This foundation is the four-level word. If your familiarity with CET-4 words is less than 95%, you will find that there are always some weak points in the whole dictation process. Why not? You can't always find it. In fact, it's very simple, because you often find that you don't know the original words, and no matter how you listen, it's all for nothing.
Why is this happening? This is about the purpose of dictation. In fact, the improvement of a person's listening needs multi-level analysis.
The first level should be the word level. In other words, if you don't know this word, you naturally don't know what it means. Although there will be supplementary methods in the later stage, if you have memorized the four words in the early stage, you will find that it will be more effective with half the effort.
The second level is the connection between words and correct pronunciation. In fact, the purpose of dictation is very simple, that is, to link words with correct pronunciation and form an immediate feedback! Please note that the "connection" and "instant feedback" mentioned here are very important!
Why do you say connect? It's simple. Let's take Chinese for example. For example, let's show a foreigner the way. Before that, foreigners learned dumb Chinese. If you just say "take the side door" to foreigners. Foreigners don't know what this means at all, and they don't understand you until you write the words "out of the side door" to them. Of course, at this time, he also knows that the pronunciation of the words "out of the side door" is Chu Zemen. At this time, he will associate words with pronunciation. However, maybe you use Beijing dialect with a strong voice, so he doesn't know what you mean by "out of the side door" because you read "door" as "door". When you realize this, you will correct your pronunciation as "door" and say it to Guigui again. At this time, Guigui knew that in Beijing dialect, "door" should be pronounced as "door".
The first example here is that I already know words, but I don't know the pronunciation. At this time, I associate unknown pronunciations with correct words. The latter example is to associate the original wrong pronunciation gate with the correct pronunciation "gate"
This is the purpose of dictation!
The third level is understanding. Because it is meaningless to simply distinguish sounds, just as a single word is meaningless. Only by connecting these words together to form different meanings can the communication have the same meaning. In other words, dictation is only through the pronunciation one by one, knowing which words are in the end. Then, only through understanding ability can we understand the meaning of these words and know what they mean. This is the next level, and there is no teacher to talk about it.
Therefore, from the first and second levels, we will know that when there are no words in your mind, it is useless for you to do any dictation, because there are no words for you to associate. This is the core issue! Therefore, we must memorize the four words well. Although many people have been attacking English education in China, including CET-4, objectively speaking, the choice of words in CET-4 is still very good, and most common English words were chosen about 20 years ago. Although some words do appear less now, more than 95% are excellent! Never lose big because of small! Therefore, before you prepare for dictation, you should prepare the words of Band 4. Of course, it is also a good choice to listen and recite.
By the time I read this article, I should have begun to recite the words of Band 4. Of course, many candidates will immediately ask if they still need to recite TOEFL words. Of course, the answer is yes, but we can't wait until all the ingredients are ready. In fact, we can recite those TOEFL words after practicing dictation every day, because TOEFL listening is not particularly demanding on the amount of words. As long as you have the foundation of CET-4 words, you can start listening. As for the TOEFL words you need, you can accumulate them slowly.
Last time I talked about the preparation of learning materials, today I talked about the preparation of auxiliary tools.
First of all, computers are essential, because the TOEFL test is a computer test based on the Internet. Therefore, all candidates must study on the computer during the whole process. This is actually a mistake that many candidates often make when preparing for the new TOEFL test. Because in the previous tests, candidates were rarely asked to answer questions on the computer, so many candidates have developed the habit of learning with paper books. But when they really take the test on the computer in the TOEFL examination room, there will be all kinds of discomfort. Therefore, candidates must get into the habit of preparing for the new TOEFL test on the computer.
Second, excellent dictation software. There are no teachers here to recommend two top dictation software in China. The first is ABOBOO, a dictation software in the new era, and the second is sitman, a dictation overlord in the last era.
ABOBOO, download address:/,this dictation software is the real next-generation dictation software, because this software perfectly realizes automatic sentence breaking in dictation, because when dictation, we have to break sentences one by one. Previously, it was all manual sentence breaking, but in this software, the next-generation technology was used perfectly for the first time, and the automatic sentence breaking by the machine was almost perfect.
Of course, the automatic text error correction function is especially recommended here! This software supports importing original text and automatic proofreading! Not only that, this software will also intelligently count the correct rate of this dictation, the missing content, and mark the checked words with the function of color and strikeout, which will help you have a very clear statistical data for this dictation, and will also help you compare with the previous dictation to find out your progress and shortcomings. Really super powerful! Dictation essential software!
The second sitman, /archives/ 18, is the representative of the previous era. The biggest feature of this software is that it can manually break sentences very accurately, and it is easy to jump to the next sentence by breaking sentences with shortcut keys. It is also an excellent dictation software.
In short, if you like a strong sense of control, there is no doubt that sitman is the best for you, but if you like to enjoy the smooth dictation feeling brought by the next generation of high technology and want to leave the tedious proofreading work after dictation to the computer, ABOBOO is undoubtedly your best partner for dictation!
Don't worry! Actually, it's not over yet
The third software: in fact, many candidates will find that there is an obvious problem in the dictation process, that is, many times, they know which word it is, but they don't know how to spell it; And sometimes, we will find that we don't know a word. At this time, we need the help of an auxiliary tool. This tool is Kingsoft, and everyone has it. Download address:/
Don't underestimate this Kingsoft PowerWord. Before, we just thought it was a word search software, but this software actually has a particularly powerful function, which is fuzzy query. The so-called fuzzy query is, for example, hearing a word pronounced feinaomeinong, but you don't know which word it is at all. At this time, you can try to enter phonaominoon. Obviously, this word is wrong. But Kingsoft's fuzzy query will give several possible correct words. At this time, it is also necessary for us to screen the words that should be added here according to their parts of speech and meanings, and finally choose which word.
Fourth, the learning environment, learning must need atmosphere and environment. If a group of people can study together for the same goal, then you will find that you have endless motivation to make progress. Therefore, we need to find such an environment when dictating! This learning environment is the online community. There are two schools that do more dictation in China. The first is the Hujiang Forum/,and the second is the well-known Pute Listening.
/。 Both are extremely popular dictation forums. Generally speaking, Hujiang Forum is more suitable for beginners, because there are a lot of slow VOA dictation and BBC dictation. As for Puter's hearing, it's a haunt of experts. People here often take pleasure in challenging themselves. So they often see countless long dictation with high accuracy, which is endless and shameful!
In fact, as far as dictation is concerned, there are many materials we can choose. Of course, many people think of TPO first. But in fact, in dictation, instead of using the so-called "best" materials from the beginning, it is better to take a step-by-step route and find materials that suit you.
Now when preparing for TOEFL, the following materials are the most commonly used. They are Special Voice, Standard Voice, Part C of the old TOEFL, TPO and SSS.
Of course, there are still many people using Delta, Longman, Barron and even Kaplan. But in fact, these materials have been proved to be not close enough to the TOEFL test and have been abandoned.
Therefore, this paper mainly discusses the above materials, such as VOA and TOEFL.
Special VOA (Slow VOA), a lot of materials starting with dictators, is absolutely classic. The classic of this material is slow enough and stable enough! Very suitable for beginners of level 4 or so. It is strongly recommended that beginners below Grade 4 and 500 use this material as the starting audio. Of course, the disadvantage of this material is also obvious, that is, some interviewees often have slurred speech and the material is not targeted, but other than that, it is difficult to find a more suitable material to start with, so it is definitely the best material from all aspects.
Next, it should be standard VOA (standard speed VOA), which can be said to be the favorite material of "dictator", because the speed of speech is obviously faster than that of slow VOA, which makes people feel very advanced, and their strong sense of identity makes people want to stop! The standard VOA is obviously much faster than the slow VOA and is definitely suitable for advanced use. The disadvantage is that the readers of the materials sometimes have obvious accents, and the interviewees often have slurred speech and the exams are not targeted. Moreover, the difficulty is close to the old TOEFL C part and TPO, which can be completely replaced by the old TOEFL C part and TPO.
Part c of the old TOEFL is the real material of the old TOEFL test, and it is the favorite of many examinees after attending various remedial classes. Its greatest advantages include vocabulary, writing ideas, speech speed, and even the pronunciation and intonation of readers are very similar. This is an excellent springboard to approach TPO, which is very close to TPO only in terms of difficulty. Therefore, if you can listen to the old TOEFL C part perfectly, then the correct rate of dictation TPO is. The disadvantage is that sometimes the speech speed needs to be artificially accelerated to be suitable for transmission, and at the same time it is tape transcription, so under the mixed effect of many factors, some materials will be slightly unclear, which can be said to be a small regret.
TPO, the breakthrough of the new TOEFL, is the real test of the new TOEFL. Many candidates especially like to dictate directly with this set of materials. When your ability is suitable, you can use this set of materials directly. But if your strength is average, such as the above-mentioned level 4, then you are likely to be completely attacked within 1 week, so that you have no strength to fight back until you are completely attacked and begin to question the way of dictation. Of course, many people. In short, this set of materials is absolutely true. As long as you can get TPO, TOEFL will definitely get more than 25 points, but if the level is average, you must start with slow VOA. Of course, we must also mention the relationship between the standard speed VOA, the old TOEFL C part and the new TOEFL breakthrough TPO. In short, their difficulty is actually very close, and we can directly dictate the new TOEFL breakthrough after dictating the slow VOA. Of course, if you have to specify a seat, it should be the standard speed VOA "Old TOEFL Part C" and "New TOEFL Breakthrough TPO". In most cases, it is this difficulty trend. TPO is the most difficult to break through in the new TOEFL, and VOA is the simplest, but it will also change with the speed of different readers, but this is the case in most cases.
Scientific man 60 seconds (SSS), in short, most people who hear this material for the first time will be destroyed by the speed of this material at one time. Its crazy speech speed is really unmatched. However, most people believe that what they like is the thrill of killing the chicken with one knife! Therefore, if you have enough time, it is strongly recommended to dictate SSS for a period of time, because when you can easily win this material, you can definitely be proud of any English listening test, and any listening test can only be a cloud in front of you.
So there is only one dictation material suitable for you, and there is no such thing as the best material. The best material must suit you!
At this point, the external preparation for dictation has come to an end. Let's talk about internal training before dictation next time, because many people don't know how to do dictation, but they can't stick to it. This is because many people lack a correct understanding of the growth process. So, let's talk about this promotion process next time.
In fact, as far as the improvement of listening ability is concerned, many candidates don't know that they should do dictation. Almost everyone will hear the word dictation, as long as they are preparing for the new TOEFL test, but the problem is that many candidates can't persist. In other words, many people actually lost to themselves. Why do you say that? Because you humans are too afraid of setbacks!
The process of practicing listening is not necessarily aimed at different candidates. Some candidates' promotion is a direct upward arrow, and some will have a very obvious platform period. The so-called platform period is an obvious stagnation period.
TOEFL is a way for every examinee to improve their listening, so please don't doubt whether this method is suitable for them, and please don't doubt whether it is the fastest way to improve their listening, because there is only one way in the world, so there is no difference between speed and speed. So first of all, please make up your mind!
For students who improve linearly, they will directly see their own improvement. At this time, almost everyone will firmly believe that dictation is effective for themselves, so they will insist on dictation without hesitation.
However, in fact, many candidates' dictation has a platform period, in other words, you will find that the daily improvement is not as great as we thought, and even you will find that there is no obvious improvement in 3 days, 5 days or even 2 weeks. At this time, almost everyone will doubt their decision, everyone will doubt whether they are not suitable for this method, and some will even doubt whether they are suitable for TOEFL.
However, this is actually a very common situation. In other words, many candidates have to go through a platform period when doing dictation. But in reality, many students preparing for TOEFL are distributed all over the country, that is, there are very few comrades who can support themselves, provide reference for themselves and help them solve problems. Therefore, they can't avoid their doubts. Therefore, no teacher clearly put forward the concept of "listening improvement platform period" here, which is to remind all students who are dictating that it is normal and an inevitable stage for them not to improve their listening for five days or even two weeks! You're on the right track! Hold on!
In order to make yourself confident to stick to it, there is no teacher here to provide you with a trick, that is, after dictation, compare the content of your dictation with the correct original every day and record it every day, so that you will find that although the progress every day is small, when you suddenly open the dictation record a week ago, you will find that your progress is still great, so that all candidates will have the motivation to continue. ^_^
But even so, it must be very clear that "knowing" does not mean "mastering". I mention this because many candidates will find that even though the correct rate of dictation is already high, the correct rate of doing questions is still not as high as expected. The reason for this problem is that dictation only solves the level of "knowing" or "understanding", but far from reaching the level of "mastering". Here is a simple example. Anyone can throw a flying knife, but most people can only throw it, not sure where to stick it. That is, ordinary people can only play and order. But the requirements of TOEFL test refer to where to play! In other words, it is not enough for you to understand every sentence in your listening. What TOEFL requires is that you can spend all your energy on thinking about how to solve problems effortlessly when listening to words!
Dictation is actually not a simple process of how to dictate. If the process of dictation is actually very simple and short, the reason why it takes so long to reach the core of how to dictate today is because there are really too many candidates. In the process of dictation, such a problem finally comes. These problems have actually been encountered by countless candidates before, but we are rarely willing to listen to other people's troubles. At the same time, I seldom think about my own problems, so I can't extricate myself. Therefore, no teacher has done a lot of preparation before. I just hope that when you encounter problems, you can look at the experience of XDJM before and let you go into battle lightly.
The process of dictation itself is relatively simple. The first question that many people actually encounter is: How long should we listen? Many children's shoes are always asking, it should be a short paragraph, a short listening; Should I listen to half a sentence, half a sentence, or sentence by sentence? The answer is actually very simple, 3-5 seconds, in other words, a short period mentioned by many people, a short period of listening.
At this time, many people will ask, if I only listen to a short paragraph, then I will immediately encounter a problem, that is, you will find that you can't understand what you are listening to, which is a problem that most people who do dictation will encounter. When you encounter such a problem, it means that you don't understand the meaning of dictation. In fact, the purpose of dictation is very simple, that is, to associate words with correct pronunciation. There is only one purpose, that's all. As for the other purpose mentioned by many candidates-understanding, this is a natural process, and no teacher will explain it in the later "Cup Theory".
Next, the second question needs to be heard several times. In fact, it is best to use Sitman or Aboboo mentioned before when dictation, because such a large-scale software dedicated to dictation has one of the most important functions, which is "repeated listening". In other words, during dictation, if you understand a short paragraph, write it out, but if you don't understand it, let yourself repeat it twice, three times, four times and five times. Of course, if it has been five times, you should stop. The reason is very simple. No matter how many times you listen to it, you may not be able to hear it.
What should I do if I can't hear the third question? There are two steps here. The first step is to suggest that you use Kingsoft. .......................................................................................................................................... ..................: But if you haven't, you can only wait until the dictation of this article is finished, and then read the original text, that's all.
What about after dictation Of course, this material has not been shelved. What you should do next is to compare your dictation with the original. In other words, dictation must be done on the computer, which is required by the TOEFL itself. Of course, compared with this matter, it is better to solve it with software. Therefore, a dictation comparison software /archives/3 17 1 mentioned above is especially recommended here. Convenient and easy to use! ^_^
Is it over? Of course not! Since the purpose of dictation is to associate words with correct pronunciation, turn on the stereo after dictation and listen to some mistakes at least five times. The purpose of doing this is to associate words with correct pronunciation, although this simple step can really help you achieve twice the result with half the effort!
Therefore, to sum up, the steps of dictation should be:
1 Turn on the stereo, start from the beginning and listen backwards.
Listen to a short paragraph at a time, and it is recommended to listen for about 5 seconds. If you hear it, in other words, you know which words it is, write it down.
If you don't know the words, listen to them five times at most. If you can hear them, write them down If you can't hear them, check Kingsoft to see if there is a correct answer in the fuzzy query. If not, listen to the following first, and then read the original text after the whole set of dictation is finished. This cycle, after listening to the original.
After dictation, compare the dictated text with the original with software to find out the differences.
Listen to all the inconsistencies in the original five times, and make sure that the pronunciation of this word is recorded in your mind.