Dear friends,
Somewhat I feel obligate to stand up for Crazy English in response to your viewsabout it on the forum. In the past two years I happened to work, as a teacher assistant, at the training center of Crazy English which located in Suzhou. HenceI suppose I may know a little more, in terms of it, than you guys do.
It’s true that Crazy English advocates the “3-ly Tonguo Musclo Training”: namely, to crack your pronunciation by reading as loudly as possible, as clearly aspossible, and as quickly as possible. But please allow me to remind you that their sequential order: loudly should go first, clearly next, and quickly the last.
Feihuasimeng put clearly after quickly, which would surely not be commended. Foraccording to the explanation of the method, reading as quickly as possible, as away to raise your fluency and intonation of the language by frequently exercising your mouth muscles, can only be practiced after you attain a correct pronunciation.
About reading as loudly as possible, it’s nothing like shouting as a nuisance.
To blindly raise your voice till its climax not only does no good to your throat
, but also is likely to make your efforts all go in vain. I remember one time when I was in its training camp, there was a registered student who was a local musician that time and later became a volunteer of the center for a while.
He exerted that, like singing, only with a scientific enunciating method may youmake progress in your oral English by reading aloud while not hurting your throat. That is, trying to get the strength from your abdomen, not your chest, in order to send forth your voice. Doing this way can not only protect your vocal cords from getting hurt, but make your voice sound more natural and convincing.
I agree with Pan that in order to improve our spoken English, it’s far enough to rely on this method. And I think that Crazy English itself has realized its limitation and is working to adapt new teaching methods to its classroom. Like newly I heard the training center in Suzhou has started to employ native English
speakers as teachers--which had rarely happened before, and suggested English be
the sole language put into use in class, so as to create as fine an English environment as it could.
Besides, like each training center has its main “customer group”, Crazy English mainly caters for English learners with a certain language level and yet meanwhile with a poor pronunciation. So like Pan said, to help them get rid of their
shyness and speak out is very important because their poor pronunciation. That’
s how the “3-ly Tonguo Musclo Training” makes its presence.
In the training camp, the students practice together. In the loud music they may
read as loudly as they could whereas with no need to worry about their “face”
; and all the sounds and the tips how to pronounce them correctly are taught before students doing so. And tapes. Teachers use tapes to show students what is tobe right method of speaking at a fast tempo. It’s not blindly reading lines bylines as quickly as you can, but should be done with the precondition of not "swallowing up" any necessary syllables.
Here surely I am not advertising for Crazy English, for personally I have ceasedto be its enthusiastic supporter. It’s just to see it being misunderstood and
treated as the way, which it shouldn’t have been, is a discouraging thing. If we think cracking its students’ shyness and teaching them a few encouraging idioms are the only things Crazy English can do, then we are surely off the track.
Before ending it, another thing I want to assert is that actually Crazy English
and Li Yang Crazy English are different organizations. Most people, seeing the monthly called Crazy English in bookstalls, are likely to relate it to Li Yang, but the reality is the latter has nothing to do with the former.
It is said when Li Yang got famous with his Crazy English and was about to register it as his potent, some others had registered first by the name of it. By this example, we may see that how famous it already was years ago, and how important it is to have the knowledge of laws patent concerned even before you become famous. :P
With regards,
Caroline
