Gather some materials for practicing **spoken English** and American TV shows

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This post was last edited by Bella Bella on 2016-2-25 at 10:24. Well, I have to admit that it’s a very old post. It was dug out of the grave and shared with everyone. As for why to share it, it’s because it’s truly great and useful. It is an absolute blessing for those who are starting to learn spoken English from scratch. It’s a bit exaggerated, though. But I think one should strive to rely on oneself. The same is true when learning English. This is especially true for beginners with no prior experience and who are just starting to learn English; they need to put in a lot of effort. By the way, if you have no foundation in English or your knowledge of English is very poor, then you definitely shouldn’t miss this post. In fact, I think it’s not easy to learn English well from scratch, especially to improve one’s spoken English; it’s quite difficult if one relies solely on self-study. After all, mastering oral pronunciation really isn’t something that can be achieved just by imitation or by listening to MP3s. Many pronunciation techniques in English require guidance. Although many people oppose attending English classes or the like, in my opinion, such classes do have a certain effect. Just like when people go to the gym to lose weight: there’s still a big difference between those who hire personal trainers and those who don’t. If you’re a complete beginner and really want to learn English well, it’s recommended that you find a good teacher or enroll in an English class to study seriously*. The following websites are quite useful as tutoring resources. Without further ado, please read on: 1. Practicing spoken English: Click to enter. This is a great website for learning spoken English; upon registration, a staff member will get in touch with you to arrange a free trial lesson, which will be conducted via SKYPE or voice call. Comment: I first learned about this website when I saw an advertisement on the subway; it said that a free lesson could be obtained, and since I was interested, I decided to give it a try. I just registered for an account, and shortly after, someone called me, asking for my number so they could make a reservation for a class on my behalf. And the one who taught me was a foreigner. I communicate with her through video calls. The overall atmosphere is pretty good; it’s a one-on-one setting. Afterward, I learned about the tuition fees. Regarding the related fees, I signed up for a 3-month course costing 1,988 yuan. After 3 months, I feel more confident. I work in the foreign trade industry; in the past, I would get nervous whenever customers called, and I always needed help to deal with those calls. It’s gradually getting better now. Actually, my English is pretty good; it’s just that I’m not very brave enough to speak. Overcoming psychological barriers is very important. Then it’s about talking more. Now I feel that I’m not as worried about communicating with overseas clients after all. Of course, before making this choice, I looked into Wall Street and EF; I simply can’t afford them for now. 555, tens of thousands a year. 2.51VOA VOA is an American program, the Voice of America; it can be said to be a material widely used around the world for learning English. Comment: Actually, my English listening skills are pretty good; I rely entirely on them. I started learning English in junior high school; at that time, my English teacher required us to do dictation exercises – there was a separate textbook in our English curriculum dedicated to listening practice. Then our English teacher asked us to write down every sentence we heard, and there were no answers to rely on at all. Because aside from the English teacher who has the audio transcript, the students don’t have it at all. At first, I wrote down whatever I could hear. For the parts I didn’t understand, I listened again and again; sometimes I still couldn’t get it, and after listening over and over yet still not understanding, I would cry from frustration. Then my brother would help by listening to it for me and writing it down; of course, my brother’s hearing isn’t that great either. There are also ones that can’t be heard. Since I really can’t tell, I have no choice but to give up. Later on, I was quite grateful to my middle school English teacher. Later, I overheard the teacher say that listening to VOA could greatly improve one’s listening skills. At first, I listened to VOA at a slow pace, and I felt that I could understand 95% of it. This is what I developed back in middle school; I can only understand about 60% of normal-speed VOA content. Then, listen to one VOA article at normal speed every day, write down what you can hear, and listen again to the parts that you couldn’t understand. If it really doesn’t work, just take a look at the translation and then keep listening. I found this website through Baidu; it’s quite convenient. I download VOA content every day and save it on my phone to listen to while running. It works pretty well; I don’t need subtitles to watch American shows anymore. 3. Chinadaily: Part of China Daily, Chinadaily is considered to be an English learning website visited by many proficient English speakers. Its purpose is actually to disseminate news and information about China to the outside world, rather than to provide services for learning English; it has a formal, official tone. But it is precisely because of its official nature that its English content can be said to be absolutely authentic, accurate, and authoritative. 4. Authentic American English Listening Podcast is a website designed for people whose mother tongue is not English to learn English; the podcasts are created by Dr. Jeff McQuillan, a university professor in Los Angeles. The pronunciation is clear and easy to understand. 5. Slang Spoken Language Dictionary: A platform dedicated to allowing netizens to provide explanations for certain special words or phrases. Urban dictionaries contain many entries that cannot be found in regular dictionaries; even those that are present in regular dictionaries have new and insightful explanations here. For each entry, there are many explanations provided by netizens, and you can vote; the one with the most votes will naturally appear at the top. 6. EnglishPass – a free learning website jointly created by the UK Department for Education and the Chinese Ministry of Education. 7. The New York Times – A great place to read news online. 8. Kingsoft Dictionary – Use it when you don’t know how to translate a sentence; it provides example sentences.