English Tea Time #25 – Reading Aloud

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by
Nick
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Nick's English Tea Time

Hello there! In this week’s newsletter, I’d like to talk about how you can improve your English speaking skills by reading aloud.

How Do You Study English?

I came across an interesting thread on X by Yamaguchi Mikiyo, who I assume is an English teacher.

She said that when she asks Japanese people how they study English, they usually reply with one or more of the following:

  • I’m memorizing English vocabulary
  • I’m completing workbooks
  • I’m taking online English lessons

She goes on to say that nobody answers, “I read aloud more than 50 times a day.”

Isn’t that an interesting observation? She finishes with, “He who masters reading aloud will master English,” and asks the question, “Do you read aloud?”

Yamaguchi Mikiyo’s thread about reading aloud on X

How to Read Aloud

In response to that post, an X user asked her how to learn effectively by reading aloud.

To which she gave an in-depth answer. Here’s the English (Google) translation:

“Daily lessons are conducted using a “Communicative Approach,” a learning method that aims to develop English proficiency rather than knowledge.”

“We teach students to communicate not through their eyes but through their ears. In other words, the main focus is on training using the ears and mouth. “Listening and oral practice” is the core of the class and also the core of home study.”

“However, there are many people who have problems learning by ear. For the adult generation whose ears are tuned to Japanese, it is difficult to understand just by listening carefully to audio sources, so in parallel with the communicative approach, we also have them learn phonics, phonetics, and prosody. Since they can hear the sounds they can make, by correcting their pronunciation, we enable them to hear the correct sounds of English.”

“In addition, we ask students to record their daily reading aloud practice, which we then correct and return to them.”

“Through this series of steps, once students have acquired the rhythm, pronunciation, and intonation of English, they are finally able to begin what is commonly referred to as “reading aloud.””

“We ask you to read aloud something that you are really interested in or a sentence that serves as a template for what you want to talk about, following these steps: Listening → Mumbling → Parallel Reading → Repeating → Prosody Shadowing* → Content Shadowing.”

“At the end, you will present what you have memorized in front of everyone and receive comments from everyone.”

The Steps

Here are those steps in detail:

  1. Listening is paying close attention to the audio to understand pronunciation, rhythm, and intonation. This step is key to getting familiar with the language’s natural flow.
  2. Mumbling is quietly repeating what you hear, like whispering to yourself. It helps you get used to the sounds and rhythms without worrying about perfection.
  3. Parallel Reading is reading the text aloud while listening to the audio. This improves your pronunciation and timing, like singing along with a song.
  4. Repeating is listening to a sentence or phrase and then saying it back exactly as you heard it, focusing on pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm.
  5. Prosody Shadowing is matching the speaker’s rhythm, intonation, and stress. You’re focusing on the melody of the sentence, not just the words.
  6. Content Shadowing is listening to a sentence or passage and repeating it immediately, mimicking both the meaning and delivery. It helps you practice speaking naturally and fluently.

“Reading” Material

I put “reading” in quotes because not all these resources have readable transcripts. You can however, use the audio for shadowing practice.

Children‘s Stories:

Graded Readers:

  • Oxford Reading Tree
  • Penguin Readers series

Short Articles/News Snippets:

TED-Ed Videos:

Audiobooks:

TV Shows/Movies:

  • Netflix
  • YouTube

Short TED Talks:

So there you have it. Find something that interests you and practise reading aloud. Can you do it 50 times a day?! 🤣

British English

Here are some common English phrases related to reading aloud:

  • Read out loud – “Can you read the first paragraph out loud?”
  • Recite – “He recited a poem by heart during the assembly.”
  • Give a reading – “She gave a reading of her new book at the library.”
  • Narrate – “The teacher narrated the story to the children.”
  • Oral reading – “Oral reading is an important part of our English lessons.”
  • Voice – “She voiced the character’s lines with great emotion.”

New Worksheets and Videos

Before I finish my cup of tea, I want to show you what I’ve made since the last newsletter:

Videos:

Worksheets:

Which of those catches your eye? 👁

Private Lessons

I’m still offering private lessons. If you have any suggestions on how I can make my services more appealing, please let me know.

Facebook Group

Our Nick’s English Group on Facebook is still growing! 😍 We now have 188 members. Please check it out if you haven’t already.

Behind the Scenes

Last week, my Facebook Page reached 2,000 followers, which is amazing! Thanks everyone! 😀

YouTube

Making YouTube videos is like a hamster wheel. I keep running round and round, but don’t get anywhere. It takes me all week to put a video together – planning, making a webpage and PDF, preparing the whiteboard, recording, editing, writing captions, making a thumbnail, and uploading… and then it all starts again. It’s tiring. I’ll probably take a week off soon.

Learning Chinese!

The Hello Chinese app tells me when it’s time to review past material. I always make sure I go back and do the reviews because it’s surprising how quickly I forget. I tell myself that the early stuff is the most important, so it’s better to review that than push on forward.

Wrap-up

And that’s it! Thank you for joining me for tea! If you’re enjoying my blog and would like to get new posts in your email, please subscribe. If you have friends who might like these posts, please share this link with them. I really appreciate it!

All the best,

Nick

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