Tips to brush up your English [Archives:2006/961/Education]
Ahmed Azzan,
Seiuyn, Hadramaut
Learning a foreign language helps to look at the world in a different way. There are different ways which help the students of English to brush up this language used worldwide. In fact, a lot of English learners may have difficulties in the process of learning English which may hinder their progress in efficient language acquisition.
Before I shed light on different ways or strategies of how to brush up your English. I would like to mention some factors that motivated me to write this article. To begin with, I am completely disappointed with the way and the extent of students' interaction in English.
At Hadramaut university, I have noticed a strange phenomenon. A lot of students are enrolled in English department only to waste their time by running after the teachers in order to get extra marks or to achieve excellent grades.
Oddly enough, there are a huge number of students in each class who prefer to spend most of the time speaking Arabic instead of English as if they are going to major in an Arabic department.
It is no denying the fact that there are certain teacher-related stumbling blocks that hinder the students from achieving fluency. Even teachers prefer to speak too much Arabic and little English, have little experience of how to teach English and are not well-qualified to be efficient English teachers in terms of accurate pronunciation or grammatical aspects.
There are different ways which can salvage the miserable situation. Some of these are as follows:
1- Make learning English a habit. Learn something new everyday. It is much better to learn for 10 minutes everyday than to study for 2 hours a week.
2- Communicate. There is nothing more effective to learn English than to communicate in English. Try to say something in English even if you think that your English is not that good.
3- Try to look for people who speak English accurately. Do not feel shy speaking with others, because if you constantly have the feeling of shyness, your language will never improve.
4- Idiomatic expressions are of a great importance. Using idioms when talking to others would make your language polished, neat and spruce. Idioms are to language what spices are for food.
5- Listening is an important factor leading to improvement of English. Try to listen to English channels such as BBC or CNN.
6- Do not neglect reading. Reading is the most important skill for acquiring vocabulary.
7- Role play is also helpful and beneficial. Imagine that you are in a restaurant or at an airport or in other places, and practice situationally appropriate English.
Students of English should take an active role in brushing up or improving their language. Practice makes one perfect. They must practice using the language as much as possible in order to achieve fluency in the language.
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