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雷达卡
When it comes to English learning (or any language learning), your biggest challenge will most likely be staying motivated for the long term. Your language skills will not develop overnight so taking it slow and steady is the key. Be patient and don't give up. This is what will make or break your success.
So, first and foremost, think about why you are learning English in the first place. Chances are, if you hate English or you feel you are being forced to learn English, you will not progress. I’ve observed this in hundreds of students (and myself in learning other languages). So if you're not sure, think about it for awhile. True motivation comes about for an infinite number of reasons; not one reason is better than the other as long as it genuinely inspires you. Having passion or a goal makes it easier to take the steps to get there.
Second point of advice: get hungry. The successful students are "hungry" to improve. They are always looking for another way to practice; something else to read; or another good TV series or film to watch. Luckily, there are tons of things to read, watch, or listen to online that are in English. Just search for whatever interests you and engage with it.
After you’ve set your goals and you have pumped yourself up, accessing and interacting with the material and resources to become a good speaker of English will be much easier.
The practical steps to improve your spoken English:
Listen (and read). You need to adjust your ear to the sounds of the language. Depending on your level, what you listen to and especially what you read will differ. Listening will help most with pronunciation and intonation and reading will help most with expanding your vocabulary and grammar. By engaging with music, film, and television you'll also gain a cultural reference point that is helpful in speaking with native speakers. Here are some suggestions to get you started (although, really almost anything in English will do):
- The Beatles Playlist (Greatest Hits)
- Learning English with BBC new reports written in simpler English
- Wikipedia in Simple English, written specifically for English language learners in mind
- Films from these lists: bbc.com
The 100 greatest American films or AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (many titles are listed on both lists) or 100 Best British Films: The full list
Make notes. In the beginning, understanding every word is not as important as exposing yourself and getting the basic idea of what's happening. As you progress and want to learn a new word or phrase, make a note of it. I keep a very small notebook and have an application on my phone that I use only for this purpose. These notes make it easy to review my new words while I’m on the bus, waiting for someone, etc.). The key here is not to write everything down - just the words that struck you as important or useful. The process of writing itself will help you remember it.
Practice. This is the most important step. If you want to get better at speaking you're going to need to speak. I wrote more about where you can find free and paid native speakers to speak with in a non-English environment here: How can I find a native English Speaker to practice English?.
As speaking face-to-face can sometimes be intimidating, I recommend SpeakMate. I’m the co-founder of SpeakMate and developed this app with the needs of students in non-English environments in mind. Students of mine have struggled in the past to find someone to speak with and give them valuable feedback, so we hope our app helps solve this problem.
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