Don't fear new words

gzlaser

JUST in case you university students may have some worries and problems in studying English, we've invited Zhou Yuan to give us her comments on studying English. She's a senior in Communication Technology Engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University, .

In some ways you could call Zhou a successful English leaner. She passed the CET-4 with a score of 84, while she was still a freshman, at a time when most students were waiting until the second year of college to take it. She's also active in English classes and has a fairly good command of spoken English.



21st Century: Vocabulary is something university students frequently talk about. They often complain that they cannot remember new words no matter how hard they try. Tell us how you go about memorizing new words?

Zhou Yuan: My tip on remembering new words is simply to read them aloud and write them down as often as possible. And, to keep them in mind, I do a great deal of reading and a certain amount of writing. By reading, I reinforce the words I've learned. To get a better understanding of their usage, I try to use them in compositions. You can try this. Just forget those simple words you learned in high school tentatively and use the new ones. If you use them frequently, you may find they become old friends and your writing will improve rapidly.



21st: English listening is another difficulty for students. What difficulties have you had? And how do you deal with them? How do you practise listening?

Zhou: When listening to English dialogue or texts, we sometimes feel at a loss. The words are either read very quickly or there are links between words that make it even more difficult for us to comprehend. Sometimes we don't have enough time to respond. While we're attempting to think of a missing word, the tape goes on and more words are missed. There are also situations where speakers have certain accents.

One way to cope with these problems in a practical way, in my opinion, is to buy English tapes, records and VCDs of original work and listen to them frequently. Try to listen to and imitate various English accents to adapt yourself to them.

If tapes are too expensive, you can search for listening materials online. There are many good websites for this. I recently heard that 21st Century put audio clips of some of the articles online. That's also a good source.

Another economical and convenient way to improve listening skills is to listen to English broadcasts. China Radio International is one option. It broadcasts in English all day long, so you can turn to it whenever you want. At first, you may not quite be able to understand the content, but, after some time, you'll feel much better.

Listening to English news or songs not only helps your sense of English but also your interest in English. And at the same time it allows you to relax.



21st: Many Chinese students are weak in oral English. They don't have enough time to speak English in class and they have little chance to experience English outside class. What are your suggestions?

Zhou: The best way I know of is to read English articles or texts aloud every day. If you are not confident enough of yourself or are a bit shy, find a comfortable place.

Before reading, you should imagine that someone is standing right in front of you and is eager to listen to you. Then you should read loudly and emotionally as if you were speaking to an audience.

You can also make up some dialogues or do some role-playing by yourself. Even better is to go to an English corner and take the chance to communicate with others in English.

In conclusion, as university students, we should study on our own and be independent. Rome wasn't built in a day and English isn't either. Study is a gradual accumulation from every day, rather than a rush job.

Learning English well is not easy unless you really put your heart into it. What is most important is that you get a method that is right for you. When you find that, you will find learning English to be very interesting.