ADVANCED MID - ADVANCED HIGH

What You Sound Like to a Native Speaker

I can:

• discuss and sometimes debate a wide variety of familiar and unfamiliar concrete topics of personal and general interest, and sometimes academic, social or professional topics.
• interact and negotiate to resolve an unexpected complication that arises in a familiar or sometimes unfamiliar situation.
• maintain extended conversations by discussing, supporting, reacting to, and sometimes debating opinions on a variety of complex concrete topics, sometimes addressing hypothetical or abstract issues.

General Tips

At this point, you should feel comfortable accomplishing anything in your mission language that you need to do to fulfill your purpose. To continue to improve, you will need to expand your ability to share opinions, defend opinions, and hypothesize solutions on a wide variety of topics that are both missionary and non-missionary topics. Continuing to read more abstract conference talks and creating opportunities to discuss them with a native will help you continue to grow. Additionally, writing can play a significant role in improving if you intentionally try to sound more educated and fix all remaining grammar mistakes.

Activities

• Learn and Practice Vocabulary:
  • Focus on learning vocabulary that will help you sound more educated. This of some common words that you use and find a couple of synonyms for them.
  • Learn transition words that will help your sentences flow together. Transition words are words that connect thoughts (e.g. however, furthermore, and, but, because, since, etc).
• Practice Reading/Writing:
  • Identify an educated member of the church that stays current on church events, then set up weekly conversations to share, defend, and hypothesize opinions on the current issues of the church.
  • Ask the people you teach to clarify their concerns by stating their opinions about the church and the experiences they have had thus far. Discuss with a member about how you can work together to help them overcome their concerns.
• Practice Speaking/Listening:
  • Read around 30 minutes each day in your mission language. Read conference talks by the most educated general authorities. You might try reading talks by Elder Maxwell, Elder Oaks, or Elder Christofferson. After reading a talk, restate the important issues in the talk to your companion. Hypothesize how someone might implement the advice in the talk.
  • Each transfer, write a five-paragraph essay on an important church issue. Have an educated-native speaker correct your mistakes as well as tell you where evidence is lacking in your arguments. Focus on using linking words to connect your paragraphs into a coherent discourse.
• Seek and Develop the Gift of Tongues:
  • Journal in your mission language about how seeking the gift of tongues has impacted your faith in God and how that has affected your future.