Goals for Week Two

[Sayed]

Finding out the severity of my English accent and ways I can remedy them with my language partner. In the past I have been described as being as fluent as a 6 year old, meaning I understand everything orally, however my own, individual oral skills are underdeveloped. Increasing my vocabulary, to the extent I can use at least 2 synonyms for every word. I have no target subject area that I want to focus my vocabulary in, at this stage; any and every increase is needed for me. I have found that the daily BBC news podcasts are an extremely valuable resource. The various clips run anywhere from 2 to 30 minutes long and cover a plethora of subject areas. I plan on completing the first two levels of Rosetta Stone and then retesting myself on it 3 or 4 days later to get a handle on much information I attained. I will use the time with my language partner to ask her any questions I have on the BBC clips. The clips carry a very sophisticated tone and might be above my level but I believe it will greatly accelerate my development. I also plan on listening to the audio clips in Blackboard and afterwards trying to provide a summary outloud to an imaginary audience to determine how much information I can sink in. And once again, I jot down every question or area I find interesting to further discuss with the language partner during our sessions.