English Tasks for July

6 yıl önce
Do you want a tip for every day in July so that you can continue to practice your English and get better over the summer? Of course you do! You would not be reading this if you did not want to improve.  Well, first things first.  It won't be easy nor will it be fast, but if you are consistent with these tips, you will notice progress. 

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Be confident. People can only correct your mistakes when they hear you make them. THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT ONE!! You need to put away the books and just talk to people! 
Surround yourself in English. Put yourself in an all English speaking environment where you can learn passively. The best way to learn is through speaking.
Practice every day. Make yourself a study plan. Decide how much time a week you are going to spend studying and stick to it. Establish a routine.  15-30 minutes is enough for those of you that have very little time.  Less is better for your focus sometimes. 
Tell your family and friends about your study plan. Get them to push you to study and also don’t let them interrupt you.
Practice the 4 core skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. They all need to be worked on for you to improve.
Keep a notebook of new words you learn. Use them in sentences and try to say them at least 3 times when you speak.
Do a lesson at least once a day- either speaking here for 60 minutes or speaking with friends, or learning a new grammar rule for 15 minutes. 
Memorization of lists is one of the most common ways of learning vocabulary for a test. It’s only a good exercise for short term studying because you often do not retain the information that you have learned for a test.
Use your body clock. If you’re not a morning person, study in the afternoon.
You will find words easier to remember if you try to remember an example sentence using that word rather the word on its own.
Plan to take a test. You’ll find that you work harder when you need to study for something.
Saying that, it’s better not to study just to take a test. Think of the bigger picture. What can you do when you have a good command of English? How will the quality of your life improve?
Give yourself a long term goal. Focus on working towards it.
Give yourself short term goals too and reward yourself when you achieve each one.
Create an atmosphere in which you want to learn, not because you have to. You’ll learn more when you’re learning because you want to.
Know what works best for you. Think about what methods have been successful for you in the past and stick with them.
Figure out how you learn. It can be by memorising, reading, speaking, summarising or other methods. Find out how you study best. It can be in a quiet place by yourself or with a group.
Get help! If you don’t understand something you’ve got to ask someone. Ask your teacher, classmates or friends for help.
Review! Review! Review! Make sure that you take the time to review things you have studied in the past.
It’s not a good idea to study on your own for more than 30 minutes at a time. Take regular breaks, get some fresh air and stretch your legs.
Don’t be in such a hurry to move up a level. Concentrate on the level you are at now.
Watch DVDs rather than TV. It’s better to use something that you can watch over again to catch information you might have missed the first time.
Watching TV only gives you the chance to hear something correctly first time. This is better for high level students. It can be great practice for speaking to native English speakers so you don’t have to ask them to repeat themselves!
Read graded readers. These books are especially written for your level. Read a whole novel. You can do it! You’ll feel great afterwards.
Children’s books have easier words and are a good alternative to graded readers.
Newspapers are a good place to find passive constructs. Read through an article and see if you can find the passive sentences.
Read for the general meaning first. Don’t worry about understanding every word, then go back and look up new words.
For a word you don’t understand in a sentence, look at the other words around it. They will give you a hint. Try to guess the meaning from the context.
Learn root words. They’ll help you guess the meaning of words. For example:scrib = write, min = small
When you learn a new word, think of all its other forms: Beautiful (adjective),beauty (noun), beautifully (adverb).
Learn prefixes (dis-, un-, re-) and suffixes (-ly, -ment, -ful), these will help you to figure out the meaning of words and build your vocabulary.
I hope these tips helped.  If you want to start talking more, see me about a trial lesson!  Here and now is the safest place to make mistakes!  Good luck! 