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VOICE ONE:
Millions of people around the world choose English as the firstforeign language they want to study. It is the most widely taughtforeign language in the world. I’m Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Today we tell about teaching and learningEnglish on the VOA Special English program, THIS IS AMERICA.
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VOICE ONE:
Millions of people around the world want to learn English orimprove their skills in the language. There are many reasons forthis. Some people plan to move to the United States. Others want tovisit America or another English-speaking country. Still otherpeople need to know English for work in their home nations. Manyinternational businesses today require knowledge of the language.
VOICE TWO:
The United States Department of State supports English teachingactivities in foreign nations. Its Office of English LanguagePrograms helps other countries train their teachers in AmericanEnglish. The goal is to help foreign teachers offer English to theirstudents. Experts plan, hold and support a number of programs. Theseinclude language schools in universities, education ministries andcommunity centers.
VOICE ONE:
The Voice of America is currently broadcasting two series ofEnglish-teaching programs. One teaches general English. The otheroffers help with English used in business. You can hear theseprograms before our Special English broadcasts.
Our listeners say Special English helps them learn and improvetheir English. We write and broadcast news and feature stories in away that foreign listeners can understand. We use a limited numberof words. We use short, clear sentences. Our announcers read theseprograms slower than regular English. There are several ways you canuse Special English to improve your English. You can record SpecialEnglish programs and study them later. If you have a computer, youcan listen to these programs on our Internet Web Site, w-w-w-dotv-o-a specialenglish dot com. (www.WWW.51VOA.COM) You canalso print the texts of most of these programs from the Web site.
When you feel ready, you can listen to VOA’s programs in regularEnglish. Or download scripts from the VOA Web site, w-w-w-dot v-o-anews dot com. (www.voanews.com)
VOICE TWO:
Watching American television programs and movies also are goodways to develop language skills. Reading newspapers and magazines inEnglish helps, too.
You can also ask English-speaking people to help you improve youpronunciation, or how words are said. Read aloud to them. Ask themto correct you. You can also find a number of programs for learningEnglish on your computer. Some are free. Others, like a programcalled GlobalEnglish, require payment.
Two-million people have learned or improved their English withGlobalEnglish. It offers both general and business English. Somelessons are for beginners. Others are for those who already know atleast some of the language. You can try examples of its program onthe GlobalEnglish Web site, w-w-w dot g-l-o-b-a-l-e-n-g-l-i-s-h dotcom. (www.globalenglish.com)
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VOICE ONE:
An international organization called TESOL helps people learnEnglish in a number of ways. TESOL, spelled T-E-S-O-L, is a shorterway of saying Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.About fourteen-thousand members belong to this educationorganization. Its headquarters are in Alexandria, Virginia. TESOLhas many related offices throughout the world. Some of the largestare in South America, Japan and Egypt. Mary Lou McCloskey is TESOL’spresident. She says students learn English well if they have severalmajor needs.
VOICE TWO:
Mizz McCloskey says a student needs an important and usefulpurpose for studying English. A person who must communicate in anEnglish-speaking country will try hard to succeed. So will a personwho must know English at work. For example, she tells about a taxidriver who speaks eight languages. She says he is very intelligent.But she also says he probably speaks all those languages because heneeds to in his job.
Mizz McCloskey says students also need the chance to use Englishonce they learn it. Repeating words and groups of words helpsestablish them in a person’s memory. Another need is a helpfullearning environment. The TESOL president describes this environmentas one in which both the teacher and teaching materials areeffective.
VOICE ONE:
For example, a good teacher speaks slowly to students. Theteacher says each word clearly and separately. The teacher uses themost common English word for an object. To do this, the teachermight say the word “car” instead of “automobile” or “vehicle.” Theteacher uses sentences that are short, simple and direct. Thisshould also be true of written material.
The TESOL president says teachers use a number of methods to helpstudents learn English. For example, a teacher can communicate themeaning of a word by using comparisons. A teacher may use motion andother body language to demonstrate meaning. Students can developskills by working in small groups or writing on a blackboard on thewall.
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VOICE TWO:
Experts say children under age twelve usually say foreign wordsbetter than adults as they learn a language. Children sound morenatural. Like musicians, they have a “good ear” for pronunciation.But Mizz McCloskey says older learners can gain the same ease withEnglish.
She suggests that learning songs helps people pronounce Englishsounds and words. For example, one of her students could notpronounce the letter “L.” Then the student listened repeatedly andsang the American song, “Lollipop.” Soon she could clearly say her”L’s.”
The TESOL president said learning songs also makes English wordseasier to remember. The use of words that sound alike can also helppeople learn.
VOICE ONE:
Many teachers and students say English can be difficult to learn.It has more words than any other language. The biggest dictionariescontain about six-hundred-thousand words.
Many people who come to the United States from foreign countrieshave already studied English. They may have done very well. But whenthey arrive here, they may not understand much of what they hear orread. English learned in classrooms sometimes seems very differentfrom every-day spoken English. Studies show that it can take severalyears of living in the United States while studying English for aforeign person to speak the language well.
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VOICE TWO:
Donna Kinerney (Kih-NEAR-nee) leads an adult-education program inEnglish for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL, near Washington,D-C. This program is supervised by the Montgomery County, Maryland,public schools. It is the second largest ESOL program in the state.It serves about twelve-thousand students each year.
ESOL teachers work with students on grammar – the ways sentencesare formed. But Mizz Kinerney says cultural differences are partlyto blame for the difficulty of learning a new language. So theMontgomery County program also places great importance on learningto speak and write English in common situations. Many other languageprograms in the United States also do this.
VOICE ONE:
For example, students in the Montgomery County program learnphrases they will need when they seek to find a job. In the process,they also learn the correct forms of verbs, or action words.
Students in the program learn how to call for emergency help.They learn to ask how to find a doctor. They learn to completepapers required by their children’s schools. They learn what to asktheir children’s teachers. They learn how to get a permit to drive acar. Each process helps the students deal with a new situation as itdevelops their English skills.
VOICE TWO:
Maria Neves-Silva (NEH-vase-SEEL-vah) is a twenty-one-year-olddancer from Recife, Brazil. She recently spent a year in New YorkCity taking part in a cultural program. Mizz Neves-Silva advisesothers to try hard to make themselves understood in the UnitedStates. She says she has learned that most Americans are happy tohelp others speak English.
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VOICE ONE:
This program was written by Jerilyn Watson. It was produced byCynthia Kirk. I’m Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another reportabout life in the United States on the VOA Special English program,THIS IS AMERICA.