Language Access Centre

There are many words and expressions for talking about fear.
Words
afraid: "Are you afraid of the dark?"
frightened: "I'm frightened of spiders."
scared: "He's scared of making mistakes."
feel uneasy: "I felt a bit uneasy when I walked home in the dark."
spooked: "My cats are easily spooked before a thunderstorm."
terrified: "She was absolutely terrified when she heard the noise."
petrified: "The building began to shake and we were all petrified."
Expressions
a terrifying ordeal
send shivers down my spine
give me goosebumps (goosebumps are when you skin has little bumps on it)
make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up (dogs also do this when they are scared)
scare the hell out of me
be scared shitless / shit scared (British slang - vulgar)
be bricking it (British slang - vulgar)
frighten the life out of me
shake with fear
jump out of my skin
Examples
One of the best horror films I have seen is "The Blair Witch Project". It tells the story of a terrifying ordeal in the woods of northern USA. Some of the scenes in the film sent shivers down my spine, especially the one when the students run out of the tent in the middle of the night. When they go back, one of the guy's rucksack has been emptied. When that same guy goes missing the next day, it gives you goosebumps.
There are some fabulous sound effects, especially the ones of the wind blowing and howling. When you hear the crying voices at the end of the film, it will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
Perhaps the scariest part of the film is at the end, when you see one of the surviving students literally shake with fear in the corner of the basement. It certainly frightened the life out of the girl when she saw him, and I jumped out of my skin at the end when the camera stopped filming. The film scared the hell out of me for weeks afterwards, and I'm ashamed to say that I wouldn't go into an empty room in the house unless there was someone there with me.

Reading Tips to Improve Your Listening Skills

• Read the text as you listen to it on an audio book.
• Take advantage of audio books. Read a page and then listen to that page. Repeat once a day.
• Read aloud to each other in small groups. Each student is responsible for explaining new vocabulary in the paragraphs he / she reads.
• Ask your teacher to choose a book to read aloud to the class. Do a few pages each day.
• Listen to easy audio books in English on your way to and from work.

Reading Tips to Improve Your Pronunciation

• Choose a paragraph and read aloud.
• Choose a paragraph and mark each sentence with a sound script (helpful pronunciation markup). This will help you read more naturally, and thus pronounce correctly.
• Choose a few sentences from your reading material and highlight content words. Read these sentences focusing on accenting these content words, while quickly speaking over the structure words. For more information on this technique read this article on English as a time-stressed language.
• Once you become comfortable reading a single paragraph aloud, read an entire page by reading a paragraph aloud and then reading one silently.
• Choose some nursery rhymes to practice. They will help you with pronunciation through rhythm.
• Read a short story or a few paragraphs to a friend who is also studying English. Compare the differences and discuss what might be the reasons for the differences.
• Choose a paragraph, short article or newspaper story with new vocabulary. Use the Babylon dictionary or other online pronunciation resource to help you learn the correct pronunciation of these words.
• Read a play with some friends. Each friend takes a different part. Start with short scenes. Once you are comfortable, read longer pieces together.

When employing role-plays, debates, topic discussions, etc., I have noticed that some students are often timid in expressing their viewpoints. This seems due to a number of reasons:
• Students don't have an opinion on the subject
• Students have an opinion, but are worried about what the other students might say or think
• Students have an opinion, but don't feel they can say exactly what they mean
• Students begin giving their opinion, but want to state it in the same eloquent manner that they are capable of in their native language
• Other, more actively participating students, feel confident in their opinions and express them eloquently making the less confident students more timid
Pragmatically, conversation lessons and exercises are intended to improve conversational skills. For this reason, I find it helpful to first focus on building skills by eliminating some of the barriers that might be in the way of production. Having been assigned roles, opinions and points of view that they do not necessarily share, students are freed from having to express their own opinions. Therefore, they can focus on expressing themselves well in English. In this way, students tend to concentrate more on production skills, and less on factual content. They also are less likely to insist on literal translations from their mother tongue.
Implementing this approach can begin slowly by providing students with short role plays using cue cards. Once students become comfortable with target structures and representing differing points of view, classes can move onto more elaborated exercises such as debates and group decision making activities. This approach bears fruit especially when debating opposing points of view. By representing opposing points of view, students' imagination are activated by trying to focus on all the various points that an opposing stand on any given issue may take. As students inherently do not agree with the view they represent, they are freed from having to invest emotionally in the statements they make. More importantly, from a pragmatic point of view, students tend to focus more on correct function and structure when they do not become too emotionally involved in what they are saying.
Of course, this is not to say that students should not express their own opinions. After all, when students go out into the "real" world they will want to say what they mean. However, taking out the personal investment factor can help students first become more confident in using English. Once this confidence is gained, students - especially timid students - will be more self-assured when expressing their own points of view.