为什么说练作文会提高口语能力？

大多数人尽管“学”了许多年，依然不能开口讲英语的最根本原因，并不仅仅是因为“他们不会说”，更可能是因为“他们没什么话可说”。我最初意识到这个问题，是因为我自己的经历。

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20111113113332/http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/8989.html

Why Practicing Essays Improves Your Speaking

> By Li Xiaolai · 2010-04-13 · [Original (web archive)](https://web.archive.org/web/20111113113332/http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/8989.html) (Chinese)
> Our translation from the Chinese original.

The most fundamental reason most people, even after "studying" for many years, still cannot open their mouths and speak English is not only that "they don't know how to say it"; it is more likely that "they have nothing much to say."

I first became aware of this problem because of my own experience.

I did not come up through a formal English program, so, never mind poor spoken English—even my pronunciation was a complete mess. Many years ago, when I had just started teaching at New Oriental, it wasn't even a matter of "poor pronunciation" but of "flatly mispronouncing" (I mentioned before that I read specific as "spesifik" and facade as "fakeid"). Not to mention any speaking ability—in fact, I had hardly ever opened my mouth and spoken English with a real person.

Not long after I started teaching, I was asked to teach the writing course—later, TOEFL writing, SAT writing, GRE writing, GMAT writing… I taught the writing sections of all kinds of study-abroad exams. Back then, in order to get high scores myself, I had sorted all the essay prompts into categories and written every one of them: TOEFL had 185 prompts, GRE had two hundred-plus ISSUE prompts and two hundred-plus ARGUMENT prompts respectively…

Writing well myself was actually relatively simple; once I had to start teaching large numbers of students, I immediately ran into a predicament again [Translator's note: the original writes 有发现, literally "have discovered"; 又发现 ("again ran into") is meant; translated by the intended sense]: as a teacher, I couldn't impose my own line of thinking on the students, nor should I restrict the students' thinking with one particular line of thinking. So, after taking over the teaching of the writing course, I set about writing a considerable number of the prompts in several versions (for example, for a particular position, writing three versions: agreeing, disagreeing and neutral)…

So, in the first year or two after I started teaching the writing course, every day I was writing essays and correcting essays (my own and the students'), and without noticing it, my head filled up with countless pieces of material.

Up to this point, I still didn't have much real-world experience of speaking. Personally I also don't much like going to English corners; perhaps it's my prejudice, but I always felt they were too inefficient.

Finally one day, something unexpected happened. It was on the way back to Beijing from Guangzhou. There was heavy fog that day, so the flight was delayed. At first I thought I would only have to wait a little longer, but after more than an hour had passed I was still in the departure lounge. Bored stiff, I opened my laptop and started revising essays…

Suddenly a voice spoke to me: "Hi……"

Only then did I discover that a blonde, blue-eyed beauty was sitting beside me. I instantly realized that she must have seen me writing long passages of English, and so assumed I could definitely speak English… But I knew perfectly well what shape I was in! Terrible pronunciation, mistakes the moment I opened my mouth…

The girl wasn't shy with strangers at all, and went ahead and said a whole lot on her own. My mind went blank; I didn't know what to say, and could only brace myself and respond with smiles (probably with a red face) and nods.

But never saying anything wasn't going to work either!

Suddenly I knit my brows and a plan came to me. I finally opened my mouth and spoke: "Many believe that parents are the best teachers, do you agree or disagree?"—this is the first TOEFL essay prompt…

Perhaps this topic was too abrupt; the girl was taken aback for a moment and actually started to stammer. After two or three short sentences, she kicked the ball over to me: "Wow, I really didn't think it through, huh, what do you say about it?"

I suddenly relaxed—how could she possibly know that I had written four versions of this prompt! I started telling her my views. I knew my pronunciation was terrible, so I deliberately slowed down my pace of speech… She couldn't help listening seriously, because she found that this unremarkable-looking man beside her, who had been fine as long as he didn't open his mouth, once he did open it, actually often produced compound and complex sentences… And more crucially, the examples were plentiful and the logic was rigorous…

She thought that what was going on between her and me was a discussion; little did she know that for me, it was simply a presentation!

Before I knew it I had finished speaking, and she said thoughtfully, "Wow, you have a brain!"

Later, after we boarded the plane, she even changed seats on purpose, and we chatted about a lot of things the whole way, such as "life in small cities is actually more comfortable than in big cities" (a TOEFL prompt), "every society often overlooks its true thinkers" (a GRE prompt)… When we got to Beijing, only as we parted did I learn that her name was Susan. Later, when I wrote High-Scoring TOEFL Essays (《TOEFL高分作文》), it was she who organized the team of seven foreign teachers.

This experience completely changed my view of teaching spoken English: before, I had always thought the students' problem was "not knowing how to say it" (HOW)—I had once thought my own problem was the same; now I think that the problem students face is not only that; more importantly, they "have nothing much to say" (WHAT).

Afterwards I got into the habit of no longer expecting myself to be able to blurt things out, but hoping instead to be prepared so nothing could go wrong. Whenever I was about to face some formal occasion where I had to speak English, I would always spend time first writing a "verbatim script." Whatever I didn't know how to write, I looked up in the dictionary; whatever I couldn't find in the dictionary, I searched for with Google; if even Google couldn't find it, I thought about whether there was some alternative way of saying it… And then I spent time revising it, getting familiar with it, retelling it. After doing all this, once I was on the spot, I could basically handle things "with ease."

Only after doing all this did I realize that actually it's the same when I speak Chinese myself. When chatting casually with friends day to day, one doesn't necessarily [Translator's note: the original writes 到不见得, with 到 ("to, arrive"); 倒不见得 ("doesn't necessarily, though") is meant; translated by the intended sense] have to prepare, but which time going up on stage to give a speech doesn't need preparing in advance? Sometimes, even when you have prepared in advance, things can still "go wrong" because the preparation wasn't thorough enough. And in fact, even when chatting casually with friends, some important content still needs a bit of [Translator's note: the original writes 以下, literally "below"; 一下 ("a bit") is meant; translated by the intended sense] preparation (it's just that much of the time this preparation isn't "formal"). It's the same for everyone: how many times have you and I, when telling friends a story, ended up ruining a good story because we weren't practiced at it?

The TOEFL essay prompts can be downloaded here: www.ets.org/Media/Tests/TOEFL/pdf/989563wt.pdf

The GRE Issue prompts can be accessed at: http://www.ets.org/gre/general/prepare/sample\_questions/analytical/issues/index.html

The GRE Argument prompts can be accessed at: http://www.ets.org/gre/general/prepare/sample\_questions/analytical/argument/index.html

For quite a long time, I thought I had "discovered" a real shortcut; only later did I find that "I am not alone." In China, the best-selling spoken English textbooks are actually the specialist textbooks of Beijing Foreign Studies University, by BFSU professor Mr. Wu Zhenfu (吴桢福): three volumes in all, Elementary Spoken English (《英语初级口语》), Intermediate Spoken English (《英语中级口语》) and Advanced Spoken English (《英语高级口语》), reprinted many times over the years, each with a print run of more than 1 million copies. If readers get the chance, you might as well go to a bookshop and leaf through this set of textbooks—you'll find that most of the lesson topics in them are actually derived from TOEFL essay prompts.