It's been a long time since my last article. Truly, I feel good to be back. That said, I'd like to bring something special for those who wish to improve their pronunciation and accent. I'm not a big fan of copying accents but, for the sake of this lesson I'm going to put it there for you with this ideology; accent is not that important, as long as you're clearly pronouncing grammatically correct sentences. The targeted audience of this lesson is CEF (Common European Framework) Intermediate to Upper Intermediate levels. The members who are below those levels might find it little bit difficult to follow, but I strongly advise you not to give up. Without further ado, let's start the lesson.

  Whenever you are watching an English movie, you might be wondering; what if I can talk like them? It would be very nice, right? Well, I used to think like that. And I followed the following steps to the letter and came up with amazing results which sometimes even made me wonder, is this really me!

  People start learning by listening to things; it's a very important ingredient which helps to speak properly. That's why we give a higher priority to practice conversational English in our classes. Because we know the fact that good listeners will become good speakers and good readers will become good writers. Therefore, we had been trained to balance these aspects in our lesson plans. Frankly, that's why we encourage our students to listen and read as much as they can. A higher level of specialty or fluency in Spoken English will never come solely on the knowledge of grammar; it requires the touch of the native accent. That doesn't mean we have to talk like them, it means, we have to carefully examine the way they pronounce, where they stress, intonation, connected speech, collocations and last but not least the colloquial language. You might feel tired or lost, but, this is it, this is the real deal. All the people who have mastered the language have trained their ears over a considerable period of time. The following approach will definitely help you to acquire a better level according to the way you put it into practice.

Step 1: Find an audio (if you can find a video with audio, it's much better) of a Native Speaker with its transcript (complete text, not the subtitles). Length of the file should be 2 to 5 minutes. If the file is too long, don't worry about it. Just, take the first 2 to 5 minutes. :)

  This step is very important; this is where we're going to select the suitable lesson material. It changes according to your abilities. You must find materials (text + audio) which you can understand, the pace (speed) of the speech is important; it mustn't be at a pace that's either too fast or too slow, try to find a material with an average pace which you can easily mimic (imitate). Finding a material which is interesting to you is a great advantage. You will be listening to the same material numerous times. Keep in mind that, unless you have something interesting, you might get bored.

  I'm preparing my lessons with the help of BBC Learning English materials; you can also find a material of your choice there. Me and my students are so grateful for the service that the BBC is offering free of charge. Hope you will feel the same way about their service by the end of this lesson as well.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/6-minute-english

You can download the selected material's PDF transcript and the audio file at the top right of the page.

Step 2: Listen to understand without the transcript. Listen as many times as necessary. Get familiar with the vocabulary (new words). Set the volume level to 80%.  Do this at least for 3 rounds. 

Step 3: Listen to how they speak. Focus on the intonation and stress. See how they deal with syllables and the connected speech (way they are joining words). At the beginning you might not hear them clearly but, when you listen to it for a couple of times, you will be able to hear the details. If you have a sound knowledge of intonation, stress, syllables and connected speech, you will be enjoying this. As I said before the targeted audience is CEF Intermediate to Upper Intermediate Levels. Those who in or above those levels, can easily understand what I'm saying. And those who are not, do please just try to follow the way you can because, there's a means to an end. Do this at least for 5 rounds. 

Step 4: Listen and mouth the text. In this stage, you are moving your mouth as you are speaking like them without the sound, not even whispering. You can speak along with the speaker without your voice. Just listen to them and read the transcript along with their speech without making any sound. Do this at least for 2 rounds.

Step 5: Listen and whisper. Now, you listen + read + whisper simultaneously (at the same time). Do this at least for 2 rounds.

Step 6: Listen and read. You might not be able to speak like them; perhaps you have a different voice compared to them. Don't worry about it, just focus on the pronunciation and connected speech.

Decrease the volume to 60% and speak up a little (voice must be audible than whispering). Do this for a round.

Decrease the volume to 40% and speak up a little (voice must be audible than earlier). Do this for a round.

Decrease the volume to 20% and speak up a little (voice must be audible than earlier). Do this for a round.

Step 7: Read without audio (volume 0%) and record yourself. By now, you must have a clear understanding on how to pronounce, where to stress, how to use different intonations and linking of words, where the sounds are disappearing, where the sounds are joining and changing. If not, don't worry about it, just record yourself. You can use your mobile phone's audio recorder. Do this for a round.

Step 8: Compare the original audio file and your recording and repeat 4 to 8 steps till you are satisfied with your recording. When you feel like it's good enough, put the material and your final recording in the same folder and look for your next material on BBC Learning English. When you have 10 or 20 recordings as such, you will definitely notice the way you talk is much better than the way you talked before. It will take some time and don't try too hard, try to enjoy it.

  That's it! This requires a sheer will to improve one's Spoken English. I've been using this method for years and have seen students improving themselves. We can always adapt, keep no doubt about it, and the success will be determined by the sustained effort. Thank you and have a wonderful time.

Grammar and vocabulary are friends of the people with untiring effort; they tend to continue practicing English without slowing down or stopping, which explains why they are so good at English. They've understood English isn't just about learning grammar and vocabulary, it's about practicing grammar and vocabulary. Would you like to be friends with grammar and vocabulary too? If your answer is “yes”, then get ready to play with it too.

What is grammar?

Any language has its own set of structural rules which control the composition of words, punctuation, phrases and clauses; we call that, 'grammar'.

What is vocabulary?

This term defines the number of English words, that are familiar to a certain person. Therefore, vocabulary differs from person to person and it develops with the usage not with time.

Now you know what does “grammar and vocabulary” mean. Knowledge of grammar and vocabulary help us to clearly express our ideas to listeners and readers. Obviously, it's a fact that memorizing is harder than learning. We can easily learn all the grammar rules and a lot of words within a month; the problems is “How to memorize them all?”. Let me be honest with you, You won't be able to memorize all of them in a short period, even native English teachers make mistakes, so it requires commitment than natural talents. Most learners face this problem, but If you're willing to practice, you'll be able to improve your grammar and vocabulary. With that being said, I'd like to share some methodologies to remember grammar and vocabulary.

Vocabulary

Just think about your own mother tongue for a moment. Do you remember your childhood? You'd never used all the words that you know at the moment. You've learned them by listening, asking, understanding and using new words throughout your life; matter of fact, you still find new words from your own mother tongue, don't you? Same goes with the English language. At the very beginning we tried to memorize the alphabet, then tried to assemble words from those letters, after that we tried to make sentences using those words with the help of grammar.

It seems like we should learn all the words prior to grammar rules. But it's not like that. We suppose to learn and practice words and grammar at the same time to consolidate, otherwise we will easily forget either vocabulary or grammar.

Learn 5 words per day with meaning and how to pronounce them correctly, write them on a piece of paper or on your arm; then just try to make simple sentences using those words, make sure you personalize those sentences, sentences should relate to your experience, expectations or things that you know very well, that way you can easily remember the words when in need. I hope you know the saying “friend in need is a friend indeed”. A sentence may contain one or more words of those 5 words. End of the day you will definitely remember those 5 words; it is easy to remember sentences than individual words. The advantage of this method is, we don't have to remember the meaning of the word, the sentence will define the meaning of the word and we can easily imitate and apply those sentences when we're writing or speaking.

I use www.myvoc.net to remember my vocabulary, I've designed that system for my classmates; but if you really want to memorize words, you may use it as long as you want; it's free and easy to use. All you got to do is, regularly visit that website and put new words. It'll show your vocabulary, with example sentences and how to pronounce words; each time you visit the website, try to fill blanks while making your own sentences. In fact, I've got 3 new words written on my arm at the moment, I'm sure I'll find 2 or more new words today; end of the day I'm going to put all those words in to my www.myvoc.net account, that way I will never forget those words.

There are few aspects of a word, spelling, how to pronounce it, origin, related phrases, the stress, intonation, related prepositions or is it a preposition it self, collocations going with that word, is there related compound words, derivatives, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, irregular verbs, superlatives, comparatives, does it have a related noun, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, etc.

I know it sounds hard and complicated, but that's the reality. The Roman empire wasn't built in a day my friend. If you learn 5 words per day you will learn 1825 words in a year. Try to use those 5 words in the chat room, if they're not familiar with those words, define those words with example sentences. That will reduce your burden for sure. Because teaching is the best method of improving memory.

Once our teacher was absent and some other teacher came for the lesson, his name was 'Mr. Grant', and he was from England. On that day he taught us 'future perfect tense' and he told us that we have to learn by hard at least most common irregular verbs(there were 104 common irregular verbs in our course book, there are more than 600 irregular verbs in English). Then I told him, “oh, there are a lot of irregular verbs(104) and I'm afraid I can't remember them all”. Guess what he asked me! He asked me “Can you remember 1 irregular verb for a day?(base form, past tense, past participle)”, I replied “Yes, of course”, then he asked me “There are 365 days for a year, how many irregular verbs will you able to remember for a year?”, I told him “that's 365 irregular verbs. I like the way you think sir, and I'll try”. When you have a problem, try to break it down to several pieces; that will reduce the complexity of the question and it'll definitely facilitate the solution.

Learn how to use a monolingual dictionary; I personally recommend Cambridge or Oxford dictionaries. That said, You can easily install a dictionary on your mobile phone or use www.oxforddictionaries.com. Those methods will help you to improve pronunciation as well, but I advise you to get use to the phonemic chart, that will help you to properly pronounce words. Let me tell you how to remember sounds of phonemic chart; download a high resolution phonemic chart and take an A3 size printout, laminate it and put it on your bedroom wall, try to memorize 2 sounds per day before you're going to bed; when you wake up, the first thing that you should see is that phonemic chart on your wall, and try to sound all the known sounds in that chart. There are 26 letters in English alphabet, but there are 44 sounds in the phonemic chart. If you can remember 2 sounds per day, it'll take only 22 days to learn all the sounds in English language, that's less than a month my friend. I've done it, I've memorized 2 sounds of the phonemic chart at a time. This is my phonemic chart, it's bigger than you see in this picture(A3 = A4+A4); I can easily read the symbols in this chart, while I'm lying in my bed. If you feel awkward or ridiculous, don't do it.

If you follow that, you'll be able to properly pronounce words in dictionaries, if you seeor  mark, that means you should stress that section, that's the main stress section; If you see  or  mark, that's the secondary stress section of the word or phrase.

Url to phonemic chart

http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/phonemic-chart.htm

Url to phonemic chart app 1

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/phonemic-chart

Url to phonemic chart app 2

http://www.britishcouncil.org/parents-help-pronunciation.htm

Url to phonemic chart app 3

http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/phonemic-chart-ia.htm

Once you get used to this chart, you'll love reading dictionaries. You need some sort of motivation to do all these things otherwise you'll feel bored and stop practicing English. I mean everybody likes interesting and curious things right? Try to translate sounds(words) in to text using phonemic chart and compare your translation with the dictionary, you can translate your mother tongue's words as well; come on, it'll be fun! Anyways, You're not going to lose anything by trying these things.

Homonyms(homophones), these are confusing words which sound alike but have different meanings. Sometimes it's hard to differentiate these words as well, So how to overcome this problem.

Let's take a simple example.

eg. sea, see

I know this is too easy for you, but this is just to understand the structure, then you can deal with words like complement and compliment, elude and allude, discreet and discrete, etc.

sea and see, first word ends with 'a' second word ends with 'e', so how to memorize these words and spelling? We can do this by creating sentences.

When preparing the sentence, add words which start with confusing letters, you should use the same pattern to all the sentences, that way you will easily remember the correct spelling of homophones and other difficult words.

“Sea is amazing!” by memorizing this sentence, we can easily know, this is the word that ends with an “a”.

“See you tomorrow everyone!” by memorizing this sentence, we can easily know, this is the word that ends with an “e”.

The more you read and listen; the more you learn and remember new words.

Grammar

In my opinion this is the hardest part of the language. We should always start with the easiest grammar rules and apply them on daily basis to consolidate them. As an example let's say you've just learned 'simple past tense', status or actions which are started and finished in the past and it's not continuing in the present.

eg.

+

subject + past tense of the verb

I/you/he/she/it/we/they swam

I/you/he/she/it/we/they ran

-

subject + didn't + base form of the verb(so called verb root or infinitive* )

I/you/he/she/it/we/they didn't swim

I/you/he/she/it/we/they didn't run

?

Did + subject + base form of the verb

Did I/you/he/she/it/we/they swim?

Did I/you/he/she/it/we/they run?

Always use time lines to remember the tenses.

[there are so many aspects of past tense to cover, but I'm not going to discuss them all in this article.]

Now, to consolidate the grammar rule, you should take a piece of paper and start writing sentences, or chat with people about your past life, make sentences and speak out loud.

Graded readers will help you to improve your grammar knowledge; If you know your level in English, you can easily find a graded reader on internet.

Find someone who's willing to practice with you. There are so many members who are looking for partners, both of you can separately search a certain grammar rule and then you can share what you've found and learned. There are a lot of online resources to improve grammar, English Club itself gives enough resources to improve grammar. I personally recommend you to join this group http://my.englishclub.com/group/grammarly-yours to improve your grammar. It provides you well organized grammar lessons followed by quizzes. You will definitely appreciate those grammar lessons.

Always think about grammar rules and look for opportunities to use them as much as you can, that way you'll get used to grammar rules pretty soon. Listen to songs, radio or watch movies; Meanwhile, try to find the grammar rules in it. Organize the information that you are studying, put it in different folders if you have to and don't listen to naysayers and don't be afraid to make mistakes, more mistakes mean more experience, try to learn from your mistakes; Believe me, it's easy to remember your mistakes then correct ones.

If you feel like overwhelmed by this article, then that's good. That means you know that you have areas in English that you can or should improve. Have you ever met someone who's been to an English speaking country, at least for a year? They usually speak well, even though they don't have a clue about grammar rules and all that, they've learned by listening and practically using the language.

If you follow these advices, you will soon realize that you have enough words in your vocabulary to make grammatically correct sentences; There are no shortcuts, only practice can make you better. Good luck with your grammar and vocabulary. Thank you very much!

Kosala Siribaddana

Enjoy your reward!

 Are you ready to be a better writer? If you say 'Yes' to that question, you have something to share with the word.

  Then what's stopping you? you know English, you've learned English for ages. So what seems to be the problem? Some might say "I'm not sure about my grammar" or "I don't have a good vocabulary to express my ideas". If that is your case, I bet you don't read books. I tell you what, the more that you read, the more grammar and vocabulary you will learn; the more that you learn grammar and vocabulary, the more you will write. The bottom line is, It is impossible to become a good writer without reading. It is advisable to read as much as you can, otherwise you won't be able to know how to write. I must mention this, most people receive advices from others, but only who listen will get benefits from them.

 There are several writing styles Personal, Proprietary and Academic. We are focusing on personal writing styles, but for the record I'll tell you what are these writing styles. Proprietary style is a writing style which is used by large publications to define their unique style of writing; as an example, we can take world recognized magazines and newspapers. When it comes to Academic styles, it is about following an approved writing style for dissertations or academic research papers. I used to write in an Academic style when I was an undergraduate of UCD. I remember my final dissertation. It had to be 100% inline with the given guidelines, supposed to deliver it by the deadline, even I had an appointed research supervisor; that was a nightmare!

 You don't have to worry about any of those styles, they can wait. Just think about the knowledge level of the potential readers for whom you are writing and stay focused with the flow. When I was a kid my father had a Suzuki motorbike and one day he taught me how to ride it. It was easy for me, because by then I've already learned how to ride bicycles, so I was riding fast with my father. Then he told me "Slow down son, learning to drive is not about how fast you can ride a bike, you can easily achieve the speed by accelerating in a higher gear; this is about how to balance a bike, how to change gears, how to balance the clutch, how to slow it down where it's necessary, how to turn, how to dodge pits and objects on the read, how to follow the rules and be safe." I've learned a big lesson on that day. That's a personal thing, but I thought I should share that memory with you, that might help you in the long run.

  If your readers expect you to write in a formal(formal writing is better than informal writing) way, then you shouldn't use contractions ('s, 'm, 've, 'll, 't etc.), popular phrases(at the end of the day=>use:finally, in a nutshell=>use:in summary, etc.), everyday words(maybe, really, okay, very, a lot, so etc. those words make sentences weaker) you can find this style in academic or research papers, educational books, manuals, etc. If your readers expect you to write in an informal way, then you can consider writing it in a conversational tone; by writing words in contraction form will help you accomplish that. You can find this style in story books and novels, dialogue transcripts, personal emails and letters; but in either case, please use active voice than passive voice. I'm writing this article in an informal manner, it's like I'm speaking with you.

  I can tell you one thing for sure, writing requires time and commitment. You just can't become a skilled writer in a day or two, it requires practice in writing. How to practice writing? There are few things that you can easily do to improve your writing skills.

 Read what you love to read, search online for famous authors and best selling books. Search by your favorite genre and don't try to read books with 1000s of pages that will probably make you bored. If you can read graded readers of your English level, it'll be effective in consolidating your English grammar and vocabulary.

 Read blog posts and try to write comments. By reading a blog post, you will learn something; by writing a comment, you'll be able to consolidate what you've learned and it will encourage the author to publish more blog posts as well. You will find good articles and bad articles; when you find a good article, ask yourself "Why this article is good?"; when you find a bad article, ask yourself "What makes this article bad?", That is a good way to improve the quality of your writing.

 Before writing something new, it is important to know what are you going to write about as well as having a structure; Having a structure in the sense, knowing the flow of the article. How to start it, what to include, in which order you're going to present your ideas and how to end it. It helps to express your ideas clearly and strengthen your points, thus reader will easily comprehend what you are writing.

  Read a paragraph of an article and try to write it's gist, just to improve your summarizing ability. Write short sentences than long sentences. eg. removing 'there are/is' from sentences.

 There is the best teacher over there, let's ask from her.

 Let's ask from the best teacher over there.

 There are 100s of planes at the airport at the moment.

 At the moment airport has 100s of planes.

 Try to write something everyday. It may be a single sentence, but you will have to write it with a purpose; my purpose is improving my writing skills while giving hand to others, who's looking forward to be better. Practice writing short notes of basic grammar and vocabulary, and make sure to read your old articles again and again; that will encourage you to write more articles, and you will see your mistakes which you didn't know you were making. I'll assure you, those mistakes will make you a better writer in the future, so thank your mistakes.

 Don't think too much, write what your mind says; make it simple, personal and interesting. That doesn't mean you should violate grammar rules; you should be cautious about grammar rules and punctuation marks. Let me tell you one good way to improve them. Learn one grammar rule or punctuation mark, focus on what you've learned and try to use it in an article; don't worry about unknown grammar rules, just focus on what you know; don't worry about readers and what would they say, we can't be sure of what would they say or do; but you know what you're doing, and that's what's important. I tell you what, in this article I'm focusing on, using the semicolon (;), in fact this is the first time I'm using the semicolon in my life(in English writing), Have you ever seen someone in EnglishClub using semicolon before? I didn't notice anyone like that. But I've seen one of my teachers using it at British Council and I wanted to know how to deal with it. Even though I've seen semicolon in some books, I've just learned it (about semicolon) and I'm now using it to consolidate. I might have misplaced semicolon, but I believe it's not that bad for a first draft. By my 100th article, I might able to write an article on "how to place semicolon".

  If you start nothing, there will be nothing; if you start something, there will be something. Try to be close and courteous to those who support and advise you; you might be able to learn something from them. Practice writing on daily basis, just pick a topic and start writing; it's not necessary to publish everything you write, so don't be afraid to write. At the end of an article, give it a good conclusion(more in to formal writing) and last but not least, make sure to proof read. If you make a habit of reading for pleasure, I'm pretty sure you will definitely be a better writer soon. Above all, you will enjoy your writing. Thank you very much!

Enjoy your reward!

9 years of my life experience in English > several hours to write it > less than 10 minutes to read it.

If you read this entire article, it'll definitely make you a better speaker. Consider this as your golden key to open doors of success throughout your life.

It's obvious that excellent written and oral communication skills in English will definitely put you at forefront of the world. Today we are focusing on spoken English. When we're talking about spoken English, we have to mention characteristics like, pronunciation, accent, intonation, stress, syllables and speed.

Are you good at spoken English? Well let me assume some potential answers..

1 Yes, I am 10/10

This person is confident about English, it doesn't mean he is fluent in English, he might fluent in English.

2 I can manage 8/10

This person can handle a conversation without many problems.

3 Sometimes I get stuck, I can't continuously speak 6/10

This person should consider expanding his or her vocabulary. Collocations will definitely help this person. May be this person is good at English, but can't endure the tension.

4 I'm afraid of speaking, Someone will laugh at me 4/10

This person is undergoing speaking and presentation anxiety.

5 If someone speaks with me then I'll speak 2/10

This person isn't trying to find out what's his or her real level in English, often because of ego or doesn't know the importance of improving spoken English.

6 I'm practicing writing(listening,reading) at the moment, I'll learn to speak later +/10

This person doesn't know, that all major skills should practice together not one after another.

NOTE: This red note is for people who answered as 'Yes I am'. Hello friend!, Do you remember the time that you could've given the answer 6 for this question in the past? then 5 as the answer?, then 4 as the answer?, then 3 as the answer?, then 2 as the answer? I can memorize those stages one by one, how about you?

What would be your answer? and which one is your preferable answer? If you have different answers for those two questions, then let's find out how to move from current answer to your preferable answer.

Have you ever wondered what causes your answer? Actually, it depends on the person's personality. May be because of poor vocabulary, lack of practice, some people can't stay calm while speaking with strangers, Also it could happen due to lack of preparation or worrying about reputation getting damaged(stupid), some people can lose their memory while they're talking and it's also possible that you can't understand others.

How to achieve your favorable answer? If I have to answer that question with a single word, I'll select the word 'practice'. Let's figure out what does this 'practice' mean..

I can come up with numerous ideas.. let's talk about some of them.

I know you've been learning English for ages, by now you should have a good vocabulary. If you don't have a good vocabulary, don't worry about it you are in the process of learning. Even though you've memorized an entire monolingual dictionary it is useless if you're not using those words in real life, in that case, a person who knows few words but using them accordingly will be better than you in spoken English. If you're wondering what is a monolingual dictionary, it is the dictionary which has words and their respective definitions in the same language where as bilingual dictionary has words and definitions in two languages.

When you see an opportunity where you can use a word that you know which is perfect for the situation, use that word confidently. That way you'll be able to reduce your speaking anxiety.
Believe me you will feel good when you know that you're accurate. That will make you do it again and again, which is good.

Whenever you're using a dictionary, put a check mark in front of the word that you've just checked(if dictionary belongs to you). And when you're trying to find another word in the future, check those checked words are available on that page. If there are previously checked words, then you should try to memorize the definition of that word, and it's good if you can use a monolingual English dictionary than a bilingual dictionary, that way you can memorize the definition in English. You can easily download and install a dictionary on your mobile phone as well.

Collocations, so called word partners have an important place in spoken English, choosing the right word for the right place is important. Otherwise you have to tell a long sentence to express the idea which could have mentioned in few words. I use http://www.ozdic.com/ for collocations.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes. if you get to fail now, eventually you'll succeed. I tell you what, people get to lose because they've never failed or they've failed so big as a public failure. That's the last thing you want my friend! Obviously there are places that cost of failing is greater than cost of trying, as an example, what if a pilot tries to experiment what happens if I click all these buttons and nobs at once while flying a jumbo jet. but in our case it is not like that, in here cost of failing is lower than cost of trying.

Talk to yourself in English whenever you get a chance, Why don't you try making sentences from any word you learn. You can use your mobile phone to record them and then you can listen to those sentences while you are traveling. That way you can quickly use that sentence where it is appropriate, that saves sentence preparation time. Think of your mother tongue, you don't recollect word by word to prepare a sentence right, Do you know why? that's because we've practiced saying the same sentences for ages, same goes with other languages too mate.

Once we had this activity at British Council, our teacher told us to ask questions from other students which they can easily answer with 'yes' or 'no', But the student who is answering should not use the words 'yes'(yes,yeah,yea,ya) or 'no'(no,nope,na) as answers. He or she should give a long answer without saying 'yes' or 'no'. Then on we've avoided using same words again and again. Are you familiar with pronouns, synonyms, antonyms and homonyms(word that looks and/or sounds like another word with a different meaning eg. heir : air check this link)? If not, you should be.

Oh I got so many ideas flowing through my mind now, I'm just wondering, will someone read all these? Well if someone is reading, he or she will definitely gain something out of this, It took me years to practice and do all these things. I know this is too much to remember or you may not like them all but these are proven facts to improve spoken English. I think reader(you) should have a break now, I'm not trying to deviate your attention from the article. (Could you please tell me, how do you feel about this strategy?, did it keep you awake? or I should've kept on writing?) Watch this video and continue reading...

At the beginning you might not able to speak for a long time, so what you should do is, ask questions from the listener while your talking, then he will try to answer those questions, meanwhile you can prepare for your turn. That is a good strategy to take some time off if you feel like you are in jeopardy or out of words. you should be a good listener and a fast thinker.

Some people think that speaking fast make you better, but in my opinion we should think about the listeners ability of comprehension as well. I personally have this problem, even once my teacher told me speaking fast is good, but speaking slow and accurately is better. If you've listened to Hip Hop music for ages, You'll used to speak fast, but you'll be in jeopardy when talking(at the early stage of learning), because you don't have enough time to think and make beautiful sentences if you talk fast. nevertheless, talking somehow is better than being silent. Now I'm listening to Pop music than Hip hop music, but still I like Hip Hip music the most, even though I can't understand each and every word. You know what, even some native speakers can't understand each and every word in a Rap song, but they are good at guessing, they hear same expressions over and over again, so it is easier for them to guess the whole sentence even small part of it is clearly audible. It's like reading.. we don't read word by word, we guess(if you're reading books) and read on. Our brain tells us what must have been said or written even if we don't really hear or read all of it. The more familiar you become with collocations, more you able to guess correctly even it is obscure with interfering sounds.

Make sure you stop or slow down at punctuation marks. Try to accurately pronounce words and phrases. Reading out loud will help you in this matter. If you make a mistake, you will notice it instantly and remember the mistake. You can do the same thing with songs and movies as well. There are plenty of video songs and movies with subtitles. Read them while watching.

If you read a lot of English books or newspapers you will be able to easily correct your grammar mistakes, It is not important to be 100% grammatically correct when it comes to speaking.. it will develop with time, so don't wait till you finish learning all grammar rules. Just start and speak what you know so far. Talk to a friend and tell him or her about your progress, share your views with your friend, that is a very good way to overcome shyness. Don't be shy to ask for help, instead of that you should give yourselves some credits for keep on trying.

Let me tell you a trick to improve your confidence, it doesn't matter what you are going to talk, make sure that you memorize how to start it and finish it nicely and remember main points that you should mention during the conversation. If you try once, you'll embrace that formula for sure.

Before having a conversation you can anticipate the questions that might be asked and be prepared for those questions, so you can be confident through out the conversation. Take some time to smile or smile while you're speaking. There is a Chinese saying that 'person who doesn't smile shouldn't start a business'. Be yourself don't try to act like someone else, no matter how hard you try you will end up being you. Question yourself, Where is your originality? Why should you follow someone's footsteps when you can make your own path? That's absurd isn't it?

Don't be upset when someone tells you 'you failed', you should tell your self 'oh yeah, I failed but I've tried' don't be mad at that person but thank him, because we need people like them to succeed, consider them as vital tools to improve your English. When it comes to me I love those kind of people than people who just say good about me, because haters trying so hard to find out mistakes and show them to us without a payment. Even you are right and haters are wrong bear it, but don't scold them, let them help us to succeed, we need haters a lot. Jump out and take the risk, willing to fail my friend.

Some people got an ego like the sky, don't worry about them. If you have a big ego, then kindly try to understand this. Your ego is for you not for others, others don't give a damn about your ego, if you being rude to people, they will oppose your presence or company. And eventually you will end up being all along with your ego. Go to main chat room and see how fast they're learning while having fun.

If you still feel afraid or shy, then go somewhere you've never been before, go to a different city if you have to and talk with unknown people in English, even you make mistakes it will stay as a secret, then comeback and apply what you've learned, people who tend to do it often find new things about themselves and how to approach others.

Try new things like a chef, he try new recipes, try different ingredients and make new food. Why can't we do the same? If you are not curious about this, you are not going to learn, that's the bottom line. No pain no gain my friend.

Don't wait for someone to tell you what to do, go ahead and do what you want to do, else you will end up wondering "oh I should have done that" for the rest of your life.

Everyone who you think better than you is reassuring themselves except native speakers. No one is going to punish you if you don't do what has to be done, but as time goes by you'll be the person who's going to punish you. Only one who's stopping you is you. you have access to information, people and other resources around you, If you really want it, EnglishClub is more than enough. we should admire and be grateful to the people who designed and maintain this website, I'm a software engineer and I know how hard it is to maintain this kind of system. Make sure you click some of their sponsors advertisements, that's the way they finance this website.

You've already known the answer for 'what to do?' now I've just given you some answers to the question 'how to do?' Just remember, only your minds resistance is stopping you from trying. Think like no one gives you initiatives, that way you will tend to initiate it. most people don't think about it like that, but that's the truth.

First you will feel like overwhelming, but from the 2nd one onwards you will feel good and confident, it's all about crossing the first step with the desire. let me tell you something from my life. When I'm preparing for my SCJP(Sun certified Java programmer,USA) exam, one of our lecturers told us that, learning is one thing that anyone can do but applying what you've learned is hard. You will feel like moving a mountain when you are doing your first program, but right after that first one, you will be eager to design another one, so try your best to do the first one. Guess what? I've followed his advice and I've designed 9 different software products so far. Believe me English is way easier than Software Engineering.

Initially you'll call 2 or 3 people a month, then 7 friends per month, then 10 good friends per month etc. Mark their names on your calender, that will improve your enthusiasm of speaking with others whenever you look at the calender. What is the cost of a skype call? but think about what will you gain? The point is that we all have a certain degree of freedom that we should give credits to ourselves,  even if you are a waitress at a cafe, you can figure out how to be the waitress that they'll miss if you're gone. We are humans, it's all about connection. Think about how you can connect with people and how you can bring them up with you, that's why I'm trying here.. someday world will thank you for doing that.

Don't consider these as some sort of tips that you can do my friend, what I'm giving you is a prescription which you will have to take immediately (if you follow these rules you might start calling me Dr. Kosala :) I sincerely believe this prescription will start working it's magic on you.. Thank you very much!

NOTE: This red note is for you. Do you remember the first red note? What do you think of that? Is it for discriminate people? No my friend, It is to show you that, we all started like that... there are no shortcuts other than practicing...

Your reward...

"fluency: noun

VERB + FLUENCY

achieve, acquire Some

young children achieve great fluency in their reading.

PREP. ~ in

Fluency in spoken English is essential"

Everyone has a desire to be fluent in English, we all like to express our ideas easily and accurately when speaking and writing, but most of them wish that they can be fluent in English like their own mother tongue, few of them determine to be fluent in English and acquire the wish of the majority, while majority is dreaming about it.

WISH is weak, takes a lot of time and uncertain, on the other hand DETERMINATION is powerful, gives results within a reasonable time and it's certain. You're the person who's going to decide, whether you should wish or determine, I'm just a friend with an opinion.

We can divide the four skills into two main categories, and those are, comprehension skills(receptive skills) and production  skills(expressive skills). We can put listening and reading into comprehension skills group where as speaking and writing into production skills group. Which one is the best group? take your time and think. In the mean time let me ask you a similar question, "Which eye is the best?" yes, we need both eyes to see things clearly. Same goes with comprehension and production skills. If you have only one category of skills, it is like blind in one eye. In fact, everybody knows the problem, about 60% knows what causes the problem, about 40% knows how to resolve the problem but about 20% get rid of the problem, before that problem get rid of them in real life.

According to my point of view, the real problem is "How to develop and continue an interest in learning English?"

There are several learning styles:

visual- looking

auditory- listening

kinaesthetic- touching, feeling and experiencing by doing something

olfactory- smelling

gustatory- tasting

First of all you should understand, what is your favorite learning style. At British Council they gave us a form to rate questions to determine our favorite learning style and then, they altered their teaching pattern to fit the class. Unfortunately I don't have that form with me, but I've just found a good web application that tells you, what is your favorite learning style. Please go to this website and click on the question marks(?) that you like, but don't look at the bottom of the page at once, just answer sequentially and be 100% honest about your answers if you really want to know your real favorite learning style. It'll take 2 minutes and will definitely give you something worth for a life time. After knowing your favorite learning style come back and read the rest...  

Click here to know your favorite learning style

Use the following URL in case link doesn't work.. :)

(http://www.brainboxx.co.uk/a3_aspects/pages/vak_quest.htm)

Congratulations mate! Now you know your favorite learning style, Mine is 'Kinaesthetic' I love to learn by doing. When I learn something new I like to get on with it. How about you? So now you can prioritize the ways that you learn English.. now on give the highest priority to your favorite learning style, that way you'll be able to consolidate your English without a hassle and getting bored.

I have some friends around the world as you all do, I'm really glad that I'm a member of this great EnglishClub. I've seen some people chat with short words than using full words, I've never shorten my words. I know those people doing that to shorten their response time, but they're forgetting something... we are here to learn while having fun. So if you can type full words, that will improve your vocabulary with correct spelling. Either way chatting is very important. But think about taking the best out of your investment(time & effort), they all can wait few more seconds, you think about improving your vocabulary.

We all have our own specialties.. that's why we can help each other.. I usually send two emails(formal letter format) per week to my pen pals. Even though I'm busy with Software Projects I still somehow find time to type letters to them. They reply to me as well. Those are long, interesting, funny emails. I add jokes, images, URLs etc. I'm suggesting you to do the same, find a pen pal. Don't try to send too many emails per week that will reduce the overall quality of your emails, it's like hugging a pile of Oranges you won't be able to hold a single orange! Send 2 or 3 descriptive emails per week, and make sure those are well written(according to your knowledge) and well presented. That will improve your letter writing and presenting skills. I'm sending emails to 2 girls (more than enough) in *($##@# and ^$#@!+_$ (he hee) that way I won't get bored :) they feel the same way about it. We've exchanged so many emails and now we are very good friends. You know same kind of birds always stay together!

Please be polite, but don't be quick to give them photos, videos or any sensitive data about you, that might make you regret one day. Give it sometime, get to know each other first. Don't be fooled by the number of gifts they got, some people get gifts for doing nothing... but there are some great members who have lots of gifts for their contribution. Don't measure people by the number of friends they got as well, Having lot of friends is a good thing, but it doesn't matter how many friends you got, what matters is how many good friends you have. Someone with 1 active friend is better than someone with 1000 inactive friends, wouldn't you agree?

Try to speak as much as possible, it doesn't matter you make mistakes, everybody makes mistakes even native speakers make mistakes, simply think about your mother tongue, haven't you done any mistakes? Just start a conversation, introduce your self, tell about your country and culture, talk about a common interest or a well known situation, sports, watched movies etc. even you can sing to each other, last night I had a discussion with a Chinese friend that I've just met and we've scheduled our discussion according to GMT(Abbreviation for 'greenwich mean time' wwp.greenwichmeantime.com) so we were able to start the discussion on time. When we were chatting several hours before the discussion, we've agreed to discuss about our respective cultures, that was the topic of our conversation, we had enough time to prepare ourselves for the conversation and I thought it'll be over within 15 minutes, but guess what? We've talked for 2 hours and 10 minutes. See, If both parties prepare for a certain conversation with details, you can have a very good conversation. That life experience will help you to have another discussion on the same topic without prior preparation. Now you might thinking of "how to find this kind of people around here?" well all you got to do is "Ask someone politely".

If I'm lucky, I might able to talk with you. There's a reason for that saying... You've read this far, an average person might read first 2 paragraphs and since this is a long article, they will feel bore and go away. But you've felt the importance, that's because you really want to improve your English.

Collaboration and sharing can go further than greed and selfishness, One candle can light up 100 other candles without dimming it's light. With that being said, I'd like to point out something scarce in here. It's fluent English speakers, specially native speakers. Well, lot of people seeking help to improve their elocution. Yes, I know without native speakers it's hard to achieve their accent and pronunciation, we might get stuck in the non native speakers level, to go beyond that level we need some help. But even though it is hard to achieve native English speakers level we can still be fluent in English. So don't worry about native English speakers accent. It can be achieved by staying in a English speaking county like UK, USA etc. Watching movies, listening to English music, and specially native English speakers use contractions and collocations when they speak. Collocations means 'Common allocations' so called 'word partners' or 'common partners', If you want to use a word naturally, you need to learn other words that often go with it. If you have a very good understanding in collocations, you'll be able to shorten sentences and express your ideas faster. At British Council we use "Oxford Collocations Dictionary" That's what they've recommended us.

Amazon link to Oxford Collocations Dictionary

At home I'm using 2 web applications for that, you can use either one.

http://oxforddictionary.so8848.com/ and http://www.ozdic.com/

At the top of the article you will find collocations for the noun "fluency", What did you think of that? You've probably thought I've done a mistake at the beginning. No, I put it there on purpose, so you at least try to guess "What the heck is this?" he hee...

If you can't find someone to talk with you, stop worrying and talk with yourself. I often talk to myself when I'm along(Else others might think I've gone nuts) and start thinking in English. Go to main chat room, and when some one submit a line of text, read it and answer it vocally, When I'm traveling by bus I'm always listening to others' conversations and provide answers to the questions. As an example let's say 'person A' is talking with 'person B' using a mobile phone and I'm sitting next to 'person A', then I'm answering 'person A's questions in my mind like I'm the 'person B'. I do the same thing when I'm walking with others as well. Someone might think it's weird, But believe me it works, and it's really funny, because we can think(answer) whatever we want. See, all the English and Non English speakers were helping you all that time, but you couldn't understand that. Think differently, real world possibilities are endless...

If you know your English level, then you can easily find a graded reader to match your level in English and try to identify grammar rules, punctuations and quotations while you're reading it. When you get use to it, you'll see grammar rules without an effort. If you're trying so hard to improve your English then you will definitely see English grammar in your dreams, even you'll argue in English within your dreams. Believe me that is a fact, the things that we always do and think will appear in our dreams. Usually we see this type of dreams when we are about to wake up. When you writing sentences based on grammar rules make sure you personalize your sentences, What I meant by that is make sentences about you, about someone or something that you know well and take your own life experience to write sentences than just making sentences about something or someone you don't know. That way you can easily remember grammar rules.

You can improve your listening by listening to BBC word radio channel and by listening to music.. Back in the days I've used to listen to Hip Hop music but now I'm in to Pop music... I've listened to Hip Hop music for ages, I couldn't understand each and every word, but I've loved Hip Hip, Now I'm listening to Pop Music and I can easily understand the meanings of the songs. I'm going to leave 2 of my favorite songs for you as a reward. Watch them and think about facts that you've just learned by reading this long article... Thank you very much!

Kosala Siribaddana

Enjoy your rewards... regards!

English! The international language. The language which acts as an intermediary throughout the world. What are the main components of this particular language? Is it only Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing? Well, if English is a 4 story building first story is Listening, second one is Speaking, third one is Reading and then comes the Writing story. As you all know any building requires a foundation, This 4 story English building also has a foundation. It consists with 4 main parts, Grammar, Vocabulary, Pronunciation and Learning training. Learning training in the sense doing something, then observing, then thinking about it and finally applying what you know into real world situations.

If you have a very good knowledge in Grammar, Pronunciation, Vocabulary and Learning training so called study skills, then it is like a solid foundation. As you know, to strengthen the building we should strengthen the foundation. Same goes with English.

How can we improve all those aspects? Grammar is a set of rules which govern the design patters of English language, if you learn at least one grammar rule per week you will soon finish all the basic grammar rules in English.

How to deal with Pronunciation? This means, how we should properly pronounce a word, where we should stress and where we should use intonation. Phonemic chart helps us to improve pronunciation, nowadays we can easily use online resources to listen and learn how to pronounce words properly.

When it comes to Vocabulary, it is all about collecting new words to your memory so you can use it when in need, if you can memorize 5 words per day, how many words will you collect in a year? It is wise to memorize a short and a simple sentence which includes new words than just memorizing word by word.

Learning training is the most important part of them all, because no matter how hard you learn English, you'll forget them all if you don't practice it. Let me tell you a story, think of a bird on the ground, now imagine it's flying up to the sky, now imagine that particular bird stops flying... what will happen? it will definitely come to the ground. Now think of a person who is new to English, it's like the bird on the ground, now that person is learning and practicing English, it's like that bird is flying up to the sky. Now what will happen if that person stop practicing English? yeah, you're right; like that bird comes to the ground level, that person will also come to the ground level. If that person keeps on practicing English, he or she can get into the space, now that's what we call fluent in English, after that you don't have to worry about your English anymore. As an example we can take a satellite, we need a rocket to take it to the space, but once it is in the space, it will not come down to the ground unless we want it to come back to the Earth.

Now it's time to think about the stories of that almighty building called English. We always start with listening. If you're a good listener then you will eventually become a good speaker. To do that you can always listen to English music, specially to old songs and English radio channels like BBC world, that's my favorite. Sometimes I don't listen to it, but I just play it in the background while I do my work. There is a difference between listening and hearing. Listening means we are trying to understand the sound signals, hearing means sound signals go through our ears but we are not trying to understand it. But in my opinion we should train our ears for both situations.

Next is reading, if you read a lot, you'll be a good writer in no time. in fact listening, speaking, reading, writing help each other to consolidate English. If you don't have a partner then start thinking in English, in my opinion that is a great way to improve English, usually non native speakers think in their mother tongue first and then they try to translate it into English; that process consumes a lot of time. If you start thinking in English as much as possible, then you'll be able to think in English and express your ideas faster than ever. Believe me it's a fact. If you afraid of talking to someone, then it's time for you to start thinking in English; no need to worry, because only you know what you're thinking. Make sure you think something worth and it's better to think about something you like the most, that will keep you engaging with the thinking process, otherwise you'll get bored and you'll stop trying.

Another way to consolidate English is teaching, that is the ultimate way of consolidating English. There are lots of new comers who don't know much English, so you can teach them something you know for sure. They will appreciate that and on the other hand you will improve your English. According to my point of view defeat is not the worst of failures, not to have tried is the true failure. In fact that's why I'm typing this article, I don't think about the 100% accuracy or what others might think, I'm thinking about expressing my ideas through writing. I believe this exercise will help me to drive my enthusiasm towards fluent in writing by at least 1mm, that is more than enough to satisfy my pleasure and I sincerely believe some of you'll find this article important. Thank you!

There's a long way to go. No matter how far it is, it always starts with one step towards the destination.

Kosala Siribaddana