SPEAKING

ENGLISH SPEAKING UNION

  

   About the ESU

 

The English-Speaking Union is an international educational charity founded in 1918 to promote "international understanding and friendship through the use of the English language." That has never been so important and never so possible. The world desperately needs international understanding and the reach of English provides a way of achieving it.

 

• English has official or special status in at least seventy five countries with a total population of over two billion
• English is spoken as a second language by around 375 million speakers in the world
• Around 750 million people are believed to speak English as a foreign language
• One out of four of the world's population speak English to some level of competence. See the British Council website for more information.
  

 

With almost 40 branches in the UK, and over 50 overseas ESUs in countries in every part of the world, the ESU's mission to bring people together and share their experiences has never been more relevant.

Ali Hussein Saleh Mohammed, from Yemen, winner of the 2007 ESU international event, collecting his certificate from HRH Prince Philip.

The main objectives of the ESU are to:

• Provide a forum for international friendship and understanding through our support of the worldwide network of ESUs and the provision of secretariat facilities for the International Council at our headquarters at Dartmouth House, London
• Facilitate and assist the establishment and recognition of ESUs worldwide
• Focus on key current affairs issues through regular international conferences, seminars and meetings
• Promote English in international public speaking and debate for the support of worldwide communication and dialogue
• Encourage the enjoyment and constructive use of English through educational programmes
• Initiate and administer international youth exchange and work experience schemes
• Provide and create cultural activities
• Ensure the coordination and coherence of our activities through the skill and dedication of our staff and voluntary helpers
• Work in close and innovative partnership with our corporate members and sponsors

 

International Public Speaking Competition

The ESU International Public speaking Competition is one of the most successful and far-reaching international programmes. It has three overall objectives:

• To give young people practical experience in the fundamental skills of public speaking.
• To provide a focus for the learning of effective English and communication skills among young people in countries where English is not the first language.
• To give students from a variety of countries and backgrounds a chance to meet, exchange views and form friendships.

The first competition was held in 1981 and included speakers from three countries. Since then the competition has expanded rapidly, especially since the early 1990s in East and Central Europe and more recently in Asia, where the competition has proved to be an extremely popular way of promoting English.

LEARNING ENGLISH - SOME GOOD TIPS

TONGUE TWISTER - PETER PIPER

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,

How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

 

        

 

 

 

PRONUNCIATION - AND HOW TO IMPROVE IT

This week ESL Pro Systems is offering our readers a number of tips and strategies for improving one of the most difficult areas of the English language- pronunciation. Here are some self-study tips and strategies you may want to try.

Word stress is the key to understanding spoken English. English is considered a stress-timed language, which means certain syllables receive more stress than others while the other non-stressed words are quickly glided over. Native speakers of English use word stress naturally. It’s so natural for them that they don't even know they use it. Word stress is not used in all languages. Some languages, Japanese or French for example, pronounce each syllable with e-qual em-pha-sis. So, non-native speakers who don’t use correct word stress often encounter two problems:

1. They find it difficult to understand native speakers, especially those speaking fast.
   
   

2. The native speakers may, in turn, find it difficult to understand the non-native speakers.
   

So, what exactly is ‘word stress’? Native speakers of English do not say each syllable with the same force or strength. In one word, they accentuate ONE syllable. They say one syllable loudly and clearly and all the other syllables more quietly.

Let's take 3 words: photograph, photographer, and photographic. Do they sound the same when spoken? No. Here’s why:

PHO to graph
pho TO graph er
pho to GRA phic

ONE syllable in each word is stressed more than the others. And it is not always the same syllable. This happens in ALL words with 2 or more syllables: TEAcher, JaPAN, CAnada, aBOVE, converSAtion, INteresting, imPORtant, deMAND, etCETera, etCETera, etCETera.

The syllables that are not stressed are ‘weak’ or ‘small’ or ‘quiet’. Native speakers of English listen for the STRESSED syllables, not the weak syllables. If you use accurate word stress in your speech, you will instantly improve both your pronunciation and your comprehension.

Try to hear the stress in individual words each time you listen to English - on the radio, or in films for example. Your first step is to HEAR and recognize it. After that, you can USE it!

When you learn a new word, you should also learn its stress pattern. If you keep a vocabulary book, make a note to show which syllable is stressed. If you do not know, you can look in a learner’s dictionary. All good learner dictionaries give the phonetic spelling of a word. This is where they show which syllable is stressed, usually with an apostrophe (') just before or just after the stressed syllable.

In addition to word stress, you also have to use correct sentence stress to sound like a native speaker.


As a general rule,

▪ stressed words in a sentence are considered content words. These include nouns (e.g. kitchen, Peter), (most) main verbs (e.g. visit, construct), adjectives (e.g. beautiful, interesting), and adverbs (e.g. often, carefully).

▪ non-stressed words are considered function words. These include determiners (e.g.: the, a, an), auxiliary verbs (e.g.: is, am, were), prepositions( e.g.: before, of, in), conjunctions (e.g.: but, and, so), and pronouns (e.g.: they, she, he)

Read the following sentence aloud:
The beautiful mountain appeared transfixed in the distance.

Now read this sentence aloud:
He can come on Saturdays as long as he doesn't have to do any homework in the evening.


Notice that the first sentence actually takes about the same time to speak well! Even though the second sentence is approximately 30% longer than the first, the sentences take the same time to speak. This is because there are five stressed words in each sentence.


Try this simple activity to practice using correct sentence stress:
Write down a few sentences, or take a few example sentences from a book or exercise. First, mark the word stress (check a good learner’s dictionary if you’re unsure), and then underline the stressed words in each sentence. After that, read aloud focusing on stressing the underlined words and gliding over the non-stressed words. If you do this regularly you’ll be surprised at how quickly your pronunciation will improve! By focusing on stressed words, non-stressed words and syllables take on their more muted nature.
When listening to native speakers, pay particular attention to how those speakers stress certain words and try to copy this when you speak.


Tips:

1. Remember that non-stressed words and syllables are often "swallowed" in English.
   
   

2. Always focus on pronouncing stressed words well. Non-stressed words can be glided over.
   
   

3. Don't focus on pronouncing each word in a sentence with equal stress. Focus on the stressed words only.
   

ASKING FOR DIRECTIONS

How do you ask the way when you're new somewhere and don't know how to get there? Just listen and take note of the different ways of answering.

 

Pronunciation is Important!

Pronunciation is important, as you will see in the following video.