*ENGLISH CORNER*: How tutor learns English?

As a tutor at the English Corner for almost two years, the most common questions are “what are your strategies to learn English?” Or”how do you improve your English?”

Frankly speaking, learning a foreign language for most of people or students in Taiwan is never an easy task. A successful proficient English learner must focus on not only vocabulary, forms, grammar, but also listening, speaking, reading as well as writing.

As living in the state-of-the-art century, the internet and computers are like good friends of mine to improve my English ability, and many of them are free. Podcast, for example, provides many authentic materials to English learners to get access to English, especially for improving listening the comprehension part. It’s a multimedia files over the Internet for mobile devise or personal computers, so that students can access such material outside of the classroom. I listen to CNN’s podcast---AC360--- the hit of the bulletin ranking. ( here is the link: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/) Or, if you prefer the British accent, BBC radio (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/) would the best for you.

As for speaking, learning the phonetics well at first is crucial! Plus, it’s also a basic foundation of starting to speak English. Don’t worry about your accent but pronunciation. Speaking could be first impression about which people consider your English ability. If you think my pronunciation is not good enough, go to http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/, this website contains all necessary vowels and consonants you need to know and the correct way of pronunciation.

Extensive reading is a must to improve your English ability. By reading various materials, you learn from someone’s idea. After reading enough materials, the unique perspectives of you formed. Your agreement or disagreement facilitates you with either creative or critical thinking. Culture thing is a plus though. Learning a culture is like assimilating foreign conventions, customs, and beliefs. However, it’s easy to get it through films, songs, YouTube, or anywhere.

At last, all I have to say is stop self-procrastinating! Carry on your autonomous learning in English and learn free, learn hard, learn fast, learn as if there is no tomorrow.
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