In which situations can I improve my English skills and my pronunciation? Find out about easy ways to improve your foreign language skills
In which situations can I improve my English skills and my pronunciation? Find out about easy ways to improve your foreign language skills
You can improve your language skills during various everyday activities – cleaning your house, taking a walk or eating lunch. It’s not a surprise that you can’t learn a new language only by reading books or watching movies. These are some good ways of making your English and foreign languages better or enriching your study sessions, but don’t forget about the majority of learning online or stationary with other people that you can hear, talk to and about the importance of knowing grammatical structures. Practising simple sentences, listening to the radio or podcasts can also be a good form of education that will help you rest from textbooks and make your learning more interesting. There are many activities that do not require a lot of effort and concentration but they can help you improve your foreign language skills.
Practising English skills during simple activities as a way to make your foreign language better
If the activity you are doing doesn’t require your full attention, you can use this time to study your chosen language. That’s a great way to make your English and foreign languages better. This is possible by talking to yourself/creating a short monologue about what you are doing at the moment. Daily cleaning your home, washing dishes, or even ironing clothes are good chores to practice a new language. These are activities that we do almost automatically, so you can enrich them with simple language exercises.
Listening can also be a form of learning or improving a foreign language!
Another good way to learn a language is to listen to podcasts, radio, or songs in the language you are learning. Do a simple exercise: try to catch exactly which words appear in the lyrics, then try to translate them and understand what the song is about. Thanks to this exercise, you will combine pleasant listening to your favourite songs or programs with language improvement. Or maybe you will learn something about the artist and his/her texts or learn about the topics that interest you? Also, don’t forget that there are a lot of podcasts made just for people who are trying to learn languages, so you can also listen to those.
If you are stressed because of an important event during which you will have to use your secondary language, prepare yourself well
You may be having an important event that is making you very stressed out, such as an interview in English or in other foreign languages. You can calm yourself down and practice your language skills simultaneously by imagining how the event will go on and making up possible questions and answers. Check the keywords or phrases of the planned conversation in a dictionary and try to remember them. This will make you feel more confident. You will enrich your vocabulary with words you do not know and check their spelling and pronunciation.
Getting to know a language online or stationary with others is a great way to learn!
Finding a friend that is fluent or native in the language that you are trying to learn is a great solution. There are many ways to make such friends. You can do it on websites and groups where you meet native speakers with whom you share common interests. You can write with each other and talk over the phone or online. Not only will you make new friends, but you will also practice using the language in everyday situations. Another solution is to install one of the free mobile applications, designed for you to talk to other people that are trying to learn a new language. You can exchange your knowledge of your mother tongue with someone else’s knowledge of the one you are learning.
“Business with pleasure” for more advanced language skills. . .
If you are already at the language level of minimum B1 / B2, you can also watch movies in English and with subtitles. Adapt your selection to the language level you have. However, if you don’t have this B1/B2 level, don’t fear, we have something for you too – watch cartoons for children. They usually have very simple language and grammatical structures, so you will be able to follow along with the plot. With time, you will start understanding more and more of the dialogues, as your listening skills will improve and your vocabulary expand, just don’t forget to check how to spell those new words! The more you will understand, the more you will enjoy watching movies in the language you are learning.
Not only textbooks will help you learn and improve your English and other foreign languages skills!
The same goes for reading books or articles in the language you are learning. It’s very beneficial because you can relax and learn something new about the language. Each new word you learn expands your vocabulary. You don’t have to check all of them – while reading, you can understand new words through the context of the whole sentence. It is worth checking how they are pronounced and in what other contexts they can be used. The same as with movies, remember to adjust the difficulty of the book to your level. If you are under B1, try the children’s books first.
If you want to learn online on your own, check out our e-learning platforms
Why should you consider learning with e-learning platforms?
– They are perfect for people with a lot of activities; you can choose the time to learn;
– They can offer you learning from any place on earth – as long as you have an internet connection. You can learn from home, while driving to work on the bus and in many more places thanks to portable devices which can be used – phone, tablet or laptop;
– They allow you to save a huge amount of time devoted to organizing classic workshops/lessons/course with the teacher or commuting to and from the lesson;
The best way of learning a foreign language is blended learning. It contains both elements: e-learning platforms and lessons with a teacher. At home, you can do online tasks that will enrich your learning and during the classes you can ask your tutor about anything language-related and train grammatical structures that are troubling you.
Learning is not just about sitting with your nose in a textbook!
As you can see, learning English can be enriched with various fun activities. Usually, when we think about learning a language, we associate it with hours spent on reading a textbook, remembering huge amounts of words and thinking about grammatical structures. However, learning a foreign language can be much more interesting and fun! The activities mentioned earlier will be the perfect complement to your class or course. They don’t require a lot of work or commitment, and they will help you improve your language skills while doing what you like.
If you want to extend your knowledge of art, politics, environment, technology and learn about them while improving your English, consider purchasing access to our special educational platform that uses articles and short films to learn the language. The materials are prepared on current information from around the world, enriched with special exercises, designed to increase the absorption of new words and phrases.