7 Daily Activities to Improve English
Improving English skills enables you communicate effectively and keep you ahead in career. Unless you are a native speaker you certainly experience this question one day or the other.
“How to improve English quickly?”
This informative article is not likely to answer in regards to the part “quickly” but deals with a steady and consistent approach.
Listed below are 7 simple daily activities to incorporate in your day to day routine.
You need to
- Include these seven activities in your everyday routine.
- Make them your regular habits
- Never give up, at the very least for first thirty days. If you are consistent, you absolutely discover how useful these simple activities are.
- A calendar checklist is enclosed at the end of this post (in pdf format). Download it, paste it somewhere at your workplace and make entries every day. If you omit a task, note the reason for skipping it.
1. Read newspaper:
Possibly this is the most repeated advice and almost has become a cliché.
Is it so difficult to adapt?
Might not be …
But,
Initially, you may not be able to understand the complete gist of an article, while reading a newspaper. So, to fill the gap, you may have to read another newspaper in your mother language. A lot of time is spent in reading newspapers in both languages.
But believe me.
Without giving up, when you go on day by day, you will be able to understand the complete meaning of the news in English.
Why do you need to read a newspaper?
You become familiar with words.
Familiarity eliminates fear. You acquire a sense of “owning” the language. Soon, it won’t be a foreign language to you. You feel as if it’s your native language and speak, write, communicate and think in English.
Gradually you get acquainted with the vocabulary used in various fields like politics, sports, economy and movies.
“How do I start reading newspaper?”
Start small:
Don’t try to read the entire newspaper on the first day.
It may backfire.
Begin small.
Start going through one simple article, preferably on your favorite topic. Slowly increase the content, week by week and soon you reach going through the entire newspaper.
2. Watching news, shows, and movies:
Watching news, shows, and movies on television make you immersed in English language.
Here is a good thing.
While watching television, language is absorbed through visual and auditory senses simultaneously, causing effective reception.
While being entertained, you learn the pronunciation of different words and various accents too.
Pronunciation and accent are two major factors in learning English language. Watching is the simplest way to get acquainted with English language than reading and trying to understand the complex phonetic transcription.
You can learn the modern usage of English language as well as the slang, by watching the subtitles of a movie.
3. Write one page daily:
Writing is probably the most avoided task of the four basic language skills (Listening, speaking, reading, and writing), (….. me too )
Usually, most of us are unwilling to write daily.
The reasons could be…
- Laziness/procrastination
- Not being satisfied with the output
- A lot of mental work
Another question asked by the readers is
“What should I write daily?”
The answer is….
Anything…
it depends on your imagination. Sky is the limit.
However, you may begin with one of these.
- A diary
- A story/incident that you have been told
- An incident you have witnessed
- Story of a movie
- Your short term/long term goals
- Start a blog and begin writing content.
Why should I write?
By writing daily, you get to know
The best words to use in various contexts
Arranging ideas in a logical order ( Introduction, Presenting ideas, Conclusion)
Creating a quick mind map (or blueprint) of what you should write.
Improve handwriting (when writing on a paper)
4. Speak to someone:
Speaking is certainly the most valuable communication skill everyone wants to acquire.
“How to speak English?”
Begin speaking with
- Like minded companions, who are eager to improve their English, like you
- Get trained by a professional coach
- Online language exchange sites
- Kids ( kids have good fluency these days, isn’t it?)
- Skype
- Mirror
- Voice recorder
There are millions of aspirants who wants to be fluent in English but pulled back by the fear of failure.
If you belong to this category and believe that you can’t speak with others,
Here is a quick remedy.
Memorize some ready to use phrases.
Start practicing before a mirror (or with a voice recorder).
Learn more ready to use phrases.
5. Play word games:
Who doesn’t love games?
Here are few games that give you education and entertainment. They teach you new vocabulary, spellings and at the same time keeps you entertained.
- Hangman
- Scrambles
- Crossword puzzles.
6. Learn five new words every day:
There are few different approaches to acquiring this habit.
- Take a vocabulary book and learn five words from that every day.
- Make a list of new words that you find while reading the newspaper.
- From a thesaurus.
- Learn a word a day mail services.
I prefer thesaurus mobile app to physical (paperback) thesaurus.
A thesaurus mobile app certainly saves valuable time and improves productivity. As I am a lazy man, I couldn’t reach for a paperback thesaurus in number of instances, so I procrastinated referring to a thesaurus many times. But a mobile app is handy and is available always.
Numerous “one word a day” mail services are available on the web that sends you new words every day.
Here is one secret to a powerful vocabulary,
Going through the new words, memorizing them and leaving them aside won’t do any good to you.
Repetition is the key secret behind spectacular memory. Unless you go through these words often and revise them, you may not remember the meaning of the words for a long time.
7. Solve five correction of errors.
A huge number of books are available on this topic in the market.
Take any standard book and start solving five sentences a day.
What is the importance of this task?
Correction of sentences has become an inevitable part of every standard English test.
While solving these tasks you find the common mistakes people do.
You come to know different kinds of mistakes, such as
- Articles
- Prepositions
- Tenses
- Subject- verb agreement etc.
Complex grammar rules that can’t be taught, in theory can be understood practically through this activity.
Source : http://englishachiever.com/7-daily-activities-improve-english/