Chapter 5: Selecting a Text
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In this chapter, I am using the term text to identify a written manuscript. A newspaper in English is usually an excellent source for a study text. Most newspapers use good syntax, relatively simple sentences, and common expressions. In addition to general vocabulary, newspapers will give you many common political, scientific, economic, and technical words. Generally, newspapers are also a good source of colloquial expressions.
As you begin language study, you will need both a manuscript and an audio recording of the text for pronunciation practice. In your initial selection of a study text, you will be faced with a choice between a printed text from a newspaper or spoken language from a radio broadcast.
I will explain the use of a newspaper as an English text in this chapter because it will help you to understand how the text would be used. However, if you are using the Spoken English Learned Quickly lessons, the text and the audio recordings are complete and all of the features in this chapter are already built into that course.
Fourteen of the 16 Spoken English Learned Quickly lessons begin with a Lesson Text section. This material may be read aloud exactly like a newspaper. If you are using the Lesson Text for your reading, you will have the added advantage of familiar vocabulary and audio recordings to guide your pronunciation.
After you complete the Spoken English Learned Quickly lessons, you will still want to read newspapers as you continue studying English. You can become very fluent in English — and develop an excellent vocabulary — if you continue to read English newspapers aloud. However, at that point you would not need to make audio recordings. Reading aloud and keeping a vocabulary notebook would be all you would need to do. By this time in your study, I am assuming that your pronunciation and voice inflection would be acceptable. If not, you would need to return to the Spoken English Learned Quickly lessons until your pronunciation was correct.
