I can say that I’ve been focusing for so many years only on grammar or text books; sometimes realising that there wasn’t any particular improvement. Just doing exercises isn’t going to improve my English that much.
Over the few years, I’ve come across new tools and way to strengthen my English. I’ve been exploring the most effective ways for myself. There must come a point when we put our learning into practice. First of all there’s no doubt that the best way to become fluent speakers is to spend much time as possible with other fluent speakers- through work or study or friendship. It’s easier said than done, I know.
Over the few years, I’ve come across new tools and way to strengthen my English. I’ve been exploring the most effective ways for myself. There must come a point when we put our learning into practice. First of all there’s no doubt that the best way to become fluent speakers is to spend much time as possible with other fluent speakers- through work or study or friendship. It’s easier said than done, I know.
In this last university semester we have focused on Web 0.2. I think we all have spent so long contemplating on how useful it could be for a language learner…so I will avoid being boring and repetitive.
I would like to stress that if we do things ONLY because it’s good for our English, definitely we won’t improve; so if we read on English magazine we should do it firstly because we’re interested in British news and we enjoy it and maybe learning something new about the language.
So in my spare time, I often try to put together interests and English by reading foreign newspaper, listening to my favourite singers, downloading lyrics and singing. In my opinion, that’s exiting, fulfilling and useful at the same time.
Finally, I’d rather speak about my personal experiments. That doesn’t mean I’m going to give you a completely new tip on how to learn a language; but something which particularly works for me. When I find something which could be personally worthwhile for me, I immediately write it down on a piece of paper and I stick it in a place which would definitely remind me of the meaning: for instance on the shower door of my bathroom a post it will jog my memory telling me: “LOOK OUT IT COULD BE SLIPPERY”. If I can’t find a suitable location for the post note I’ll resolve the problem by drawing a picture on the post it: for example my last reminder was a face with very big protruding ears, that brings to mind “sticking-out ears”. Another useful or effective technique is to take down a word or a phrase that especially interests me and I connect it with a personal aspect of my life i.e. I recently wrote down on a CD the phrase: “ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE”.
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