speaking

On your own or with a friend
A useful technique is to record yourself speaking and then listen to it. Try not to do it from written text. It can be quite useful just to tell a story from your childhood. By listening to the recording you make you might be able to find areas where you can improve. It is even better if you can get a friend to listen to what you say. S/he will be able to tell you if they have problems understanding you and where you might need to improve.

Presentations
This set of files is designed to help you with giving presentations and leading seminars.

Speaking at International Conferences

Making presentations

Tips for making presentations

Making presentations -using power point (download this to your computer and play the show or watch it on line)

Pronunciation
If you use this link to the BBC world service you can go to 'Six minute English'. Here you can listen to short parts of a radio programme and read the script at the same time. This will help build up your fluency as well as help develop your pronunciation. Try:

listening to a short piece of language and then repeating it into a voice recorder.
listen to complete sentences and then try to repeat them at the same speed and intonation as you hear on the programme. You can rewind and listen again if you want to.

This BBC site has some good practice of individual sounds. Please make an appointment for GIL if you want to find out more about which sounds you should practice.

This website can help with pronunciation too.

Practice your speaking
During the academic year you will be able to join university clubs. This is a good opportunity to speak to others as well as to enjoy yourself. You can find a set of links to university clubs here .

For insessional students
If you are an insessional student you can join credit-rated or non credit-rated academic speaking and listening classes.You have to register as an insessional student in order to do this.

last updated 30/10/17