English Language…how to improve your proficiency in the language

My students have often asked me: “Sir, how can I improve my command of the English Language?” and my answer has always been this: USE…yep use the language every day…listen, speak, read and write in English every day. Language is a set of habits…so if you want to be proficient in it, you have to use it habitually. An analogy…if you want to be a good badminton player, what must you do? Play badminton every day! The same goes for the language.

Here are some of the things you can do to improve your language skills:

LISTEN to the radio (there are lots of English radio stations you can tune in too), the English news, the dialogues in movies (reading the subtitles is not the same as listening), English speeches, everyday spoken English as often as you can.

SPEAK in English every day…with your family (I know some of you are saying…sir, my family members don’t use English at home!), then with your relatvies, friends, classmates, teachers, salespersons, people manning service counters, over the phone, when ordering your food at McD, KFC, Old Town, Manhattan Fish Market, Starbucks, Coffee Bean, Subway (how can I not mention it…hehe) and the list goes on…

READ English materials every day…newspapers, magazines, journals, story books (fiction and non-fiction), online materials, etc.
Reading can actually be a joy. To quote someone from an article I read the other day:
“Words soothe when you are sad; stories thrill when you are bored; knowledge clarifies when you’re in doubt.” So well said.
You don’t have to buy all the materials I have mentioned as some of them are available in the school or public library. You can also borrow or exchange books and magazines with your friends.

And of course…

WRITE in English every day! Ya, I know some of you are already saying “sir, but how?”
This is probably the least used skill among a lot of students. So how can you practice your writing skill on a daily basis? Well for starters, you can keep a journal or a diary and jot down something in English in it every day. It could be something that happened to you or your friend, an interesting observation, a nice quotation that you came across, a new word that you have just learned, anything actually…as long as you take the trouble to write it down in English. If you are unsure about the spelling of a word, please look it up in a dictionary. You can also write emails or even blog to sharpen your writing skill. Or you can even write poems (I know…I know some of you are already smiling or ROFL) but actually I do know some students who actually do that during their free time…and these are the guys who normally score in the English Language papers during the examination.

Well I have shared with you some ideas on how you can improve your language skills. So it’s now up to you to put them into practice. Remember: PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

And I would like to end this post with this useful reminder:


To learn how to LISTEN well in English is to LISTEN to it
To learn how to SPEAK well in English is to SPEAK it
To learn how to READ well in English is to READ it
To learn how to WRITE well in English is to WRITE it
In other words if you want to be proficient in English,
USE IT EVERY DAY