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网友linmoonyo：SHOULD I SPEAK SLOWLY OR QUICKLY?
John：The simple answer is that you should speak using your natural speed. Speaking too quickly might make it more difficult for the interviewer to understand you, while intentionally slowing down your speed of speech might cause you to think too much and make more mistakes.
One thing to pay attention to, however, is that some students speed up their speech when they get nervous. Try to avoid this by finding ways to relax in the interview.
Let me know anything is unclear.
网友torsion：向大家推荐一个练口语听力的好东东，美国情景喜剧《Friends》非常好！！
John: Friends is great, even if you've seen it five or six times!
You can find it at most stores in Beijing that sell DVDs. I'm not sure how readily available it is outside of Beijing. In Chinese it's called either 老友记 or 六人行.
For those of you who don't know, Friends is an American sitcom (sitcom = "situation comedy").
网友snow_du：Just so so
John：Actually, you're not the only one who thinks so. As with any pop culture phenomenon, Friends has its detractors. Here's an article that calls it "The most overrated comedy ever": http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/12/apontv.friends.ap/
My opinion--and I've watched a lot of sitcoms--is that Friends is a great show. It may be overrated, it may not be the best show ever, but it certainly is entertaining.
If you search around online (try http://www.google.com/), you can find a lot more people who criticize the show. If you're a fan, you might want to read some of these criticisms and see what you think.
John：First of all, I think "torsion" has a good point: the real value in watching a show like Friends is in finding an enjoyable way to study English.
As far as how to use it, there are several ways. First of all, just watching it is a great way to improve your listening. Try it with the subtitles off! Another very effective way to improve your English using a television program is to imitate after the speakers. You can either just imitate as you watch, doing your best to keep up, or use your remote control to pause the show and imitate sentence by sentence. This is also most effective if done with the subtitles OFF.
New Concept is also a quality set of materials. Attempting to memorize it by heart is an admirable goal, but realize that simply memorizing things is not the best way to become a good speaker of a language. You also need to focus on improving your pronunciation through imitation. Perhaps you could memorize some of the passages and use the other passages as imitation materials (listen to the tapes!).
I hope these answers have been helpful! Let me know if anything is unclear.
网友emily801024：This is your student of New Oriental School. In your class, you asked us “How to say……” isn't a good sentence. However, sometimes I heard some native speakers use this sentence (“How to say……”). Would you please tell me why? Is the sentence wrong or right? Can we use it?
Another question is about my grammar. When I ’m writing、reading, there aren’t many grammatical mistakes (also have some), but when I’m speaking to somebody, I always make lots of mistakes. What should I do?
John：Emily,"How to..." cannot come at the beginning of a question. So, for instance, "How to say 'table' in Chinese?", is an incorrect way of asking a question. You may, however, say something like, "Could you tell me how to do this?" I imagine that you've heard native speakers using sentences like that.
As far as how you can improve your spoken grammar, there is of course no easy answer. It's good that you notice your mistakes, but try not to worry about making mistakes while you're talking to others. After you've finished a conversation, if you remember some mistakes that you made, take some time on your own to repeat the sentences in the correct manner. Then, the next time you have a conversation, you won't make the same mistakes again.
Another great way to improve your spoken grammar is to spend time each day imitating after a tape.
I hope I've answered your questions! Let me know if anything is unclear.
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