中国学生英语口语自学误区(3)

Researchers who have studied English language learning have found that people progress as they practice, and ultimately they self-correct what they say. It is unnecessary to have someone correct your English constantly, because mistakes most often derive from a lack of English instincts rather than a lack of awareness or knowledge of the correct grammar structure. The same student who never makes a mistake doing grammar exercises on paper will make them while speaking but ultimately he will adjust his structures as he continues to use them.
　　Moreover, researchers who have conducted studies of various groups of learners have found that learners who communicate with partners of a similar level tend to progress faster than learners whose partners‘ levels are much higher or lower. One can understand why this is so when a learner communicates with someone at a lower level, but why is it also true of those who communicate with someone at a higher level?
　　The reasons are mostly psychological. Having a partner whose English is much more developed discourages the speaker and the fear of making mistakes tends to stifle smooth conversation. However, the researchers found that those who communicated with partners who were near their own level progressed faster. Thus, in fact your classmate who is at the same level of English as you may indeed be your finest teacher.
　　MisconceptionⅡ
　　If I want to learn American English, I should learn form an American teacher or my English will not be understood when I go to the U.S.A.
　　I have seen many good teachers here in China, both expatriates and Chinese, run into problems because of the way many students judge their accents. Students believe that the best chance of speaking like a native speaker is by having that ideal accent. If the teacher has an accent that is not form the target country that certain students want to go to, they are either rebuffed12 or rejected.
　　Part of the misconception stems from ignorance of the distinction between pronunciation and accent. Pronunciation involves the stress, rhythm, intonation, and phonetic sounds that facilitate communication. An accent is the distinguishable set of sounds that derives from cultural or regional phonetic patterns. Accents are essentially habits formed at a very early age and very difficult to change after the age of six. This has been verified13 by researchers who studied the tongue and mouth positions of Israeli children at an early age of 5-6, and find that even after heavy immersion14 in American English for about 10 years, their mouth and tongue positions change very little when speaking, and thus their accents change only slightly. In other words, forget about trying to change your accent in a year or two, it is just not going to happen. Pronunciation can be changed and improved. Accents are entrenched15 and need not be changed. 　

By Nevin Blumer