Toastmasters to fluency
I appreciated very much what Robert Liu (劉國棟) wrote in the Taipei Times (“Toastmasters aid English learning,” March 13, page 8) about how Toastmasters helped him to better his English proficiency and his recommendation that Taiwanese join a Toastmasters club to improve their command of English.
As I have benefited much from Toastmasters educational programs, as well as the tips and encouragement of members, I would like to share something.
Just as Liu wrote, in a regular meeting, we have a session with prepared speeches, with most speeches running five to seven minutes. We assign each speaker an evaluator, a senior member who can provide them with positive feedback and encourage them to keep giving speeches.
We have a Table Topics session to hone speakers’ skills at speaking on a given theme and to help them with impromptu speaking. We also assign a counter to add up speakers’ unnecessary words, and a grammarian to note nice words and sentences, and grammatical errors.
In my opinion, just as Liu shared, joining a Toastmasters club is the best way for a person to hone their English abilities. Why? First, it offers you an English-thinking environment. Second, you have to develop your listening comprehension skills so that you can understand what members are talking about on the stage — some clubs have native speakers as members.
Before it is your turn to give a speech, you need to read a lot to get ideas for what you are going to talk about, write your manuscript and rehearse your speech. Hence, joining a Toastmasters club will simultaneously enhance your English listening, reading, writing and speaking skills.
In Toastmasters, new members are given a mentor who offers them support, and teaches them the basics of delivering speeches and about other assignments at regular meetings.
Members’ speeches always share personal stories, which entertain, touch or encourage the audience.
We would say that Toastmasters is the safest place to make mistakes or fail, because the members always support and encourage one another.
Meetings have a fun and warm atmosphere, so much so that members are not embarrassed if they speak “Chinglish” or make grammatical errors.
That is why I always tell members: “Toastmasters, to me, is a university I will never graduate from. The longer I stay, the more I learn.”
Because Toastmasters is a nonprofit organization, there is no advertising budget. Just as Liu hoped, if the government would do something to encourage Taiwanese to join a Toastmasters club, I definitely believe that many Taiwanese would greatly benefit from its educational programs, “which would be the best way to transform Taiwan into a bilingual nation.”
Bruce Yang Po-chi
Changhua City
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