ZALEG Tools and Exercises for Developing
your ENGLISH SPEAKING muscles:
Like reading and writing you have to speak in English, as much as practically
possible, to develop your English speaking muscles.
You may develop these muscles by doing the following exercises using the tools
mentioned below.
Level 1:
Apparatus/Tool: - To help develop muscles to address and
greet a person in English and muscles to use English courtesy phrases :
Instructions for exercising with this tool
Note: In the following examples where you see an X, you may either ignore
it altogether or replace it with the addressing name of the person. For
example, you can say "Hello John",. "Thank you Mr.
Nicoll", "Sorry Sir" or simply "Hello" or
"Thank you" or “Sorry"
Exercises for addressing a person:
1. If you meet someone you know well, who may be your friend, your
colleague, your neighbour, you may address that person by their first
name. For example you may call John Bell as John and Jane Williams as
Jane.
2. If you want some information or you are seeking some service from
someone whom you do not know or with whom you still have a formal relationship,
you may address that person more formally like " Sir" or
"Madam" . If you know their name, you may address them
as Mr. Bell or Ms Jane. If they have a title you may address them as "Dr
Bell" or Dr. Fernandes", "Professor Giles", "Colonel
Nicoll" etc.
Exercises for greeting a person:
3. When you meet someone you know well greet them according to the time of the
day by saying something like "Good Morning X", Good
Afternoon X", "Good Evening X". You may find
that in some places they use some local greetings like "Good Day
X", " Hi X", for more informal occasions. Use
them if you are sure when to use them or with who, Otherwise, stick
to the formal greetings.
5. When you are bidding someone farewell for the day the formal greetings you
may use are "Good night X" or "Good Bye X" or simply
"Bye X". More informal farewell greetings are "See
you later", "See you", or something local like
"Cheerio" or "Chow"..
6. When you are introduced to someone, you may shake hands with that person and
say, "Hello X" or for more formal introductions, :"Glad to meet
you X".
7. When someone says to you, "Good morning, how are you?", you should reply by saying", "Fine, how are you?"
8. When someone says to you, "Have a good day?", you should respond by saying, "Thanks, you too".
Exercises for learning to use English courtesy phrases.
9. . Whenever someone, of any age, does some favour, or offers to do some
favour for you, however small it is, you should acknowledge that by saying,
"Thanks X" or "Thank you X" or "Thank you",
or "Thank you very much". The other
10. When you have inconvenienced somebody or think that you are going to
inconvenience someone by an action you are about to take, you should say,
"Sorry X" or ‘Excuse me X” .
11. When someone either thanks you as in exercise 7 or says sorry as in exercise 8, you
should respond by saying. "That is all right X", "That's
OK X". You may also use the local equivalent like " No
worries" or " Not to worry" (both Australian).
12. When you
are sitting with some people, and you sneeze, you should say, either “Sorry” or
“Excuse me”.
13. When someone sneezes and says, “Sorry” or “Excuse me”,
you should respond by saying , “Bless you”.
You should use the above as much as you can so that the phrases become part of
you and they come to you automatically when the situation demands. You should
not have to think anymore when to say
what. You may add other exercises, which you may feel fall under the above three caterories.
Level 2
Apparatus/Tool: For developing muscles for face to face talking in English
Exercises:
For face to face talking
Instructions for exercising with this tool
Note: When you first start talking
to each other in English you may feel shy and laugh out while speaking.
You may also find that you cannot think of the right words to express your thoughts.
In such circumstances you may use your hands and other parts of your body to get your message across to the other person. If necessary use a pencil and paper to make something clear. These are all OK. Just imagine that you are in a
foreign land where people do not understand anything but English. So you
have no choice but to speak in English to get along with your day to day
life.
1. Agree with members of your family - siblings and cousins, and
also friends, or colleagues that you will talk to each other in English.
Also agree with all that if anyone speaks incorrect English, i.e- either uses wrong words or phrases or makes grammatical errors, somebody may correct
them. Nobody should mind when thus corrected.
2. Form a small group with one to three other people.. They
may be your friends or colleagues with whom you have regular contact. Organise
with them to meet regularly, once or more times a week, at a convenient time and place,
to have tea and just talk in English. If all members are from your work
place, then you may meet daily during lunch break. Talk in English among
yourselves while having your lunch. That
will be at least half an hour of exercising your English speaking muscles every
day.
While using the above tools and exercising with others, you can introduce some
fun by making some rules. Whenever someone is caught speaking in a
language other than English they may pay an agreed amount of fine,. The fines may be collected by one of the group members.
When sufficient fines have accumulated you can all enjoy by having
dinner togetehr at a restaurant with that money or going to a film.
After a few months you will notice that you no longer feel shy when you talk in
English. You will also notice that you have not paid any fines for some time because English words
and sentences come automatically to you. You do not have to use your
hands etc to explain what you have to say with paper and pencil any more. You can talk fluently
and the person you talk to does not have any problem understanding
you When you have reached this stage you should move onto the next level
of tools and exercises. But you should also continue with the level 1 and
level 2 tools and exercises at the same time.
Level 3
Apparatus/Tool: For developing muscles for talking in English over the phone
Exercises:
For talking over the phone in English
Instructions for exercising with this tool
Note: Before starting exercises with this tool you must be aware that the person you are talking to over the telephone
cannot see you. It will be of little use if you use your hands
to explain something or try to explain with your face – your agreement, disagreement,
likes, dislikes, anger, happiness etc. You have to do everything with your
voice. You have to add colour to your voice with pace, pauses, volume,
intonation, pitch etc to express agreement or disagreement, happiness, sorrow,
surprise, anger, love and affection, which the other person should be able to
understand It will be like mastering to act in a play on the radio.
1. Also, make it a habit of correctly introducing yourself
when starting a formal conversation on the phone - both at work and at home as
follows.
- ·
When you receive a call, start by introducing
yourself to the caller by saying something like " Hello, Good morning or Good
afternoon, this is XYZ speaking. Who is it please or whom do you
want please?" .
- ·
Similarly, when you ring somebody, start by introducing
yourself first to the receiver by starting with "Good
morning or Good afternoon, this is XYZ, could I talk to so and so?"
- ·
If somebody rang you when you were not available
and left a message, then if you ring back, start as follows:
"Hello, Good morning or Good afternoon. I am so and so.
I am returning the call of xyz who rang me on this number at such and such time
etc.".
2. Start talking to your friends and relatives over phone in English with whom
you were doing Level 1 exercises..
3. At work, instead of walking to a colleague and talking to them about some
aspect of work, you may pick up the phone and talk to them in English.
4. When you phone someone outside like a company, bank, travel agent, utility
department etc. first start talking in English. Switch to the local
language only if you find that the person at the other end is not understanding
English.
Level 4
Apparatus/Tool: For developing muscles for talking in English most of the time
Exercises:
For talking in English to all people who may understand English
Instructions for exercising with this tool
After you have become familiar with level 3
tools and exercises, you should do the following:
1. At work talk in English to others at meetings.
2. When you are attending a course, seminar or workshop, ask questions in
English or answer questions of others in English.
3. Try to take part in discussions, informal or formal, at work
or elsewhere in English.
If you continue using the level 1 to 4 tools and exercise regularly, you will
notice that you can talk in English automatically and do not have to first
think of what you are going to say in your language and then translate it into
English. At this stage you are considered fluent in English speaking.
Now you should try fusing the level 5 tools and exercises.
Level 5
Apparatus/Tool: For developing muscles for speaking to a group or mass in English
Exercises:
For talking in English to large groups of people in English
Instructions for exercising with this tool
1. Try taking part in English debating.
2. Volunteer to make presentations in English both at work and outside
work when you get the chance.
3. Run seminars in English
4. Lecture in English
5.
Conduct training in English.
Level 6
Apparatus/Tool: For Developing your English vocabulaory to make your speaking muscles very stong.
Exercises:
1. Get hold of the book "Word Power Made Easy" by Norman Lewis". It has 19 chapters with very easy to learn tools and to increase your English with self assessment exercises. Target to complete the book in a pre-agreed time - say three months.
2. Once you have completed the entire book, keep it aside for three months. Go through the book again after three months. Check how much you have retained and how much you have forgotten. In the second and subsequent revisions you should aim to complete the entire book in 4 weeks or less.
If you do the above different level exercises- daily, weekly or monthly as mentioned above, you can clock up quite a few hours of talking in English each day. You will be doing these exercises while going about your day to day activities as before. You will not have to keep aside any time as you would when going to an English class. You will have the tools when you are at home, travelling, are at work or you are visiting your friends or relatives and socialising with them. You should keep doing the exercises using these tools all the time. Remember, you will not be paying a single penny for doing so. If you continue doing these and other exercises of your choice your English Speaking Muscles will be developing all the time. Among all the language muscles, the Speaking muscles are most noticed by people around you, as they are more exposed compared to the other lmuscles. When your friends, relatives or colleagues start noticing their development they may admire and/or comment on them.
NOTE: Once again,, this is not an English course. No one will evaluate your progress. You will have to do that either by yourself by whatever means or seek the advice of a friend, an external ZALEG coach or tutor of another English course that you may be attending.
Take it this way. You are jogging through your neighbourhood parrk. At various points along the running track you find different physical exercise tools. You may stop before some of these tools and exercise for some time before continuing your jogging. That is what you are expected to do with the various ZALEG tools that come before you while you are getting along with your normal daily activities.
© Amin Rahman MARN 0322761