How to study English well

How to improve your English in full detail (my experience)

To be good at English is not particularly easy but not terribly hard either.

Before you start to learn sentences, or new words, the first and also the most important step is the "pronunciation".To pronounce perfectly you should buy a tape to assist you to learn and practise. This is the fundamental step to learn English, ignore or pay no attention to this step; you will not learn proper English and you will find the later steps more and more difficult. If you are solid and accurate in pronunciation, you will find the later steps much easier and you will stand firmly on the right track.

After mastering the pronunciation perfectly, it is the time to accumulate new words and useful expressions.Of course start from the simplest words like “hello, hi, you, me, he, him, his, her”, etc.... and expressions like “how are you, how old are you, how do you do”, etc..........It is essential to write the words on a piece of paper so that you remember them well.Actually everyone had done these at his/her primary school.

Now let me tell you how I learnt English in China. Speaking:

In China, you won't have enough chances to speak English. What I did was in the morning I got up early and read aloud the texts in the textbooks.The initial aim was to achieve the same speed as the tape, and then being able to read aloud

the texts with the same style as the English announcer in the tape. By doing this, it helps you to consolidate your pronunciation and grammar.

Listening:

Nowadays it is much easier to learn English in China because you can watch some TV channels in English.The more channels in English the better because you can choose your preferred programmes and it helps you to learn English with interests of your own, hence ideal for listening and expression/words accumulations.

Writing:

It is also very useful to write diaries.On writing diaries, it is not useful if you just write it without the care of grammar and spelling.When you finish you should always read your diaries again to check for errors and refine your sentences (e.g. remove repetitive words, use better expressions, and sort out the structure of the sentences).

Reading:

It is also very important to read story books in English, starting from thin ones with not many new words.Read as many thin books as you possibly can.Little by Little you will want to read thicker books, and your reading ability will get even better.

Putting four elements together:

I have to emphasise that when you do all these reading, listening, writing and speaking; you should join them together as a whole, apply the new words you learn from watching TV, reading books to your writing and speaking.

The enhancement of learning comes from getting hold of the possible opportunities to speak English (in China or abroad):

In China, you should try to go to local English corner to practise your oral English.If you are abroad then you should make a lot of English or international friends so you always have the opportunity to speak English.

On Spoken English, attitude is very important. You need to be very keen and you must not be shy. Never be afraid to make mistakes.Always think that a talk in English with some one will help you significantly.

You can think in this way: since my parents have paid so much to support me to study abroad, the money is partly spent on the international environment for learning English; therefore I ought to try my best to take every opportunity to practise my English.

My English has risen to a higher level in the last 2 years, because I talk in English most of the time.Having some international friends is particularly useful indeed.

Summing up the activities:

I have also been watching TV too.The real improvement lies in staying with international friends long enough and watching a lot of TV such as news, football, dramas, documentaries etc.... Writing diaries also helps me to remember good words, good expressions and practise sentence structuring.