A PRACTICAL COURSE IN EFFECTIVE ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS

Book excerpt: A sequel to the author’s well received book A Practical Course in Spoken English, this comprehensive yet compact book provides a practical course for enhancing one’s English speaking skills. Divided into six parts and 44 chapters, the book in Part I—The Knowledge Paradigm: The What and Why of Effective Speaking—discusses, among others, about phonetics and phonology, the phonemes, and stress and intonation. Part II—The Skill Paradigm A—Public Speaking Skills—covers such areas as using the 4Rs for effective speaking, combating stage fear, using audio-visual aids, and non-verbal communication. Part III—The Skill Paradigm B—Communicating with People—deals with such topics as making effective telephone calls, celebrating teacher’s day, expressing gratitude, participating in group discussions, and participating in TV/radio debate. Part IV—Further Strengthening Your Communication Skills—is devoted to a study of rein-forcing the reader’s vocabulary through such means as using phrasal verbs, linking words, consulting the Ready Reference Wordbook, and frequently used foreign words and phrases. The final two parts—Part V, The Desire to Achieve: Getting Motivated, and Part VI, Effective English Speaking Skills in Action—provide the meaning and techniques of self-motivation, evaluating daily progress, besides giving some memorable speeches delivered by great speakers like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, US Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln, and the civil rights activist, Martin Luther King. The book, written in an accessible and student-friendly manner, is meant for anyone who possesses a fair amount of English speaking skills but wishes to further enhance those skills. Undergraduate students of different disciplines and even plus two students should find the book quite useful and interesting. As acquiring communication skills is a must in today’s extremely competitive world, this book would do wonders to the student as well as the lay reader.