In my blog there are tips for those who want to improve their knowledge of English..
I want to talk about how to build a system for self-learning English (or any other) language, using modern and not so modern technologies. A system where all elements are connected and support each other.
But before deciding how to study, let's discuss the reasons why language learning is endlessly put off.
Reason 1. Lack of resources
Many people believe that the teacher or courses are an integral part of learning. But this is precisely what requires time and money, which are always in short supply. As a result, English is transported to better times that will never come. In my opinion, the number of opportunities for initial language learning is now so great that you can start today, without leaving home.
Hundreds of applications, sites for learning languages, electronic translators, films, lectures and videos in English - this is a huge arsenal that is completely accessible to you. You will need a teacher later, when moving to more complex levels.
Reason 2. Lack of purpose
Another reason for postponing study to later is the lack of a learning goal and a way to maintain the achieved level. Many people believe that if you learn a language without the prospect of constant use, then it is useless.
I think that there is a very simple way to maintain the achieved level of English for as long as you like - reading. If you constantly read, you only lose your speaking skills, but at the same time you understand the structure of the language better and increase your vocabulary. An active reader regains speaking skills very quickly.
Reading English has never been as easy as it is now, and this is the first component of the plan that I want to talk about.
Reading from Kindle (or LinguaLeo plugin)
With this magical machine for 4,000 rubles with delivery to Russia in two weeks, you can immediately read entry-level books and articles (articles can be sent to Kindle from a computer). Any word can be translated simply by tapping on it, provided you have purchased the correct Kindle Paperwhite model with a touch screen. When you buy, choose the version with advertising - Amazon's is very cool and will delight you on winter evenings. The Russian-language dictionary is installed on Kindle as easily as loading any book. I use the NBARS dictionary, which I found in a couple of minutes on the Internet. You just need to specify it in the device settings as the default dictionary.
Kindle is not the only solution; many other e-readers have similar functionality.
If you don't want to buy a Kindle, you can easily get by with an even simpler tool. The LinguaLeo service provides its users with a useful plugin for the Chrome browser, which translates words in English texts by double clicking on them. To read any articles on the Internet, a regular computer will be enough for you.
Collecting new words
All words and even entire phrases that were new to you in the book can be marked in Kindle. After finishing the book, you will have a ready-made dictionary to study. The first books provide a huge flow of unfamiliar words, but with each subsequent book their number decreases and comes to 70-80 per publication. The LinguaLeo plugin also carefully saves all the words that you translated, although it does it itself and without much analysis.
By the way, I cannot call the LinguaLeo service itself and other similar systems effective. The learning mechanics they offer are too playful and don't provide much of a challenge. I don't believe in easy learning.
Spaced word learning
What to do with the identified words? Learn! But just without writing them down in a notebook. There are many spaced learning systems where you load your words and run them around in circles. Over time, the system itself removes everything that you have learned and leaves what you do not yet know. The most popular system is Anki.
Learning English for many of our readers may not be as simple a task as it might seem at first glance. Like, what is there: buy self-instructions, an audio course - and learn. As a last resort, you can enroll in a local language school or use audio lessons and various interactive or foreign language learning platforms like LinguaLeo.
5 Ways to Improve Your Spoken English Proficiency
Work on your pronunciation: Good pronunciation will help you achieve mutual understanding when speaking with those for whom English is their native language. There are three different levels of pronunciation, and most English learners use all three levels in one way or another. In order to use all three and improve your pronunciation, we recommend you various lessons and audio courses.
Listen to as many programs as possible and: Most beginners prefer to read a lot, but listen little to broadcasts and “live” English speech. Start with listening first, and then move on to constant reading and writing. Spend more time listening to different pronunciation options, accents and styles of English speech. In addition, it will be a good help to practice reading aloud, speaking monologues and dialogues in person out loud and repeating what is spoken out loud after the teacher or an audio recording.
Read aloud often and a lot. There are, however, a couple of difficulties with this:
Not everyone can easily formulate thoughts in English words
Not everyone can pronounce it the first time
Reading aloud will help solve the second problem by building skills. To improve your pronunciation, read large texts out loud several times. The words that cause you the most difficulty should be repeated a couple of times separately: the first time - slowly, the second time - at an accelerated pace, so that it sounds as natural as possible.
Learn entire phrases, not individual words. When you have learned a new word, then learn a whole phrase or sentence with it. Repeat this phrase or sentence up to 10 times in a row to make it sound as natural as possible and your pronunciation to be as effortless as possible.
Oral lessons and audio courses, as well as various thematic educational courses in English, will help you improve your speaking skills.
5 Ways to Improve Your Oral English Communication Skills
In communication your openness and naturalness of communication are often more important than following all the rules of grammar. Sometimes it is better to say “not like the book,” but at the same time convey the correct thought to your interlocutor, than to suffer for a long time, looking for words and formulating a complex grammatical structure.
Speak slowly when talking to your interlocutor. Speaking too quickly with an accent and mistakes will not make you “look” like someone who has known English since childhood. Slow pronunciation and unhurried speech have their own “advantages”:
You have time to think about what exactly you are going to say.
Your speech will be clearer and more understandable to the interlocutor.
Over time and with active communication with “native speakers”, your English will improve, your speech will become smoother and faster.
Practice thinking in English. Translate “thoughts in your head” from your native language into English, practice pronouncing and formulating sentences and phrases to yourself, think about events and what is happening in English, and not just in Russian.
If you forget a word, try replacing it with other words or a description of the “forgotten” concept. Often, beginners in learning English “stumble” in oral communication with other interlocutors, forgetting a word or definition. Don't get lost: use synonyms, antonyms, descriptive concepts, analogies.
And most importantly - don't be nervous! Conversation is not an exam; no one here requires you to have high grades or a thorough command of English. Be patient, be positive in your attitude towards your interlocutor, don’t get nervous for no reason and just learn new things: for this purpose, English as one of the key languages of international communication is perfect.
Learning English for many of our readers may not be as simple a task as it might seem at first glance. Like, what is there: buy self-instructions, an audio course - and learn. As a last resort, you can enroll in a local language school or use audio lessons and various interactive or foreign language learning platforms like LinguaLeo.
5 Ways to Improve Your Spoken English Proficiency
Work on your pronunciation: Good pronunciation will help you achieve mutual understanding when speaking with those for whom English is their native language. There are three different levels of pronunciation, and most English learners use all three levels in one way or another. In order to use all three and improve your pronunciation, we recommend you various lessons and audio courses.
Listen to as many programs as possible and: Most beginners prefer to read a lot, but listen little to broadcasts and “live” English speech. Start with listening first, and then move on to constant reading and writing. Spend more time listening to different pronunciation options, accents and styles of English speech. In addition, it will be a good help to practice reading aloud, speaking monologues and dialogues in person out loud and repeating what is spoken out loud after the teacher or an audio recording.
Read aloud often and a lot. There are, however, a couple of difficulties with this:
Not everyone can easily formulate thoughts in English words
Not everyone can pronounce it the first time
Reading aloud will help solve the second problem by building skills. To improve your pronunciation, read large texts out loud several times. The words that cause you the most difficulty should be repeated a couple of times separately: the first time - slowly, the second time - at an accelerated pace, so that it sounds as natural as possible.
Learn entire phrases, not individual words. When you have learned a new word, then learn a whole phrase or sentence with it. Repeat this phrase or sentence up to 10 times in a row to make it sound as natural as possible and your pronunciation to be as effortless as possible.
Oral lessons and audio courses, as well as various thematic educational courses in English, will help you improve your speaking skills.
5 Ways to Improve Your Oral English Communication Skills
In communication your openness and naturalness of communication are often more important than following all the rules of grammar. Sometimes it is better to say “not like the book,” but at the same time convey the correct thought to your interlocutor, than to suffer for a long time, looking for words and formulating a complex grammatical structure.
Speak slowly when talking to your interlocutor. Speaking too quickly with an accent and mistakes will not make you “look” like someone who has known English since childhood. Slow pronunciation and unhurried speech have their own “advantages”:
You have time to think about what exactly you are going to say.
Your speech will be clearer and more understandable to the interlocutor.
Over time and with active communication with “native speakers”, your English will improve, your speech will become smoother and faster.
Practice thinking in English. Translate “thoughts in your head” from your native language into English, practice pronouncing and formulating sentences and phrases to yourself, think about events and what is happening in English, and not just in Russian.
If you forget a word, try replacing it with other words or a description of the “forgotten” concept. Often, beginners in learning English “stumble” in oral communication with other interlocutors, forgetting a word or definition. Don't get lost: use synonyms, antonyms, descriptive concepts, analogies.
And most importantly - don't be nervous! Conversation is not an exam; no one here requires you to have high grades or a thorough command of English. Be patient, be positive in your attitude towards your interlocutor, don’t get nervous for no reason and just learn new things: for this purpose, English as one of the key languages of international communication is perfect.
Answer from TheQuestion partner
- Conditional statements
- Progressive tense
- Commands
Answer from TheQuestion partner
Start using busuu immediately, since 85% of people who study foreign languages never reach the advanced level :)
2. Listen. Try to look for videos with different accents: British, American, Australian and others. After watching the video, try to retell the main idea that you saw in the video.
3. Move on to studying and polishing advanced grammar. These are times like:
- Conditional statements
- Progressive tense
- Commands
4. Practice speaking. Learn idioms, phraseological units and try to use them in your speech. Work on your speaking skills. For example, communicate with native speakers.
5. Constantly step out of your comfort zone and motivate yourself to move on. The main mistake of those who learn languages is settling in the “plateau” zone. This is when you think that you speak quite well and there is no need to study other topics or other aspects of the language.
This “plateau” appears because at high levels the upward movement and achievement of results is slower than at the initial levels.
It looks like this (green part of the picture):
So make long term plans, goals and stay patient.
Need more practice! Especially conversational.
If the level is intermediate, then you already have a lot of knowledge (you have a basic vocabulary, you know most of the grammar), but the skills don’t matter yet (speaking, reading, understanding, writing is a bit difficult). Stop absorbing knowledge from textbooks and plunge headlong into live practice.
Let's look at each skill separately.
1. Oral speech.
The main problem of those “stuck at intermediate” is usually that they are bad at speaking: I understand everything, but I can’t say it. Here textbooks will not help and it is pointless to improve your vocabulary; the most basic grammar is also required. You just need to speak a lot and regularly in English, preferably with native speakers, but it’s also useful with non-native speakers. You can find them on special sites, they are in this review:
2. Listening comprehension.
If you understand the same text in the form of letters, but not by ear, then you need to practice more in listening - listen or watch something understandable and interesting to you. Series, TV shows - whatever. Conversational practice with native speakers also helps a lot.
3. Reading.
It happens that even a person who speaks English fluently has difficulty reading fiction. Not surprisingly, reading requires a fairly extensive vocabulary and, let’s say, upgrading your reading skills (as in Russian). My breakthrough came when I started reading simple and exciting literature. All sorts of stories by classics were difficult to read (the language is difficult, it’s not interesting to read), but the fascinating detective stories were a breeze, almost like in Russian. I note that usually to overclock you need to read 20 pages, then it becomes easier.
4. Letter.
This is the most unpopular skill among language learners, and probably the most difficult to master. It’s difficult to write in Russian, let alone English. This is where serious knowledge is really required, down to all the subtlest nuances, and in addition to this, the linguistic flair inherent in native speakers (not all). Again, practice is needed: write, ask for corrections, read a lot.
If we talk about writing at the chat level ("conversational" writing, oral and written speech), then you don't need much knowledge - even a beginner can handle it. For practice, I recommend the sites and applications from the review above.
I’ll make a special note about vocabulary and grammar. For most tasks, especially oral ones, a relatively small amount of vocabulary and grammar needs to be known. If you want to increase this level, then it is best to expand your vocabulary through reading and communication (not primitive). At the same time, you will improve your practical knowledge of grammar (understanding of structures, ability to construct them).
How to raise your level of English above average? The main reasons for the lack of progress in language learning at the Intermediate level.
Manager of the foreign language school IQ Consultancy
To understand how to overcome the Intermediate level and improve your level of English to Upper Intermediate, it is important to honestly ask yourself: “Am I regularly attending classes?”, “Am I doing my homework in full?” “Do I use alternative resources to improve my vocabulary?” Often, having felt a little confidence in language proficiency, which comes at the time of studying at Intermediate, we allow ourselves to relax a little, but at the moment, on the contrary, we should make every effort - after all, we need to know how to raise the level of English to Upper-Intermediate.
Each level in learning English requires proficiency in a certain set of words, expressions and grammatical structures. At the Intermediate level, these should be phrasal verbs, idiomatic expressions, proverbs, subjunctive mood, passive voice.
When studying a foreign language in an artificially created environment - in the classroom, and not in a natural environment, without living in an English-speaking country, a person must strive with full responsibility to use all the material covered in his speech, even if sometimes making a fair effort on himself.
It is important not only to independently evaluate your skills, but also to seek an expert opinion at a foreign language school - take a live test or . Also, for training, you must carefully choose a specialist teacher who successfully works with Intermediate levels and above.
