History Seminars Should Be Shorter Currently all of the seminar classes in the history department are three hours long I would like to propose that history seminars be shortened to two hours I make this proposal for two reasons First most students just ca

Speaking topics in text

History Seminars Should Be Shorter

Currently, all of the seminar classes in the history department are three hours long. I would like to propose that history seminars be shortened to two hours. I make this proposal for two reasons. First, most students just cannot concentrate for three hours straight. I myself have taken these three-hour seminars and found them tiring and sometimes boring. Also, when a seminar lasts that long, people stop concentrating and stop learning, so the third hour of a three-hour seminar is a waste of everyone‘s time. Two-hour seminars would be much more efficient.

1. Now listen to two students discussing the letter.
2. I totally disagree with Tim's proposal.
3. Why?
4. Well look, Tim's my friend, but he's not your typical student.
5. He stays up late partying every night, week nights too.
6. If he parties every night, no wonder he can't pay attention.
7. Yes, and most students aren't like that.
8. They come to class prepared and rested and they can concentrate.
9. So, you are saying the problem is really Tim.
10. Yes, he was in one of my classes last year and whenever I looked at him he was actually sleeping.
11. I guess if he's sleeping, he can't really know what's happening, what other people in class are doing.
12. Right, and you want to know what does happen in that last hour of seminar?
13. In a lot of seminars that I've been in, that's when things get interesting.
14. Really?
15. Yes, that's usually when students get really involved in their discussion and start exchanging important ideas.
16. And if the history department actually did what Tim suggests, well, if they did that, what would happen is you lose what might be the most worthwhile part of the seminar.

Speaking recording
Votes
Average: 6.4 (3 votes)
Speaking category

Comments

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 694.0 593.389002037 117% => OK
No of words: 179.0 154.784114053 116% => OK
Chars per words: 3.87709497207 3.82920900774 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.65774358864 3.52088357496 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 1.89574072636 1.81998168104 104% => OK
Unique words: 103.0 93.7942973523 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.575418994413 0.608046397892 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
Syllable count: 212.4 185.724439919 114% => OK
Avg_syllables_per_word: 1.2 1.20224032587 100% => OK

Performance on coherence:
Topic speech coherence ratio: 0.0505914851462 0.0833886788687 61% => OK

Acoustic performance on paragraphs:
How many acoustic paragraphs: 2.0 3.90020366599 51% => OK
Average paragraph length: 89.5 71.3690273242 125% => OK
STD paragraph length: 18.5 24.1299301424 77% => OK
Average paragraph duration: 27.395 26.8388033085 102% => OK
STD paragraph duration: 7.695 8.89323425527 87% => OK

Acoustic performance on sentences:
How many acoustic sentences: 48.0 40.266802444 119% => OK
Average acoustic sentence length: 3.72916666667 4.20756893501 89% => OK
STD acoustic sentence length: 2.6358077773 3.23972648638 81% => OK
Average acoustic sentences duration: 1.10083333333 1.51236819293 73% => OK
STD acoustic sentences duration: 0.696700059008 1.0352206224 67% => OK

Acoustic performance on acoustic silence:(An acoustic silence means a little pause between two or more words)
How many acoustic silence: 49.0 37.9022403259 129% => It means the content is not pronounced smoothly or it is pronounced slowly. It is word by word.
Total acoustic silence duration: 10.93 7.22384928717 151% => It may have a lot of silences or every silence is too long.
Average acoustic silence duration: 0.22306122449 0.193825474362 115% => OK
STD acoustic silence duration: 0.214240034004 0.16431695912 130% => OK

Acoustic performance on acoustic words:
Total word duration: 40.96 46.6644602851 88% => Need to talk more.
Average word duration: 0.228826815642 0.304040633073 75% => Maybe the speed rate is very high.
STD word duration: 0.157012144698 0.193491353168 81% => OK

Disfluencies: like hesitations, or 'ehn' or taking a long time to pronounce a word:
How many disfluencies: 2.0 8.88594704684 23% => Good job, the lower, the better.
Total_disfluencies_duration: 2.17 6.97134419552 31% => Good job. The lower, the better.
Total acoustic noise duration: 0.57 3.21433808554 18% => Good job. The lower, the better.

Acoustic rates:
Total speech duration: 54.79 59.1375356415 93% => Talk more. Do not save time. People can talk 4-5 words in one second.
Compare to expected duration: 0.913166666667 0.985625594026 93% => Some seconds left. Need to talk more.
Rate of silence: 0.894323781712 0.643888735843 139% => Less acoustic silences wanted.
Rate of speech: 3.26701952911 2.61565628039 125% => OK
Rate of speech by unique words: 1.87990509217 1.58604529434 119% => OK
Rate of word duration by unique words: 2.5146484375 2.01333574461 125% => OK
Average articulation rates: 0.239370162011 0.322651457988 74% => OK

---------------------

Rates: 81.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by speech e-grader: 24.5 Out of 30
---------------------
Note: the speech e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas.