Final Reflection: If I compare my first recording with the last one, I can definitely see some progress in my speech and pronunciation. I prefered the AmE. pronunciation before this semester, but didn't realize that there are more differences than I thought there would be. Before that I only paid attention to the american and english “R” pronunciation. That is why the assignment 6 was very beneficial to me. It helped me to understand the differences between the british and american pronunciation. I have learned how to not sound stupid. The first recordings were awful. I didn’t connect words. In addition, the speed was not sufficient. I think that the assignment 4 and 5 opened my eyes, because after these two assignments I could see an improvement. I really tried to focus more on connecting words than before the assignment 4 and 5. I also think that I have improved the fluency of my reading since I started reading tongue twisters and imitating random news reports in my individual tasks. In my point of view, it is the best way to improve English skills. Furthermore, it made me move my mouth more, because when I listened to some news reporter, it was really fast and fluent. First tries of my imitating were bad. When I replayed my recording, it did not understand myself. However, after a few recordings, I could see some progress. I also gained a lot of vocabulary, especially form the news reports and the long texts in my individual tasks. So many new words were in the recording 6.5 about Vladimir Putin. For example glistening, masculinity, suave etc. On the other hand, I must say that I still have problems with names of people, like Ian Somerhalder or in the last recording Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice. It was really difficult to read because there were so many “R’s” and “L’s”. Another thing I have to improve is the “TH” sound. I always tried to focus on it, but sometimes I just simply forgot. When I listened to my recordings, I heard a few times “dat”, “dis”, “der.” Lastly, I would mention the description of the picture and the video. It is definitely one of my biggest weaknesses. All in all, I think I have done a solid work.

Reflection: In the individual task I tried to imitate the video report about the demonstration in Oakland. This was definitely the hardest individual task I have ever done. A lot of difficult words. Especially the names of victims. Another difficult words were: “protesters”, “demonstrators”, “headquarters”. I had problems with some parts, such as: “accessing necessary paperwork for vehicle impound releases and property releases”, “three of these doors are our main ingress and egress…” I am just really really tired right now.

Reflection: Finding a good video took me a little while. This was definitely the best video I have found. I tried to find a clip from movie that I never seen before but everytime I tried to start the recording, there was no action in the video. I had to delete maybe like 10 recordings because the videos were boring. But like I said, this was the first good video with a plenty of action. The worst parts were when they were talking and when the box was falling down. I should have say little bit more about it, e.g.: “Their bones might be broken“ or something like that. I could not remember the word “arrows.” I have made some mistakes. For example “The helicopter starts shooting at them” and “They smashed into the water”

Reflection: In the individual task I tried to imitate the video report about Kendrick’s new deal. The most difficult thing was to copy the speed of the reporter but I think I did a good job. There were some words that I had problems with. For example: endorsement, ventilator or frequently were quite difficult. I also had some problems with these sentences: Collaborating on limited edition styles of the brands 90s ventilator model. – However, Kendrick himself says that he’s been a fan of the brand as far back as a seven grade. Especially the “as far back as“ part.

Reflection: I must say that it was very difficult to speak about a picture that I have never seen before. I tried to find the words but the speech was not fluent. I know that we should correct just the sentences and phrases that could be expressed in a better way but the whole recording was horrible. I did not speak fluently, therefore I have decided to proofread almost the whole recording. I must definitely work on connecting the sentences.

 

Reflection:
Rogue Irish police officers colluded with the IRA throughout the Troubles, even helping to prevent its entire army council from being arrested during a critical temporary ceasefire, a former director of intelligence for the republican movement has claimed. 

Elite figures in Irish society even ferried IRA weapons around in top-of-the-range cars and hid wanted activists in houses in some of the most affluent areas of Dublin such as Killiney – now home to multi-millionaires and rock stars such as U2’s Bono and the Edge – according to Conway. 

In the individual task I tried to read two random paragraphs from the article about IRA. I chose it, because there are some words that are new to me and some words that are difficult to pronounce. I did not know how to pronounce "ceasefire." Also the "multi-millionaire" and "temporary" were quite difficult to pronounce. I had some problems with "in top-of-the-range cars". I alway separated some words from this phrase.The paragraphs were difficult to read, because the sentences are quite long.

Reflection: I chose the scene from The Equalizer. The most difficult thing was to copy the speed, especially in the Denzel's sentences. I was struggling with some phrases. For example "that decision" or "the opportunity." These are normally easy to say in standart speed, however in full speed, it is quite hard. I had to repeat "I would never go back to being that person" like hundred times to remember it.This scene was also interresting because there is the russian accent. I tried to imitate the russian A and R in "the answer", "other" and "bottle". It was not difficult, but the transition into the american english was sometimes hard.