Speaking
4th Semester
Presentation: Masaryk University.
I did a presentation for my class of Professional and Bussiness English C2. The topic was Masaryk University
Teachers evaluation, in the form of notes:
- good posture; eye contact with the audience
- clear and audible speech, no mumbling, no rushing
- errors: pronunciation of - Schedule, faculty, IT ( do not say informatics)
- mixing sounds, scarcely, but it happened
- nice presentation, entertaining, clear graphic
I do understand that this evaluation is not entirely thorough, but the oral presentations are not so common here and unfortunately, I did not have time to do my recording.
All in all, my oral presentation was evaluated as sufficient for C2 Lvl English, I was advised to work on my pronunciation and suggested to focus on sounds which sound nasal in my interpretation. I was given mark 16/20. I think this contribution is valid because I was evaluated by someone who does not know me and therefore his evaluation is more objective.
Article submitted on 13.4.2017
Attached powerpoint presentation, for illustration.
Chairing a meeting
As my next task where my speaking skills were evaluated, I had to chair a meeting. The topic of the meeting was to discuss future plans for one pavilion of the University.
Unfortunately, there is no recording and since the speech was in reaction to responses, there is no transcript either. Evaluation from the teacher, again in notes.
- great range of business related words and correct usage - turnover, budget, etc...
- explicit description of charts and graphs, prompt responses to answers and suggestions
- good usage of euphemisms when dealing with an unpleasant member of the meeting
- sometimes struggle when focusing on the agenda
- prompt interaction
- good usage of stress in sentences marking the importance correctly
- more frequent mispronunciation of words
In my opinion, this contribution is valid because it show how I cope with speaking in situations I am not familiar with and on a specific business topic no less. There were people whose speeches were nearly perfect and that gave me an idea what to improve. I was also given a pointer on what to focus when chairing a meeting.
Article submitted on 13.4.2017
3 semester
Tongue twisters by Me
Why I chose this artifact? Since we no longer have a phonetics classes, we do not have activities where we only practice pronunciation. Yes, every teacher corrects our pronunciation mistakes, but sometimes the content is more important than the pronunciation. This is why I do tongue twisters. They are fun and I can listen to them again and again and focus on the pronunciation since most of the tongue twisters can be found on youtube.
How was is? Besides it was big fun, it is very useful. I can play it repeatedly and focus on different parts. From the first extract, for example, I can hear that my /ɔ:/ and /ɒ/ sounds have a big room for improvement. And my pronunciation of three (3) is simply disastrous. I then listen to native speakers and try to sound like them as much as possible.
For your convenience, I uploaded it on youtube, so you do no have to download it directly.
Article submitted on: 9.1.2017
Presentation: Andrzej Sapkowski - The Witcher
As an artifact, I would like to use evaluations I was given on my presentation about The Witcher series, by Andrzej Sapkowski. Generally, my presentation was satisfactory. My classmates and Mrs. Lexová noted that I keep an eye contact, use my body language and speak clearly. Most problems were with my pronunciation. It was difficult because some words were originally from Polish and I was not sure which pronunciation to respect. Moreover, my classmates pointed out that I sometimes mistake the /ð/ sound with /d/ sound and sometimes I mix it even with /θ/ sound. I had this problem even last year. When I am relaxed, I do not think I am making this mistakes, but presentations make me nervous. I made even one or two mistakes when constructing a sentence. I mixed up past perfect and continuous and so on. I am aware of this problem when speaking to a number of people since I get nervous easily. I am trying to prevent this issues from happening by trying out my presentation in front of a mirror.
Artice submitted on 20.12.2016
1 and 2 semester
For my first artifact, I chose our mid-terms recording. The recordings took place on the 5. 4. 2016. I think this is the only valid artifact I can provide since it really contains me speaking.
I value this artifact the most because for this one I have a feedback and I have an evaluation sheet where I can see my mistakes.
I know I sometimes confuse the /ð/ sound with /d/ sound and sometimes i mix it even with /θ/ sound. Since I am aware of this mistakes I am practicing to avoid them, but unfortunately it is not easy for me. Furthermore, I am aware that my linking is sometimes non-existing and I am working on that as well.
Secondly, I would like to present how I practice my speaking skills. I do so using our homework to Phonetics classes. We have the text written normally and in phonetics transcription, so I can see which sounds and words are corresponding. It also illustrates how speech changes when talking slowly or fast.
This is very useful, yet really demanding. I often realize that I would often say things differently that they are meant to be said. To be concrete, apart from the sounds I have mentioned above, I have problems with /ɒ/ sound and sometimes /æ/ sound. I am frequently practicing but since I am doing on my own I do not have anyone to tell me if I am doing it wrong or not.
Articles submitted on 12.5.2016