DSE English Language Paper 4: How to Ace them All?
Instead of showcasing your English in a solo performance, DSE speaking requires candidates to present their skills according to 4 criteria: pronunciation and delivery, communication strategies, vocabulary and language patterns, ideas and organization. It is easier to excel by polishing skills in a progressive manner rather than trying to cram when exam time comes around.
Pronunciation and delivery
You can never learn to pronounce every word clearly overnight, but some little practices may help if you go through them several times a week.
1. Reading Aloud.
You may read articles, news journals or scripts to your teachers and peers for pronunciation checking. You may also record down your own voice to review your intonations and pauses
2. Discuss More.
There is nothing better than keep practicing. Through speaking with your peers, you are able to listen to different accents. Engaging in a group discussion with adults can also to help to familiarize with the diversity of English.
3. Public Speaking.
Public speaking helps you to build up confidence, speak fluently and adopt suitable body gesture in presenting your ideas to others. It is an indirect way to practice, but it is fun!
Communication strategies
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” – Epictetus.
Obviously, the examiners look out for two-way communication rather than a monologue. Therefore, we have to listen carefully before we speak. We are always suggested to follow the typical format of an effective response: stance + elaboration + evidence/ examples. However, bear in mind that you do not always have to agree with other people’s view. Give a brief response followed by a bridging phrase, then throw out your idea mannerly. A bridging phrase can be one which emphasises your stance or a summary of your major argument. Other than giving responses, you can develop a relevant sub-topic by speaking from a new perspective. With either approach, please remember not to snatch speaking opportunities aggressively, otherwise, it would not look good on your score sheet.
Vocabulary and language pattern
Regardless of the topic which you are going to receive during your exam, you are encouraged to use a few advanced vocabularies to stand out better. Examiners are testing the use of vocabularies. If I were you, I would speak within context, instead of reciting unfathomable fancy “big” words because “big” words are sometimes too complex in delivering our messages efficiently.
Ideas and Organization
How to fully utilize the 8-mins preparation time? Do we start everything from scratch? Or do we only write answers corresponding to the questions provided on the paper? Here is some advice from a 5-double-star candidate: within the 5 minutes, she would have first dissected the question by stepping into the scenario, analyzing the necessary directions for discussion, and jotting down the key points of her thoughts. Afterwards, she would spend 2 mins to generate applicable vocabularies and sentence structures to leverage her ideas. In the very last minute, she would try to give her first speech to make sure she will be prepared if she were able to speak first.
People fill up a bucket by pouring water in every day. If you want to excel in you DSE Paper 4, you have to practice frequently. Public speaking is a recommendable choice to polish your oral proficiency. Closing with a quote from John Wayne, “Talk low, talk slow and don’t talk too much”. Good Luck to all 2018 DSE fighters!
