One of the most common complaints from students is that they don't get enough correction of their mistakes in class, perhaps because they think that is one thing they cannot do on their own. In the end, though, to speak or write good English you will need to be able to correct your own errors. This article has some suggestions on developing those self-correction skills and starting to use more accurate English, all without the help of a teacher.

Error correction tasks

One way to learn how to correct your own mistakes is to practice on other people's. If you Google "correct the mistakes", you will find lots of online exercises to practice this. Another useful source of exercises is the error correction task in FCE and CAE Use of English, in which you must cross out any words which are not needed.

Study partners/ Study groups

You can combine correcting other people's errors with having your own corrected by getting together with other p ... Читать дальше »

If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice: There are four skills in learning English which are reading, listening, speaking, and writing.

The most important thing you must bear in mind is that reading and listening are inputs whereas speaking and writing are outputs. In other words, if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills you should first master the skills of reading and listening. There are some ways that you can do so, which I will try to summarize.

1) Reading

Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the structure, unfamiliar words etc as you read. There is no need that you stick to some complicated grammar structures or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them for example in other passages or books is enough. It would be better to prepar ... Читать дальше »

One of the top priorities of learners of English around the world is to improve their fluency, by which they usually mean how quickly and/ or “smoothly” they can speak the language, including avoiding pauses. Unfortunately, fluency is one of the most difficult things to improve, particularly without living in an English-speaking country and if you are trying to improve this skills outside class. This article gives over 50 tips that should help learners to speak more fluently, including many things people can do on their own outside the classroom. The advice is divided into things to do while speaking, (just) before speaking, and when trying to “study speaking” to improve your skills. These tips are mainly for language learners themselves, but the suggestions should also be useful for teachers who want to give students advice or bring more development of fluency into their classes.

While speaking

1. Think aloud

If you are thinking “That’s a difficu ... Читать дальше »