"Diagnostic Speech Sample"

Part I (Formal Reading)

Learning to speak a foreign language fluently and without an accent isn’t easy. In most educational systems, students spend many years studying grammatical rules, but they don’t get much of a chance to speak. Arriving in a new country can be a frustrating experience. Although they rnay be able to read and write very well, they often find that they can’t understand what people say to them. English is especially difficult because the pronunciation of words is not clearly shown by how they’re written. But the major problem is being able to listen, think, and respond in another language at a natural speed. This takes time and practice.