share with your group members. )

Questions and discussion:

1. Do you know any laughable incidents or jokes about mispronunciation or wrong word usage? Have you heard any interesting puns? Please share with your group members.

2. Can you tell the differences when you pronounce each set of words below? Share those differences with your group members.
1.[Snake / Snack]; 2.[Rap / Rape];3.[Work / Walk]; 4.[Run / Wrong]; 5.[Been / Being]; 6.[Beach / Bitch]; 7.[Look / Luke]
8.[Lie / Line]; 9.[Lock / Luck]; 10.[Kill / Cure] ; 11.[Ego / Eagle]; 12.[Fool / Full]; 13.[Hungry / Hungary]; 14.[Socks / Sucks]
15.[Sin / Sing]; 16.[Version / Virgin]; 17.[Eunuch / Unique]; 18.[Encore / Uncle]; 19.[Labor / Label]; 20.[Law /Low]
21.[Sure / Shore]; 22.[Police / Please]; 23.[Seesaw / Thistle] || 24.[Nature / Natural / Nacho]; 25.[Done / Down / Dawn]
26.[Gun / Gone/ Gown]; 27.[Seek / Sick / Thick]; 28.[Hall / Hole / Whore]; 29.[Ton / Tongue / Town]

3. Did you find any common words that are easily mispronounced, quite a mouthful, or like so-called jawbreakers? (How about words like “confidentiality”, “characteristically”, or “enthusiastically” ? Or, how about a tongue twister like “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”) Share with your group members.

4. What do you think we can do to avoid misunderstanding from mispronunciation? Does speaking slowly and with body language help? Any other advice you can pitch in with?


********************************************************************************************************************************************
Agenda:
6:45 ~ 7:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
7:00 ~ 7:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
7:10 ~ 7:55pm Discussion Session (45 mins)
7:55 ~ 8:10pm Summarization (15 mins)
8:10 ~ 8:20pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
8:20 ~ 9:05pm Discussion Session (45 mins)
9:05 ~ 9:20pm Summarization (15 mins)
9:20 ~ 9:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements ********************************************************************************************************************************************
聚會日期:列於該貼文主題內
聚會時間:當天請準時於 6:45 pm 到達 ~ 約 9:30 pm 左右結束
星期二聚會地點:丹堤濟南店
地址、電話:台北市濟南路三段25號 (02) 2740-2350
捷運站:板南線 忠孝新生站 3 號出口
走法:出忠孝新生站 3 號出口後,沿著巷子(忠孝東路三段10巷)走約 2 分鐘,到了濟南路口,左轉走約 2 分鐘即可看到。
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注意事項:
1. 文章是否需要列印請自行斟酌,但與會者請務必自行列印 Questions for discussion。
2. 與會者請先閱讀過文章,並仔細想過所有的問題,謝謝合作!

給新朋友的話:
1. 請事先準備 2~3 分鐘的英語自我介紹;會議結束前可能會請你發表 1~2 分鐘的感想。
2. 請事先閱讀文章以及主持人所提的討論問題,並事先寫下自己所欲發表意見的英文。
3. 全程以英語進行,參加者應具備中等英語會話能力,對任一討論問題,能夠以 5 到 10 句英文表達個人見解。
4. 在正式加入之前,可以先來觀摩三次,觀摩者亦須參與討論。
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In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Luis Ko
YOYO member
文章: 970
註冊時間: 週三 6月 06, 2007 10:18 pm

Re: 5/9(Tue.) What Makes It Difficult? (Host: JD)

文章 Luis Ko »

the most important thing in learning any language is listening part i would say. the whole process of learning a language is to understand what you heard, then imitate it. just like if you can hear, you can't speak well. and the key to be able to understand what people say is to know the words/phrases they use, not just know them, but also know how they are pronounced.. the more words/phrases you know, the better your listening ability will be lo~ no shortcut at all i would say.. :drink:
i might be a cynic and, a sceptic as well but, i'm definitely not a bad person!!
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Rock
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文章: 2162
註冊時間: 週三 10月 31, 2007 9:03 am

Re: 5/9(Tue.) What Makes It Difficult? (Host: JD)

文章 Rock »

I have difficulties saying these words:

I spent 5 months in the city.
There is shit on my sheet.
Wow! What a beach! (And the bikini girl gives you a finger.)
You idiot! You eat it and believe it.
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
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Rock
YOYO member
文章: 2162
註冊時間: 週三 10月 31, 2007 9:03 am

Re: 5/9(Tue.) What Makes It Difficult? (Host: JD)

文章 Rock »

Thank everyone for joining our seminar. The attendee list: JD (host), Alice (newcomer), Rock, Jennifer, Tashi, Sabrina, Ken, Carry, Eileen, Steve, David, Shirley, Yvonne, Liwen, Iris, Way, Luis. See you next time.
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
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