脱・日本人英語で堂々とスピーチを！

Hey there! It’s me Nic, and I’m looking forward to seeing in one more course! I do a lot on Fruitful English, but this ‘speech’ project is one of the most exciting yet.

I’ve been teaching conversation lessons for a long time, and it’s clear that they help students with their fluency and vocabulary. However, it’s difficult to focus on specific themes and skills in the conversation.

Importantly, there are 2 vital skills in English, which are difficult to learn in standard lessons. First, pronunciation is a vital skill for English. I tell my students to focus on it during lessons, but it’s difficult. In addition, for lower level students, it’s difficult to form longer, more complex sentences. This course was developed for these 2 reasons.

First, pronunciation is absolutely necessary, and a notable weak point for Japanese students. As a former teacher in public school at the elementary and junior high school levels, which are the most important times to practice pronunciation, I know that pronunciation is not a major point in English public education in Japan. So, many students have the ability to speak fluently or quickly, but they lack pronunciation skills. In addition, I find that many instructors are used to Japanese pronunciation. So, while students can easily communicate with instructors that are familiar with the accent, when Japanese speakers try and speak with others, they have a lot more trouble being understood. This course will improve your pronunciation, guaranteed!

Secondly, it’s natural for learners to use simple sentences; forming complex sentences, especially when you're beginning, is difficult! The best way to practice this is actually through reading, especially reading longer passages. In fact, reading native English can help in 2 ways. First, it’s the best way to learn vocabulary and phrasings that you won’t see covered in textbooks. And, it helps your brain becoming comfortable with forming longer sentences, and helps your brain understand how native speakers connect longer ideas together.

This course includes 12 lessons, with the first six focusing on shadowing and reading along with me! This helps you with pronunciation, listening, and improving your grammar and phrasing. The second half of the course is focused on your own speeches. These can be original speeches, or something else. The focus on the second half is to use longer passages, and speak English for a long period of time. This helps your brain understand English structure, and will help you when you try and speak longer, more complex sentences.

So, the course addresses two of the biggest weaknesses I see in my students. What could be better? I can’t wait to see you and hear your improvement. See you online! Let’s give some speeches!

Do you have a dream that one day you will be able to speak fluently? Have you heard great speeches and said to yourself, "I wish I could speak like that!".

There are great speeches throughout history that have moved people to action and to comfort those in times of great tragedy. They can by real people such as Martin Luther King Jr., Queen Elizabeth I or Mahtma Ghandi, or fictional characters speaking to us through plays and movies, they can teach us about language and oratorial techniques.

We are lucky to have some great speeches on video such as Malala Yousafzai's Nobel Peace Prize speech pushing for equal access to education for girls and Steve Jobs' 2005 Standford Commencement Speech urging students to pursue their dreams.

What are you interested in? Business? Literature? Science? Education? What kind of movies do you watch? What catches your attention when you watch the news? What phrases stick with you?

In this course we will first mimic some speeches that interest you. Then, if you wish, write your own speech and we will practice it together. We will work on pronunciation of individual sounds, words and sentences to make your speech sound more natural.

Let's make your dreams come true with speeches!

James D.

Hello! My name is Simon. I am from New Zealand, but have lived and worked in Japan for 23 years, and have been teaching English here the whole time.

In the past, I have helped students with speeches, but this is my first time to take a course that is dedicated to the goal improving pronunciation and fluency through learning and practicing them. I’m really excited about it, because I know it will be effective.

There are many great speeches out there, spoken by great people. The messages are powerful, but it is the delivery of the message that really drives it home. They speak clearly and with confidence, knowing exactly which words to stress, and when to pause and let the words soak in. This is where I can help you, to take the words in front of you, and give them power and impact through your speaking.

To start with, you’ll pick a speech. The choice is yours. I’m sure you have a famous actor, speaker, even singer that you would love to be able to emulate. If you are unsure of what you want to use, I can help you.

We’ll work through it slowly with a big focus on pronunciation. This will be both on individual words and word groups in which consonants can be blended or omitted. We’ll also zoom in on other aspects, such as fluency, timing, intonation and rhythm, among other things.

Towards the end of the course, you will write your own speech. I can help you with this if necessary. Then we’ll take your words and work out how to deliver them, in a way that not only sounds natural, but also truly hits home.

I’m really looking forward to helping you on this journey!

Simon