ExamSeekers

|101-012| Why and how to improve your English?

Hello ExamSeekers,

First and foremost we’d like to celebrate this date by wishing all the women around the globe a HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY.womens-day

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, but I never really had the chance. Even though today is not a holiday, information provided by the BBC website says that “an average of 137 women across the world are killed by a partner or family member every day“. Most of these deaths happen due to women not being able to leave their houses and having to stay in unsafe homes. We won’t go too deep into this topic (especially because this is not the aim of the blog), but one of the things that could help is: education.

These suggestions are not only for women, but for anyone who feels stuck in their homes, or even at work and feels that he/she won’t grow and thinks that will stay stagnated and chained to the same places and jobs for the rest of their lives.

 

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Studying, that is developing your skills can be very liberating even though it does not seem like it. By improving your skills and acquiring more knowledge you will:

  • Improve your abilities;
  • Increase your understanding of the world;
  • Achieve better job positions;
  • Have more career opportunities;
  • Have better power of negotiation;
  • Fell better about yourself;
  • and many other reasons…

That being said, what can we do to improve our skills?

If you are still struggling with your English or any other second language, here are some tips for you:

  1. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes (You can only learn if you try, making mistakes is part of the process. Only by making mistakes you can be corrected and see that you are improving);
  2. Surround yourself with English (If you are studying abroad, try not to get into groups of people who speak your own language, especially if the aim of the trip is to develop a second language);
  3. Practise every day (Surround yourself with music, videos, TV series, movies, articles, etc. Try to be in constant contact with the second language you want to acquire);
  4. Practise the 4 core skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening (You have to not only listen well or read well, but you should be able to produce the language well too);
  5. Keep notes of what you learn (Whenever you learn something new, keep some notes about it, you should be practising new structures or use the new vocabulary whenever you can so it can get fixed in your mind).

Some more tips can be found at Langports website. But for those who already have a good level of English (or of the second language you are trying to achieve), here are some tips for you to improve your teaching skills in the ELT World.

  1. Look for pronunciation courses (it is never a bad thing to work on the way you pronounce words, and teach your students correctly);
  2. Take some methodology courses (if you are lost and don’t know how to improve your teaching skills, try and take the TKT, the CELTA, DELTA, ICELT, or others);
  3. Improve your English level (having a higher level of English will definitely make you teach better and get you to better working places, so if you are at a B2 or a C1 level [CEFR], you can always improve by studying for English certifications);
  4. Get certifications (you will not only improve your language level by studying for them but holding a C2: Proficiency will definitely save you a place in institutions which value education).
  5. Get a degree (if you have been a teacher for a while but you still don’t hold a graduation degree, look for language graduation courses, they will grant you a position at schools and colleges).

 

Well, I hope these tips help you all (women and men) to get more knowledge and therefore more freedom.

Have a nice day and a great weekend.
Patty 

 

 

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