Hello everyone,

thank you all for posting your records and for killing your fear of talking !!!

I am glad to see new people recording themselves and I am happy that this group has so many members, just pleaseeeee be active !!!

First of all let me point out something important. Guys, please as for reading... SLOW DOWN (apart from Inna). I don´t know if you just think that faster reading will give impression like your English is more advanced but ... you are wrong. Then there is a big problem to understand you and I even caught myself listening some of you and felt like m listening to some robots who are reading the text - word by word and don´t know what they are reading about. So here I am with my tip - please, enjoy each and every word you pronounce and read slowly. Before you record yourself, read the text many times properly, practise reading... then when you are satisfied with yourself - record it, ok? This time I will also record myself reading and will try to show you what tempo I consider kind of better.

However, let´s move to the topic.

A) SPEAKING

I was thinking long and  hard about the topic and in the end I decided to come up with something maybe interesting. We all were the kids, we all have some childhood memories. So if you go back and think about your the most memorable experiences from childhood... what are they about? Share one or more experiences you consider very important and which you won´t ever forget.

B) READING

Here is the text for those who feel more comfortable with reading:

Most adults struggle to recall events from their first few years of life and now scientists have identified exactly when these childhood memories fade and are lost forever. A new study into childhood amnesia – the phenomenon where early memories are forgotten – has found that it tends to take effect around the age of seven. The researchers found that while most three year olds can recall a lot of what happened to them over a year earlier, these memories can persist while they are five and six, but by the time they are over seven these memories decline rapidly. Most children by the age of eight or nine can only recall 35% of their experiences from under the age of three, according to the new findings. The psychologists behind the research say this is because at around this age the way we form memories begins to change. They say that before the age of seven children tend to have an immature form of recall where they do not have a sense of time or place in their memories. In older children, however, the early events they can recall tend to be more adult like in their content and the way they are formed. Children also have a far faster rate of forgetting than adults and so the turnover of memories tends to be higher, meaning early memories are less likely to survive. The findings also help to explain why children can often have vivid memories of events but then have forgotten them just a couple of years later.

My tip: focus on the pronounciation of these words:

EVENTS, SCIENTISTS, AMNESIA, PSYCHOLOGISTS

Here is the website I came across this very interesting article and you can finish reading it there :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10564312/Scientists-pinpoint-age-when-childhood-memories-fade.html

I am eagerly waiting for the first records and guys, don´t forget that only by recording yourself you will do something good for your spoken English !!!! Sooooo... don´t be passive and GO FOR IT !!! RECORD YOURSELF RIGHT NOW !!!