HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH

Here are some “how to” methods that can improve your English in four skills, reading, writing, listening, and writing.  These are also useful for instructors to stimulate learners to be interested in English.

I. How To Improve Your English

Learning English (or any language for that matter) is a process. You are continually improving your English and the following “How to” describes a strategy to make sure that you continue to improve effectively.

Difficulty Level: Average   Time Required: varies

Here’s How:

1.  Remember that learning a language is a gradual process-it does not happen overnight.

2.  Define your learning objectives early: what do you want to learn and why?

3.  Make learning a habit. Try to learn something every day. It is much better to study (or read, or listen to English news, etc.) for 10 minutes each day than to study for 2 hours once a week.

4.  Remember to make learning a habit! If you study each day for 10 minutes, English will be constantly in your head. If you study once a week, English will not be as present in your mind.

5.  Choose your materials well. You will need reading, grammar, writing, speaking and listening materials.

6.  Vary your learning routine. It is best to do different things each day to help keep the various relationships between each area active. In other words, don’t just study grammar.

7.  Find friends to study and speak with. Learning English together can be very encouraging.

8.  Choose listening and reading materials that relate to what you are interested in. Being interested in the subject will make learning more enjoyable-thus more effective.

9.  Relate grammar to practical usage. Grammar by itself does not help you USE the language. You should practice what you are learning by employing it actively.

10.  Move your mouth! Understanding something doesn’t mean the muscles of your mouth can produce the sounds. Practice speaking what you are learning aloud. It may seem strange, but it is very effective.

11.  Be patient with yourself. Remember learning is a    process-speaking a language well takes time. It is not a   computer that is either on or off!

12.  Communicate! There is nothing like communicating in English and being successful. Grammar exercises are good-having your friend on the other side of the world understand your email is fantastic!

13.  Use the Internet. The Internet is the most exciting, unlimited English resource that anyone could imagine and it is right at your finger tips.

Tips:

1.  Remember that English learning is a Process

2.  Be patient with yourself.

3.  Practice, practice, practice.

II. How to Develop a Class Curriculum

Planning the curriculum of a new ESL/EFL class can be a challenge. This task can be simplified by following these basic principles.

Difficulty Leve1: Hard   Time Required: A few days

Here’s How:

1.  Evaluate students’ learning levels-are they similar or mixed?

2.  Evaluate nationality makeup of class-are they all from the same country or a multi-national group?

3.  Establish primary goals.

4.  Investigate the various student learning styles-what type of learning do they feel comfortable with?

5.  Find out how important is a specific type of English (i.e. British or American etc.) to the class.

6.  Ask students what they perceive as being most important about this learning experience.

7.  Establish extra-curricular goals of the class (i.e. do they want English for travel?).

8.  Take time to investigate what teaching materials are available to meet these goals. Do they meet your needs? Are you limited in your choice? What kind of access do you have to “authentic” materials?

9.  Be realistic and then cut your goals back by about 30%-you can always expand as the class continues.

10.  Establish a number of intermediate goals.

11.  Let student’s know how they are progressing so there are no surprises!

Tips:

1.  Having a map of where you want to go can really help with a number of issues such as motivation, lesson planning and overall class satisfaction.

2.  Time spent thinking about these issues is an excellent investment that will pay itself back many times over not only in terms of satisfaction, but also in terms of saving time.

3.  Remember that each class is different-even if they do seem alike.

III. How To Improve Your Pronunciation

Pronouncing every word correctly leads to poor pronunciation!

Good pronunciation comes from stressing the right words-this is because English is a time-stressed language.

Difficulty Level: Hard     Time Required: Varies

Here’s How:

1.  Learn the following rules concerning pronunciation.

2.  English is considered a stressed language while many other languages are considered syllabic.

3.  In other languages, such as French or Italian, each syllable receives equal importance (there is stress but each syllable has its own length).

4.  English pronunciation focuses on specific stressed words while quickly gliding over the other, non-stressed, words.

5.  Stressed words are considered content words: Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter-(most)principle verbs e.g. visit, construct-

Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting-Adverbs e.g. often, carefully.

6.      Non-stressed words are considered function words: Determiners e.g. the, a-Auxiliary verbs e.g. am, were-Prepositions e.g. before, of-Conjunctions e.g. but, and-Pronouns e.g. they, she.

7.  Read the following sentence aloud: The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance.

8.  Read the following sentence aloud: He can come on Sundays as long as he doesn’t have to do any homework in the evening.

Notice that the first sentence actually takes about the same time to speak well! Even though the second sentence is approximately 30% longer than the first, the sentences take the same time to speak. This is because there are 5 stressed words in each sentence. Write down a few sentences, or take a few example sentences from a book or exercise. First underline the stressed words then read aloud focusing on stressing the underlined words and gliding over the non-stressed words. Be surprised at how quickly your pronunciation improves! By focusing on stressed words, non-stressed words and syllables take on their more muted nature. When listening to native speakers, focus on how those speakers stress certain words certain words and begin to copy this.

Tips:

1.  Remember that non-stressed words and syllables are of the “swallowed” in English.

2.  Always focus on pronouncing stressed words well, non-stressed words can be glided over.

3.  Don’t focus on pronouncing each word. Focus on the stressed words in each sentence.

4.  Intonation and Stress: Key to Understanding and Being Understood.

5.  Try this short exercise. Say this sentence aloud and count how many seconds it takes.

The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance.

He can come on Sundays as long as he doesn’t have to do any homework in the evening.

Time required? Probably about 5 seconds.

Wait a minute the first sentence is much shorter than the second sentence!

   The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance

   He can come on Sunday as long as he doesn’t have to do any homework in the evening

You are only partially right!

This simple exercise makes a very important point about how we speak and use English. Namely, English is considered a stressed language while many other languages are considered syllabic. What does that mean? It means that, in English, we give stress to certain words while other words are quickly spoken (some student say eaten!). In other languages, such as French or Italian, each syllable receives equal importance (there is stress, but each syllable has its own length).

Many speakers of syllabic languages don’t understand why English speakers quickly speak, or swallow, a number of words in a sentence. In syllabic languages each syllable has equal importance, and therefore equal time is needed. English, however, spends more time on specific stressed words while quickly gliding over the other, less important words.

Let’s look at a simple example: the modal verb “can”. When we use the positive form of “can”, we quickly glide over the can and it is hardly pronounced.

They can come on Friday. (Stressed words underlined)

On the other hand, when we use the negative form “can’t” we tend to stress the fact that it is the negative form by also stressing “can’t”.

  They can’t come on Friday.

As you can see from the above example the sentence, “They can’t come on Friday” is longer than “They can come on Friday” because both the modal ”can’t” and the verb “come” are stressed.

So, what does this mean for my speaking skills?

Well, first of all, you need to understand which words we generally stressed and which we do not stress. Basically, stressed words are considered CONTENT WORDS such as.

Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter

(most)principle verbs e.g. visit, construct

Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting

Adverbs e.g. often, carefully

Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as

Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few

Auxiliary verbs e.g. don’t, am, can, were

Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite

Conjunctions e.g. but, while, as

Pronouns e.g. they, she, us

  Let’s return the beginning example to demonstrate how this affects speech.

The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance. (14 syllables)

He can come on Sundays as long as he doesn’t have to do any homework in the evening. (22 syllables)

  Even though the second sentence is approximately 30% longer than the first, the sentences take the same time to speak. This is because there are 5 stressed words in each sentence. From this example, you can see that you needn’t worry about pronouncing every word clearly to be understood (we native speakers certainly don’t). You should however, concentrate on pronouncing the stressed words clearly.

  Now, do some listening comprehension or go speak to your native English speaking friends and listen to how we concentrate on the stressed words rather that giving importance to each syllable. You will soon find that you can understand and communicate more because you begin to listen to (and use in speaking) stressed words, All those words that you thought you didn’t understand are really not crucial for understanding the sense or making yourself understood. Stressed are the key to excellent pronunciation and understanding of English.

IV. The Problem with Listening is…

Does this situation seem familiar to you? Your English is progressing well, the grammar is now familiar, the reading comprehension is no problem, you are communicating quite fluently, but: Listening is STILL a problem!

First of all, remember that you are not alone. Listening comprehension is probably the most difficult task (noun=exercise, job) for almost all learners of English as a foreign language. So, now you know you are not alone…! OK. The most important thing it to listen, and that means as often as possible. The next step is to find listening resources. This is where the Internet really comes in handy (idiom=to be useful) as a tool for English students. First you need to:

Download The RealPlayer from RealMedia.com The RealPlayer allows you to listen to RealAudio and use the Internet like a radio station. Once you have the RealPlayer you can begin to listen to English as it is used in everyday life. The possibilities are almost unlimited. You can:

1.  Listen to All Things Considered news stories on NPR

2.  Listen to interviews in English with your favorite stars, business executives, computer specialists etc.

3.  Listen to books and short stories read aloud Choose from the classics, popular fiction, science fiction, philosophy and many other categories.

Once you have begun to listen on a regular basis, you might still be frustrated (adjective=upset) by limited understanding.

What should you do?

Here is some of the advice I give my students:

1.  Accept the fact that you are not going to understand everything.

2.    Keep cool (idiom=stay relaxed) when you do not understand -even if you continue not to understand for a long time.

3.      Do not translate into your native language (synonym=mother tongue)

4.    Listen for the gist (noun=general idea) of the conversation. Don’t concentrate on detail until you have understood the main ideas.

I remember the problems I had in understanding spoken German. In the beginning, when I didn’t understand a word, I insisted on translating it in my mind. This approach (synonym=method) usually resulted in confusion. Then, after the first six months, I discovered two extremely important fact; Firstly, translating creates a barrier (noun=wall, separation) between the listener and the speaker Secondly, most people repeat themselves constantly. By remaining calm (adjective=relaxed), I noticed that-even if I spaced out (idiom=not to pay attention) I could usually understand what the speaker had said I had discovered some of the most important things about listening comprehension:

Translating creates a barrier between yourself and the person who is speaking.

While you are listening to another person speaking a foreign language (English in this case), the temptation is to immediately translate into your native language. This temptation becomes much stronger when you hear a word you don’t understand. This is only natural as we want to understand everything that is said. However, when you translate into your native language, you are taking the focus of your attention away from the speaker and concentrating on the translation process taking place in your brain. This would be fine if you could put the speaker on hold (phrasal verb=to make a person wait). In real life, however, the person continues talking while you translate. This situation obviously leads to less-not more-understanding. I have discovered that translation leads to a kind of block (noun=no movement or activity) in my brain which sometimes doesn’t allow me to understand anything at all!

Most people repeat themselves. Think for moment about your friends, family and colleagues. When they speak in your native tongue, do they repeat themselves? I don’t mean literally (adverb=word for word), I mean the general idea. If they are like most people I have met, they probably do. That means that whenever you listen to someone speaking, it is likely (adjective=probable) that he/she will repeat the information, giving you a second, third or even fourth chance to understand what has been said. By remaining calm, allowing yourself not to understand, and not translating while listening, your brain is free to concentrate on the most important thing. Understanding English in English.

Tips

1.  Listen to something you enjoy

Probably the greatest advantage about using the Internet to improve your listening skills is that you can choose what you would like to listen to and how many and times you would like to listen to it. By listening to something you enjoy, you are also likely to know a lot more of the vocabulary required!

2.  Listen for Keywords

Use keywords (noun=principal words) or key phrases to help you understand the general ideas. If you understand “New York”, “business trip”, “last year” you can assume (verb=to take for granted, suppose) that the person is speaking about a business trip to New York last year. This may seem obvious to you, but remember that understanding the main idea will help you to understand the detail as the person continues to speak.

3.  Listen for Context

Let’s imagine that your English speaking friend says”…I bought this great tuner at JR’s It was really cheap and now I can finally listen to National Public Radio broadcasts.” You don’t understand what a tuner is. If you focus on the word tuner you might become frustrated. However if you think in context (noun=the situation explained during the conversation) you probably will understand. For example; bought is the past of buy, listen is no problem and radio is obvious. Now you understand: He bought something-the tuner-to listen to the radio. A tuner must be a kind of radio! This is a simple example but it demonstrates what you need to focus on: Not the word that you don’t understand, but the words you do understand.

Summary

  It might seem to you that my ideas on how to listen encourage you not to understand everything. This is absolutely correct. One hundred percent understanding is something to work towards (phrasal verb=to have as a goal, a plan for the future) and not to expect of yourself now. Listening needs a great amount of practice and patience. Allow yourself the luxury of not becoming nervous when you do not understand, and you will be surprised by how quickly you do begin to understand.

Listening often is most important way to improve your listening skills. Enjoy the listening possibilities offered by the Internet and remember relax……