Plain English counts!

November 15, 2009 No comments »

Dear fellow members and guests,

How many of you are still learning English at your spare time? How much do you remember what you learned? I understand many people remember only 5% or less, that means that they are wasting more than 90% of their time learning English!
Do you know why they can’t remember what they learned? Because the English they are learning is too difficult, too boring and useless. I believe the fastest way to improve your English is to read, write, speak and listen to what you enjoy and what you can understand. I also believe the highest level of learning English is when you can write and speak the most complete and authentic English using the simplest words and the simplest sentence structures—that’s what I call “Plain English.”
Please come over this Friday night for an amazing Friday night, and I will host the Special Session to share with you my learning experience of “Plain English.” Don’t miss out on this amazing moment…

All the best,
Laozhang-PR assistant
Amazing Friday Toastmasters
(Active member of People’s Square Toastmasters)

The “short-cut” to Native English learning

September 5, 2009 2 comments »

PPT version here.

The “short-cut” to Native English learning (1)

 Learn and memorize the sentence patterns or phrases instead of a single word!

  • Select out the useful sentence patterns or phrases
  • Make your own sentence out of that pattern or phrase

 Example:

 1) Everybody is pretty impressed with my ideas, but it is easy to come up with them.

 be impressed with sth. / come up with sth.

The audience are impressed with my performance on the stage.

I come up with the idea when I was in the toilet.

 2) As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And it really couldn’t be truer when it comes to medical emergencies.

 As the saying goes,…/ it really couldn’t be truer when it comes to…

 As the saying goes, time and tide waits for no man, we shall cherish the time that we have now and make most out of it.

Practice makes perfect and this really couldn’t be truer when it comes to language learning

 

The “short-cut” to Native English learning (2)-1

Group the words, phrases or sentences of the same/similar meaning together!

 Words or phrases of the same/ similar meaning:

 Example:

 Grow /increase/ rise / go up / rocket

 The sales volume has grown since last year

The sales volume has increased since last year

The sales volume has risen since last year

The sales volume has gone up since last year

The sales volume has rocketed since last year

 

The “short-cut” to Native English learning (2)-2

 Group the words, phrases or sentences of the same/similar meaning together!

 Sentences of the same/ similar meaning:

 Example:

1)

He really made me angry!

He really got me mad!

He really pissed me off!

He was really trying my patience!

 2)

I came up with the idea when I was taking a walk

I think of the idea when I was taking a walk

This idea hit me when I was taking a walk

The idea came to my mind when I was taking a walk

 3)

As the saying goes,

There is a saying that,

  

The “short-cut” to Native English learning (3)

 Learning English is a day-to-day work!

 Review your notes

  • in the morning
  • and in the evening, and
  • The next morning

 

English learning Materials

www. putclub.com

www. newsweek.com

www. Mirror.co.uk

Guests in Big Event

August 3, 2009 3 comments »

Guests in Big Event

VIP Guest

Our member

Big Event-Do What You Love (Aug 8, Shanghai Library)

1 comment »

Amazing Friday will hold a big Event on coming weekend. August 8th, 2009.

Do what you love

Easy or Not?- How to select a speech topic

July 31, 2009 3 comments »

I did enjoy Bill’s Amazing Session tonight. It was not only funny but also very enlightening. I concluded several tips to share with you.

Quick Survey:

More than 60% people like public speaking

More than 70% people like Eng

More than 80% people feel it’s hard to select a speech topic

Question 1: What topic should we select?

Solution: What do you like? Is there anything you have passion with? What’s your talent?

The best speech topic is to share the thing you do love. It’s humanbeing’s nature. Nature is beauty. Just like to fall in love with the person you really love.

Question 2: Always be very picky about own speech.

Solution: It can not be an excuse not to prepare a speech. A very easy and important step is to take action. Prepare the speech, do it in public, find the points to make improvement, try again…Only in this way, could we get better and better. Most of us are not born as a talent. Just like to date someone, you could hardly find a perfect one but why not start to date a good one, then you can learn how to get along well with others and find your lover in the end.

Question 3: Worrying if the audience will be interested in the topic. For example, girls may not like basketball. Is it a good topic?

Solution: Assumption is a very big mistake. Less of confidence is also an obstacle in many people’s way. We could not assume audience don’t like it. Why you like it? Just share the personal feeling to influence audience in an interesting or touching manner. A lot of girls do like basket ball that’s why 樱木花道 so popular? We should cultivate the confidence to let audience like your topic with your perfect speech. Just like that you could not assume the ideal one don’t love you or you will miss the chance forever. Just be brave enough to attract his or her attention.

Questin 4: People may feel it is boring to listen to some too popular topics, such as confidence, love, dream, etc.

Solution: Truth is always the same, but story could be different. Everyone’s story must have some special things. Share your own stories and feelings from the bottom of your heart, you could do an “Oscar” speech. Just like movies are always with the theme of love and justice. But in every year’s Oscar, we could always enjoy the wonderful movies about different stories with alike themes.

I like our meeting more and more, because every time, I could learn a lot from our members.

Helen

Adam got us fired up for next week’s contest

2 comments »

Adam is so talent that he turned to be such a humorous guy after taking the feedback he got in last mini club! Tonight his speech led the meeting to the climax. Even a very serious German could not help to laughing. His speech got us fired up for next week’s contest. Next Fri (Aug 7), there will be 8 humorous contest speeches which you could not miss.

Helen

3C to riveting a story

July 14, 2009 3 comments »

We all like listen to a story instead of a abstract concept or theory, do you agree?
If you don’t, you will be a great scientist :)
I remember we like stories when we are in childhood.

When we want convey a message to friends, colleagues, and others, how can we tell them?
It’s better to tell them a story, isn’t it?

We can become more welcome when we do this better.
Just like all the children like you from heart if you tell good stories to them.

So how can we do better in story telling.
We have a training session this Friday — 3C to riveting a story
The trainer is the is Queen Of Story Telling, who is a very senior and experienced Toastmasters.
She was the past president of Shanghai People Square Toastmasters, and in charge of Lieutenant District Governor of Education & Training now.

What’s the 3C?
I don’t know, I believe it should be the keys to telling a good story.
What’s the detail, let’s see it on Friday night.

One Amazing Session

July 11, 2009 2 comments »

In Amazing Friday, We have a special session, we call it “Amazing Session”.
We try to keep it amazing and hope more people benifit from it.

On May 8, 2009. We have invited a entrepreneur Mr Zhang from Rich Link Logistics to share his experience and opinion when starting a own business.

Helen Zhang (our president now) hosted the whole session and facilitated with audience and Mr Zhang.

We are together:
We are together

Many people attended our meeting, we are a Large group:
We are a Big group

Our DTM Susan also wrote a blog of this meeting.Club meeting: Amazing Friday from Susan

Thanks Ken

No comments »

Thanks Ken for providing a webspace where we can post our Amazing Friday Toastmasters Information here.

Amazing Friday Toastmasters

1 comment »

Shanghai Amazing Friday Toastmasters Club is affiliated with Toastmasters International.
We help members and guest to practice their communication skills and leadership skills.

In Amazing Friday, we have many passionate members, we improve our meeting quality to help members and guests.
We have mini club where you can practice there and get more feedbacks from others.
We organize amazing team outing that we get happy journey together.
We create big event to influence more people.

We also invite the guests around the world, following are some feedbacks from world wide guests.
It’s romantic place where I meet my love.
— Guest from American

Your club is very good club, especially in leadership.
— A DTM from Malaysia

It’s a Amazing Place where I share my travel experience over 163 cities in 37 countries around the world
— Guest from Germany

I like the atmosphere of your club, your club is really amazing as its name!
— One Japanese Guest says.

We believe Amazing Friday is a place where your dream can take off, join us!


Disclaimer: The name Toastmasters is a trademark of Toastmasters International, Inc.