Your English could be better

New WKUers,since you have been to the campus for almost a month.

Have you well adapted to the all-English teaching environment?

Frustrated by the speedy speakers and unrecognizable tones?

Too timid to speak out in public?

…

Don’t worry, here we come with professional advice from English lecturer Danny Dyer to help you out.

Danny Dyer, a popular English lecturer of Liberal Arts, teaches spoken English of class English Writing (ENG 1300) and Oral Communication (ESL0303) this fall. He is also the main instructor of LIEP (Learning and Immersion Enrichment Program）.

Let’s check out what key points Danny mentioned？

Practice your intonation, enabling your English fluent

For most freshmen, this may be their first exposure to an all-English teaching environment, I firmly believe that learning happens outside of the classroom. So, if you want to be great, you need to work on it on your own time. You have a VPN now, you can use YouTube, to listen to videos. Every student of this school, at least 10 minutes a day, should listen to an English news article and maybe also try to read a news article. Just practice. Probably the intonation. Intonation is the up and down of English. So like Chinese has tones, English goes up and down. And this could help them sound more natural. If you don’t have the proper intonation, that can be very confusing. So I encourage all the students just to listen to English music, the up and down. Listen to the way it sounds.

Read out loud, build up your tongue muscle

For those who want to improve their oral English, they could read a poem out loud. Or just reading something in English out loudly to strengthen tongue muscle. Besides, it’s about confidence. Students here often are very afraid to make mistakes. But if you don’t take a chance, you will never learn. So don’t be afraid. My favorite saying is “Use your voice, even if your voice shakes.”

Nobody is born a great speaker, pluck up the courage

No one is born a great public speaker, it takes time to improve. I can tell you that when I was 23, I was terrified of public speaking, and now I’m 35, and I can speak in front of 500 people. So just take practice, muster up your courage to speak out. I encourage students to participate in LIEP, which is aimed at improving students’ confidence in speaking and engagement in small-sized and face-to-face classes. It will enable participants to develop multiple skills via classes with different topics.

By the end of the interview, Danny reminded Youngsters college is not just about grades. This is a time in your life that you have four years of freedom and experimentation. And everybody should experiment with different classes, different clubs and get to know people. Try to live your life while you are studying. Don’t worry just about GPA.

About Learning and Immersion Enrichment Program (LIEP) 

LIEP is an extracurricular program initiated by the ESL department and supported by the ELC.It compensates for the absence of Pre-University Intensive English Program(PIEP) and the lack of in-person instruction due to the Pandemic. The program includes several sessions with various topics, with the objective to boost students’ confidence and improve students’ engagement in classes.

LIEP sessions, with the largest capacity between 15-20 students, will be provided during 14:30-15:30 and 19:00-20:00 every weekday, at GEH C205.

Writer: QIN Jiaqi, LAI Qiuhong (Alisa)