Test 1听力原文

SECTION A MINI-LECTURE

How Practice Can Damage Your English

Good morning, everyone. Today, I am going to talk about the negative role of practice in

English learning.

If you ask “How can I learn to speak English better?”, many people will tell you “Practice,

practice, practice”. “Speak and write in English whenever you can”—they will say. All English

classes are full of activities which involve speaking and writing which are supposed to help you

with your English.

We agree that practice can be very useful. It’s even necessary to learn English well. So what’s

the problem? The problem is that for many learners, “speaking” or “writing” means “making a lot

of mistakes”. Some people make a mistake in every sentence! If you don’t make many mistakes,

your mistakes constantly and your incorrect habits become stronger.

Imagine this situation: You are writing an e-mail message in English. Your English is not

perfect and you want to write the message quickly. You write incorrectly: “I want speak English.”

When you write a sentence, you also read it. So the incorrect sentence goes into your head. The

next time you write a message, you will be more likely to write “I want finish” or “I want be

happy”. Why? Because “I want speak English” is fresh in your head—you’ve just used it! And

when you write “I want do something” the second time, you’ve got a “bad habit”, or a reinforced

mistake.

Now do you see our point? You write—you make mistakes—those mistakes become your

habit, they become your way of writing in English. you practice, you reinforce your mistakes.

Michal suggests a simple solution to this paradox: Never make mistakes! According to what he

says, it is close to the truth that you have never written an incorrect English sentence. You knew

many grammatical structures and you used only those that you knew. Your sentences were similar

to sentences which you knew to be correct. You followed good examples, so all your sentences

were good. In the beginning, you could write only very simple sentences, but all the simple habits. You never had any bad habits! From the beginning, you copied only correct sentences. With

every sentence that you wrote, you reinforced your good habits.

You have to realize that speaking does not improve your grammar or your vocabulary. It’s

really very simple. Can you learn a new word from yourself? If you don’t know how to say “Good

bye” in English, can you invent it by yourself? No, you can’t. You can only learn it by reading or

listening to English. So what you should do if you can’t help but make mistakes in your English