Speak up!

I want to hear your voice, speak up!

English language is wonderful and extremely important and if you speak it you may feel part of the world! So, let’s improve our speaking skill.

To speak a foreign language like English it’s important to be confident and sure of yourself as if you are shy and nervous you can’t say a word and even worse, let people understand you. If you need to leave your shyness and nerves behind you should practice speaking and interacting with people regularly.

You should also practice speaking in your classroom with your classmates by interacting with them. You must take the opportunity to speak aloud and improve your skills.

I recommend you to sing English songs and lyrics as it is a good way of listening to the pronunciation.

You should also speak English with your family or friends but if this doesn’t work, speak to yourself in English as a way of showing yourself the level of speaking that you have. 

If you go on a holiday, try to make friends in order to have English conversations with them and see if you are able to communicate with them and make them understand you too.

You should take the following advice very seriously: do not think that the best way of improving your spoken English is talking with a native speaker; that is not true! English is English and you should talk it with people that are able to speak it, not only with native speakers.

Another way of improving your spoken English is learning English pronunciation or phonetics in order to speak fluently and pronounce the words correctly.

It is important to be very patient as you won’t speak perfect English without practicing and without being constant.  You should think that speaking English fluently requires hours and hours of speaking, how will you improve your speaking skill, if you don’t speak? 

You should also take into account this advice: don’t worry if you make mistakes while you are speaking because the important thing is to try speaking and then correct your own mistakes. If you are aware of your mistakes you will be able to correct them and do not make them again.

Please, don’t waste any opportunity to speak English and make a big effort to improve it.

If you want to improve and practice your spoken English enter this site, I think it is very useful and practical:

www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic-group/speaking-and-listening

 

Oral English

Listen on not to listen, that’s the question

Are you able to understand English when someone speaks to you or when you listen to it? If your answer is “no” I invite you to read this advice.

When you do a listening activity, you should specify your objectives and then you can be called “good listener”.

To understand oral English you should practise all kinds of listening strategies: listening to songs in English, listening to the radio, listening to people talking in English (conversations), etc.

In addition, you should pay a lot of attention to the person who is speaking or to what you are listening to (radio, listening activities in the classroom, etc), to be able to understand the meaning of the speech and recognize the main points or ideas of the speaker. It is necessary to evaluate the speaker's message in order to understand the topic.

You should also integrate listening activities into daily speaking, writing, reading and different experiences.

As it is said in this site (www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/mla/speak.html), I recommend you to plan opportunities to practise listening for different purposes in a variety of contexts (social situations, formal situations, face to face...).

It is also important to adjust the length of listening time to your listening skills as if you have a low level you won’t be able to understand a recording that lasts too much.

It will be useful for you, if you practise listening by using pre-listening, listening, and post-listening activities.

If you want to understand oral English effectively, you must get used to listening everything in English, as you will begin to understand new words, you will be able to understand what people say without translating it into your mother tongue, and after a while, you will understand and speak English fluently.

In my personal opinion, you should find enjoyable ways to improve your level of listening comprehension such as watching your favourite films, series, and programmes in English, listening to English songs, your favourite ones, if you have them, playing funny listening games in English, etc. It is better to learn things in a funny way as if it is too boring, you will stop doing it and you won’t improve anything.

Finally, according to (http://esl.about.com/cs/teachinglistening/a/a_tlisten.htm), teachers say that students should listen for short periods of time, (five to ten minutes), and they shouldn’t expect to improve their skills very quickly.

This webpage might be useful to practice your listening skill.

www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic-group/speaking-and-listening

Writing improvement

My writing is as good as Shakespeare’s

Well, if you have problems with writing in an interesting way read these useful advices!

To begin a good writing, you should have time to think about its characteristics (structure, topic, language…). In order to write something good, it’s important to think before writing. In a writing, you are able to re-write the essay o text again to see the possible mistakes and make sure it is more elaborated. A written text allows you to look up in a dictionary what you don’t know or understand. Moreover, it is more permanent.

To be an interesting reader, you need to make sure that your writing is correct and you don’t make mistakes in order to let people understand the text or essay.

Writing a text in a foreign language is not very easy. So, to make it easier and organized you should follow these instructions: first of all decide or plan your topic and make clear notes (key words, main points). Then write a first draft and train yourself to think in English, as you mustn’t compose a word or a sentence in your mother tongue and then translate it in English. Write directly in English as you’ll be practising the English that you already know and you’ll be able to take less time looking up words in a dictionary.

After that, read your first draft and see if it has a good order or structure, if it makes sense, if grammar and spelling are correct, etc. If something is wrong, you can cross things out as this is not the final version. In the draft, you can move things and add whatever you want.

I recommend you not to write your final version until everything is correct and you like it. You should also remember to read it and revise it to see if your text is correct.

If you’d like to improve your writing, you should: 

• Learn useful expressions and vocabulary in order to have an interesting writing.
• Keep a diary.
• Revise the grammar and the vocabulary that you know and you have studied and use them in your essays, texts...
• Check your writing to correct your own mistakes.
• Read blogs or discussions and write your opinion.

Finally, if I were you, I would write essays using originality and supporting examples.

Search these sites to practise:

www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic-group/writing

http://eolf.univ-fcomte.fr/index.php?page=constructing-the-paragraph

I hope you find them useful!

Reading effectively

Yes, we can read, but is it enough?

Do you have problems with reading? Here in my blog, I’m going to give you some advice about how to be an effective reader of English.

Firstly, if you read because you have to, I suggest you to look for a book that you like and if you find the topic interesting, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Secondly, if you have to look up a dictionary each time you don’t understand a word, you should think about reading an easier one, otherwise you’ll get tired in a moment. You mustn’t look up all the words in a dictionary! You should guess their meaning because of the context and continue with your reading.

Thirdly, instead of stopping and looking up every word, you should read some words at a time, in chunks. There are also three ways of being a good and fast reader: reduce the time for each stop, reduce back-skipping and read as many as three to five words at a time. Doing all this, you won’t get tired, you will do less physical and mental work and you’ll be able to read more and smoothly.

To be an effective reader you should use different strategies: read for detail (read carefully to find specific information), skim (get main ideas by reading quickly) and scan (look for a specific point that you already have in mind). So, you should have a reason for reading, as this could help you to focus on the things you need to understand. 

It is important to stipulate a timetable for your reading because you’ll be more organized. I also recommend you to collect your favourite books and read them more than once, as when you read them again, you will find them even more interesting, as you have a good impression of them.

To have a good comprehension level, follow these instructions after reading a text: Read quickly to catch a general idea and write three questions that it could answer. Scan to find the answer to your three questions. Read the text with attention, write the important ideas of each paragraph and write the words that you didn’t know before reading it. After that, write three ideas that you have learnt and ask yourself these two questions: was the text interesting, why? Was it useful to you, how?

 

Finally, these are some sites that could help you to be an effective reader: 

www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic-group/reading                                                                 

www.world-english.org/improve_reading_skills.htm

Grammar learning strategiesView more presentations from CrisColas.

 

God save grammar and vocabulary!

Do you need help to learn English grammar and vocabulary? If you do so, please read my advices! They might be useful for you.

First of all, to learn English grammar you should buy an effective grammar book, which contains useful exercises. This book should be well-organized, should have explanations and examples. Some of the most effective grammar books are Practical English usage, by M. Swan (1996), and First certificate Language Practice, by M. Vince (1996). Apart from this, it is also good to learn grammar on the internet, because you are able to find grammar explanations and practice very quickly. Moreover, some online resources provide effective examples, exercises, and the answers to these activities, to see whether you have done them correctly or not.

Here are some online grammar pages if you want to practise, they are extremely good!  

         

www.homeworkhelp.com    

   

http://www.englishcorner.vacau.com/   
                                                                                                 

You should also attend classes and listen to the teacher’s explanation and examples. I also recommend you to practise grammar at home, and see your own mistakes. I suggest you to revise the rules you have learnt about English grammar in order to do practise without any difficulties. You also need to learn patterns to understand English grammar, but you mustn’t expect other languages to have the same ones.

To learn vocabulary, I suggest buying a dictionary if you don’t have one, but if you have internet at home you can find a lot of online dictionaries very quickly and it is free! 

If you need to learn or search for words you could use these sites: 

www.wordreference.com  

www.macmillandictionary.com/       

You should use a dictionary when you don’t know the meaning of a word and its spelling to make sure you don’t write it wrong. You should see if it’s useful for you, and depending on what you need, you can choose between a bilingual or monolingual one.

You must realize that it is impossible to learn all the meanings by heart and you are crazy if you try to study a lot of new words everyday!

In my opinion, people have different ways of learning a language and its skills. You should discover which is the most effectively way of learning grammar and vocabulary for you, and in which one you feel more comfortable.

I hope these advices have been useful, I’m sure you’ll learn grammar and vocabulary doing some of the things I have mentioned above.

Test your grammar

In the first webpage (http://www.anglolang.co.uk/cgi-bin/web_test.cgi/grammar.html my score of the test was 42 correct answers of 50 questions. I have found it quite easy although I have done a few mistakes related with phrasel verbs. I need to practise them by doing exercises and activities. In the second webpage (http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/quizzes/grammar.html)I have done an activity called what is the correct form of the word, and my score was 14 correct answers of 14 questions. I have found this activity easy but useful to practise present simple and present continuos. In this webpage(http://www.Burza.sk/testy) I have done a test of five questions and my result was five correct answers.

How much do you know about languages?

First of all, when I did the quiz, I found it quite interesting and at the same time a bit difficult as I didn’t know many of the questions and which of the three options was the correct answer.

For me, one of the most interesting questions was number five. It asked which European language placed the family name first and the given name second. The correct answer was Hungarian, and that in my opinion was very surprising.

Secondly, another question that I found interesting and very funny was number twenty-one that asked which of these three languages (French, Slovenian and Italian), possessed a grammatical form that was ideal for expressing love. The correct answer was Slovenian, as the same word contains the word “Love” and this was quite evident and funny.

Thirdly, I also liked question number fifty-one, where I had to answer which one of the words below came from the Swedish language. The correct answer was “Dynamite”. I found this question very curious and in my opinion it’s good to learn where the words come from originally.

I also found question number seventeen very funny and strange: what is the origin of the Danish custom of people looking into one another’s eye before and after drinking toasts? The right answer was: to ensure your drinking partner doesn’t make an unforeseen attack. That was a particular and a funny thing to do in my opinion. This question is useful to know the origins of Danish people and how Vikings celebrated some traditions like “Toasting”.

To sum up, I think it’s a good idea to do this quiz because while you are doing it, you learn more culture and you enjoy yourself. It’s also useful to test how much we know about general culture, and other countries.

Finally, I would like to add that it’s never late to learn new things in life!

Searchers.

Searchers

·         One effective website to practice reading in English.

http://www.world-english.org/improve_reading_skills.htm

I have chosen this page because I think that it helps you to improve your English reading skills. You can choose your level (elementary/pre-intermediate, intermediate, or advanced) and read the stories you like the most. You can also do some exercises after reading the stories. If you read these stories and you do the tests you will be preparing for some exams like PET, FCE and CAE and you will be able to analyze your level of comprehension. I can also say that the style of the webpage is quite good.

·         One effective website to practice listening to stories in English.

http://www.manythings.org/listen/

I have chosen this webpage to practice listening to stories in English because I think it is a very useful web page where you can practice your listening level and your comprehension. You can listen to English and American stories, written by famous writers too. You can listen to many topics and you can also search for the story you would like to listen or download. Apart from that, you can practice reading, grammar, vocabulary, speaking, and you can even learn songs and listen to them. You will also find proverbs, anagrams, slang, games, etc. This page is very practical for English skills, especially for listening stories and topics. I think that people like this page because of the structure and organization and because of the modern style.

·         One effective website to improve your English.

  http://www.efl.net

In my opinion, this webpage is very useful if you want to improve your English level by watching funny videos, listening to English stories, doing online exercises, etc. You can also listen to any kind of audio items, such as articles and books and you can find a lot of material to increase your level of English too. You can even learn other languages like Japanese, Chinese, Armenian, Italian... and you can also use a translator. In general, this web page has all the requirements that you need to improve your English and be perfect at it. It’s important to say that the page is stylish and seems to be an important web page like the British Council.

Study tips (Auditory learning style)

Learning style: auditory.

In this Word we are going to describe our learning style, which is based on hearing and listening in order to memorize things better.

Now we will show you the different characteristics that we have, so we will try to help other people who are auditory or who are looking for the group they suit the best.

A. We suggest to record your voice and listening to it before going to bed. Scientists have come to the conclusion that if you do that, it is a good way to memorize everything you have recorded.

B. What you should also take into account would be singing original songs and put rhythm to what we have to study.

C.  Auditory people usually enjoy conversation in any kind of situation. They do not mind the topic they are talking about. Not really, because they love talking and talking for hours.

D. It is said that studying with other people is helpful for auditory students. We need someone to share information because we can help each other by interacting.

E.  Presentations and discussions are useful enough to remember what we listen for the exam. And, if the one who is doing the presentation is not the teacher, the subject is more attractive so we prefer it and we pay attention.

F.  Participating in class is a good way of hearing different points of view. Everybody has a different opinion of the same topic and it would be better to know other thoughts. That can help you to have your ideas clearer and more organized.

G. The more you read aloud, the more you will improve your skills.

H. It is disgusting for auditory people to be surrounded by unpleasant sounds. However, we recommend you to hear the sounds you like the most. E.g. birds singing, listening waterfalls, hearing the sea waves, etc.

I.   If you identify yourself with almost of the word below, that means that you are AUDITORY.

1. Speak.

2. Musical.

3. Proclaim.

4. Rhythm.

5. Remark.

6. Noise.

7. Listen.

8. Ask.

9. Shout.

10. Sound.

PowerPoint auditory Learning style

Auditory Learning Style

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