strategies for improving your english

English language is international language in the world. Many people certainly want to be able to speak English well. But sometimes they don’t know how to make it happen. When we were in school, the teachers actually given the exercises to improve our English language skills. But most of us don’t feel confident with the abilities that we have in the English learning. Many of those detailed and time-consuming strategies for learning English which were useful for you in your initial English language classes may not be useful to you now. In fact those strategies may take up too much time now that you have a heavy academic work land as well. We now need to learn as we go.

Speaking

How did improve our speaking ?

“BE AN ACTIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER”

1. Talk to yourself in English

• When we’re alone and walking, travelling and even bathing, we can often use English to talk in our mind. By doing so, we can feel comfortable and confident.
• Talk to yourself in English all the time either in your mind or just by whispering to yourself in English.
• Record yourself and play it back to see how you can improve.
• Read aloud to yourself – a little each day.
• Even in our thinking process, we’re can trying to think and speak to ourself in English.

2. Repeat what you hear

• Sometime when you watch English movies, you must try to repeat what they say in the movie.
• Try to imitate the English spoken in movies.
• Memorise the use of language by watching TC serials and imitating their pronunciation.
• Telvesion really helps because the words are pronounced and used in the right context, so you learn new words the right way by hearing how to pronounce them and how to use them.

3. Have something to talk about, keep up to date with news and current affairs so that you have a topic of conversation that you can draw on.

4. Share with student or other people from otheh country cultures and language backgrounds, try to live with people who come from different backgrounds because then you will have to speak English.

5. Use English in your daily activities

6. Talk to your family, your children, and your friends in English, using English words when communicating with family or friends from home is another thing you can do.

7.  Join a club or grup

8. Make friends with people from other country

• Interact with native speakers. Don't be shy or afraid of making mistakes. When you feel comfortable, ask people to correct you.
• To pick up the expressions we can need in everyday life is to mingle with native speakers.
• Relax when you speak – it actually improves your articulation.

9.  Keep on practising

• Please don't forget – keep practising to keep up with the standard of your English, no matter how fluent your English is, because once you become lazy at using English, then you will go backwards.
• The more you use English the better speaker you will become. You learn writing by writing, speaking by speaking and reading by reading. Unless you use English more in your day-to-day activities, you will not be able to cut yourself off from your first language umbilical cord.
• Seize every chance to practise your English on campus or other place. Practice makes perfect.
• If a phrase or word is always difficult, write it down and practise it.

So.. what we should not do ?

• DON’T mix just with people from the same language background as you.
• DON’T be afraid of making mistakes; native speakers will usually understand what you are trying to say.

Reading

In their research suggests that students who read slowly and translate back into their own language do not achieve well academically.

1. Read more to read better

• Read local newspapaer even for international events and news.
• Read magazines, simple novels, and newspaper, even the free newspaper and pamphlets at railway station or supermarket, food labels, cookbooks, road signs, advertisement and anything you can find.
• You can read a lot of fictional and non-fictional works. You have the habit of reading at least one novel or text every week. You also belong to a book club.
• Try to read as many journals as possible.
• Read course-related newspaper (for example, Financial Review or the business pages in the daily newspaper).

2. Smart reading tips

• Read widely to expand your day-to-day vocabulary.
• Familiarise yourself with what you are about to read – the structure (chapters, sections), the contents pages, the index, the reference section, any differences in typesetting and what they signal, and note figures, tables and other features of a text.
• Scan the text first and learn where information can be found in the text.
• Construct a diagram of your understanding as you read – that way you will remember the hierarchies of ideas and relationships between ideas embedded in what you read.
• Read academic texts with a focus. Focused reading means you are looking for particular information which keeps you concentrating.
• If your textbooks have questions at the end of each chapter, try finding the information in each chapter to answer each question – this is focused reading.
• Pay attention to the headings and sub-headings – they will help you understand what follows.
• Pay attention to the first sentence in a paragraph, it can give you an idea of what follows.
• Look for connecting words like ‘for example’, ‘then’, ‘in addition’, ‘similarly’, ‘therefore’, ‘firstly’, ‘secondly’, ‘finally’ or ‘in conclusion’. They will guide you through the text and show you the relationships between sentences.
• Avoid looking up every word. Try and guess the meaning from the context.

Listening

1. Watch movies and television, and listen to English radio and music

• Listen to local radio and even news from your home country in English.
• Watching movies with English and Indonesian subtitles is a good way for me to improve my English. You don’t look at subtitles when you can understand the film. If you cannot catch it, you will look at the English subtitles. Looking at Indonesian subtitles just confirms whether you are right in understanding the meaning.
• You mostly learn English by listening to songs and watching movies in order to improve my listening and speaking skills. I expose myself to as much English as possible by watching TV or movies and listening to radio or music.
• Listen to English songs and sing with the English lyrics.
• TV programs really help a lot to improve your English skills so you are trying to watch dramas or shows more often.
• Watching documentary movies – sometimes it is easier to understand the grammar and learn new vocabulary.
• Video record and replay TV shows until you understand the language.

Writing

• When you are writing for academic purposes, draft an outline of what you plan to write. List your main points and use these as your topic sentences for each new paragraph.
• Get a friend (especially someone who has English as their first language) to read what you have written – tell them to let you know if there is anything that doesn’t make sense or is not expressed in the usual way. (However, don’t assume that everyone who is a native speaker will be familiar with writing in an academic style.)
• Read your own text aloud. You will pick up errors more quickly because you are using your eyes, and your voice. If you run out of breath, look at the structure of your sentences – they may be too long. Most international students write sentences that are too long!
• Keep a record of the feedback you get from your tutors and lecturers when they mark your work – reflect on this feedback and see if there is a common pattern of problems. Refer to this feedback when you are writing your next assignment - so you don't make the same mistakes again.
• Take the opportunity to write notes, emails and letters to your friends and acquaintances in English.
• When you are writing, take advantage of the ‘thesaurus’ option available on many computer word processing programs. For instance, write a simple word and see if a better word can replace it. For example, when using Microsoft Word highlight the word you have used and ‘right click’ synonyms.
• Use a learner’s dictionary which gives you examples of how language is used to make sure that you use new words correctly.
• Keep a journal – it provides practice and gives you an opportunity to reflect on your language and your experiences.
• Have grammar resources readily available. There is lots of online help and there are a number of good texts available – keep these on hand when you are writing.
• When you come across a piece of text that is particularly well written, keep a copy and examine it carefully. Consider those parts of it that you particularly like.
• Many websites have discussion boards. Join one and contribute. Discussion board writing is a particular type of writing, but it does provide practice.

Conclusion :

English has four main skills which consist of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Many strategies can be used to improve the learning of English. To improve our English is actually the point is we have to practice anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. Do everything from the smallest things. We need more practice speaking English in daily habits, ranging form talking to other people, family, until when we think. Hear all relating with English, for example when watching television, listening to music or radio. Read the newspaper, novels, work of fiction or non-fiction, and so on with English language. Write email, journal, or any garfitti hand with the English language. We need to know vocabulary. If there is an unknown vocabulary, look in the dictionary. And if we can, find a friend in another country who have English as their first language. We can learn good practice English with them. Try to get used to doing it all.