March 2015 - April 2015

To improve my speaking skills I've chosen the Skype conversation with an English teacher, because it's probably the best way how to make some progress in spoken interaction (I can't move to England). This time I've been taking lessons with two teachers which is probably even more useful, because it makes the lessons more interesting and I can hear two different way (maybe accents) of English. Every lesson takes an hour and a half which I found better than in the previous semester when the lessons on the Skype took only about an hour. Now I can make conversations in English for a longer time which is more difficult for me, but not for improving my English.

The other reason I've chosen this activity is that there is the final exam at the end of the semester and I'll have to be able to converse with my classmate so I'm a bit afraid of the exam, because speaking is still the worst part of my English. I'd like to have more lessons on the Skype, but unfortunately it costs really much money so I have to be satisfied with the fact, that I can afford to have at least 10 lessons.
Here are my recordings:1drv.ms/1aKq7UJ

Reflection:

There is something mysterious about my speaking and sometimes I don't understand myself. When I had the very first lesson on the skype I felt quit comfortable, I was satisfied with myself and I was also a bit surprised that I could speak so good. I expected that it would be better and better but it wasn't. It should be logical that when I speak good English, the next time I should be better at it, but sometimes it was even worse. It's very confusing for me and I am disappointed by it. I've always believed that things will be getting better if I learn a lot, but in this case .....

Anyway, thanks to the conversations on the Skype I could recognise that I had some problems with asking questions - I know how to ask questions, but I need a little time which I don't have during a conversation.

During a lesson I am able to think very difficult sentences up, but next time I make stupid mistakes e.g. I omit final "s" when I express that somebody does something - "She make(s) me happy."

I remember that last time I wanted to ask my teacher - "Where do your parents live" but I asked her "Where your parents live" and I was even smiling after that and I was proud of myself that it was very easy for me to ask somebody about something. When the teacher corrected me I thought I was the biggest idiot in the world. After that "accident" I got nervous and then my English couldn't be better. But there is at least one possitive aspect of it - I could recognise that I was really afraid of doing mistakes. Maybe the problem is not my English but something inside of me. I really rely on the course in Fryšták and I hope I will be able to overcome my shyness of speaking in English.

I'm going to continue with conversations on the Skype, because I strongly believe that it is very useful for my English even though I feel that I am sometimes quit disappointed. 

In my opinion my passive vocabulary is quite good, because I understand almost everything I hear, and there is probably only one way how to broaden my active vocabulary - to speak English as often as possible.

But I think that nowadays, this activity is not mainly about improving vocabulary - there are some others (reading, writing). As for me, this activity should help me to be more self-confident and not to be afraid of making mistakes.