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Watch the Video for Lesson 6
Yesterday, Dan talked about the importance of using your imagination in developing fluency. And today, I am going to build on what Dan talked about and I am going to talk about the importance of variety and repetition in fluency development.
Let’s start with repetition. Why is repetition important? Well, in order to become more fluent you need to be comfortable with the speaking topic. So, you need to do lots and lots of listening and lots and lots of speaking so that all those patterns, all that vocabulary, all that grammar sinks in deeply. So that when you go to use it in a real conversation, it comes out more easily and you feel comfortable with the topic.
Variety is also important. We have a saying in English, “Variety is the spice of life.” And indeed, you need to do things in different ways when you are doing listening and speaking so that you keep the spice in your fluency development and that will help you get through all of the repetition. And that’s important because if you do the same thing over and over again, it will get boring. It will become work and you don’t want that feeling when you do listening and speaking. You need to be interested. You need to be having fun. That’s so, so important to letting the topic sink in deeply so you can process it. So in today’s lesson I am going to talk about ways that you can introduce repetition and variety using our listening and speaking files.
So, let’s start with listening. Yesterday you downloaded a listening file about Aron Ralston, the man who had to chop off his arm to save his own life. Now if you listen to that once or twice, yeah, it’s really interesting, it’s exciting, but you should be doing more with that lesson. Dan gave you a great way to use your imagination when doing listening lessons. So, one thing you can do to add variety is try to imagine the listening in different ways. Use the other senses, not just visual but imagine smells, imagine tastes, imagine sounds and in that way, you can experience the story in slightly different ways each time you listen to it. Also, you can do some techniques that are useful in your language development such as shadowing. And this is when you listen to the native speaker and you speak the same way that he or she is speaking right after the native speaker is speaking. This is a really powerful technique, shadowing. Practice it. You can also do listen and repeat. You can hear a sentence, pause the recording and try to say it just like the native speaker did. So these are other ways that you can work with our listening lessons.
Now, onto speaking. What are some things you can do with speaking? Well, one thing of course is imagination, imagine this in different ways. Imagine the story in different ways while you are speaking. Also, and this is what I love to do, you can expand on your answers by pausing the recording, giving yourself more time to answer the question. Let me give you an example. One of the questions in our Fluency Booster file that you are going to receive today is, “What landed on Aron’s arm?” And of course the answer is “A large rock landed on his arm.” So what most people might do is listen to that and then they will speak out loud, “A large rock landed on his arm.” And that’s ok for the first time, but if you are doing this over and over it can get boring. So what you should do is close your eyes and expand on that answer using your imagination. For example, “What landed on Aron’s arm?” “A large rock landed on Aron’s arm. It was a big, heavy rock. It was a big brown heavy rock and it was a cold rock and it was painful to be on his arm.” Something like that, and that way when you listen to the story the next time and you go to speak, you can imagine it in a different way. Maybe the color of the rock changes. Maybe a bird came down and landed on the rock while it was on his arm. You can help create your own story based around the story we give you, and that will keep it interesting and keep it fun.
Finally, one last thing you can do is practice switching back and forth between the listening and the speaking. So if you listen to our listening lesson and you use your imagination two or three or four times, then move to the speaking and practice some speaking. Then later, move back to the listening and practice the different techniques of shadowing, listening and repeating, expanding on your answers, using your imagination. And if you mix these different techniques together your listening and your speaking is going to be interesting, it’s going to be fun, you are going to have variety. You are going to add spice to what you are doing and that’s what you need to get your fluency levels up to where you want to be so that you can speak confidently, you can speak fluently and you can have lots of fun when speaking.
So, download today’s speaking lessons. There are two: one is an Active Speaking and one is a Fluency Booster. And remember, have fun and keep it interesting. We’ll see you tomorrow.
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Listen To Active Speaking
What kind of situation was it? It was a life or death situation.
He was hiking in a desert canyon when something terrible happened.
Did something wonderful happen? No, something wonderful didn’t happen. Something terrible happened.
He fell and his arm became trapped under a big rock. There was no one to help him. He had only two choices. He could die or he could cut his own arm off to escape.
What choices did Aron have? He could die or he could cut his arm off.
Aron was an experienced adventure athlete. In 2002, he quit his job as an engineer and set a world record for climbing.
Did Aron set a record for climbing? Yes, he set a world record for climbing.
He became the first person to climb all of Colorado’s largest mountains alone in winter. He was not afraid of danger.
Was he afraid? No, he was not afraid.
In 2003, he was almost killed by an avalanche while skiing.
What happened in 2003? In 2003, he was almost killed by an avalanche while skiing.
Later that same year he almost lost his life while hiking. He didn’t expect it to be dangerous, so he made a very big mistake. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going.
What mistake did Aron make? He didn’t tell any one where he was going.
On the first day he hiked about twenty miles into the desert when he fell into a hole.
How far did he hike? He hiked about twenty miles.
As he fell, he moved a large rock that weighed 360 kilos. The rock landed on his arm.
What landed on his arm? A large rock landed on his arm.
He was trapped. He was alone in the desert, and no one knew where he was. Aron knew that help was not coming.
Did he think that help was coming? No, he knew that help was not coming.
He immediately thought of cutting off his arm.
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Listen To Fluency Booster
What kind of situation was it? It was a life or death situation. When did it happen? It happened in 2003.
Aron was hiking in a desert canyon when something terrible happened.
Did something wonderful happen? No, something wonderful didn’t happen. Something terrible happened. Where was he hiking? He was hiking in a desert canyon.
He fell and his arm became trapped under a big rock.
Did he fall? Yes, he fell. Did his arm become trapped under a house? No, his arm didn’t become trapped under a house. His arm became trapped under a big rock.
There was no one to help him. He had only two choices. He could die or he could cut his arm off to escape.
How many choices did he have? He had only two choices. What choices did Aron have? He could die or he could cut his arm off.
Aron was an experienced adventure athlete.
Was Aron an experienced athlete? Yes, he was an experienced adventure athlete.
In 2002, he quit his job as an engineer and set a world record for climbing.
When did he quit his job? He quit his job in 2002. Did Aron set a record for climbing? Yes, he set a world record for climbing.
He became the first person to climb all of Colorado’s largest mountains alone in winter.
Who was the first person to climb all of Colorado’s largest mountains alone in Winter? Aron was the first person to climb all of Colorado’s largest mountains alone in Winter.
He was not afraid of danger.
Was he afraid? No, he was not afraid.
In 2003, he was almost killed by an avalanche while skiing.
What happened in 2003? In 2003, he was almost killed by an avalanche while skiing.
Later that same year he almost lost his life while hiking.
What happened later that year? Later that year he almost lost his life while hiking.
He didn’t expect it to be dangerous, so he made a very big mistake. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going.
What mistake did Aron make? He didn’t tell anyone where he was going.
Did he expect it to be dangerous? No, he didn’t expect it to be dangerous.
On the first day he hiked about twenty miles into the desert when he fell into a hole.
How far did he hike? He hiked about twenty miles. Did he fall into a lake? No, he didn’t fall into a lake. He fell into a hole.
As he fell, he moved a large rock that weighed 360 kilos. The rock landed on his arm.
What landed on his arm? A large rock landed on his arm. How much did the rock weigh? The rock weighed 360 kilos.
He was trapped. He was alone in the desert, and no one knew where he was.
Was Aron with his friends in the desert? No, he wasn’t with his friends in the desert. He was all alone in the desert.
Aron knew that help was not coming.
Did he think that help was coming? No, he knew that help was not coming.
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Optional - Download the Fluency Booster Lesson Pack
Download the Above Lesson Pack for Offline Viewing1. Download them to your computer and then transfer them to your device.
2. Use a separate app on your device to download.
Computer to iPad or iPhone: This is the easiest way. Download these files to your computer. Go to iTunes and add the PDF files to your iTunes books section. Add the Mp3 audio files to your iTunes music. Sync your iPad.
Computer to Android: Download these files to your computer, connect your device to your computer using a cable connector, and copy the files to your Android's storage.
iPad or iPhone App: There are also some free apps on the app store for downloading files to your iPad. These apps are always changing so we cannot guarantee that they will work. Here's one you could try: "Documents by Readdle.” You can use this app to visit our website, download the files, read the text files and listen to the audio files. "Documents by Readdle" is one of many apps that do this.
Android App: There are also some free apps on the Google Play Store for downloading files to your Android. These apps are always changing so we cannot guarantee that they will work. You could try "Download Manager" or "AndroZip."