5 Exercises to Improve Your English Skills as a Non-Native Speaker
By: Renata Gomes
Tags: English, Writing, Life Lessons, Self Improvement, Self

5 Exercises to Improve Your English Skills as a Non-Native Speaker

Simple steps to become more proficient in a second language.

Learning a second language is fun, but if you want to improve your skills and become highly proficient, you have to put in extra effort.

These exercises have helped me improve my own English skills in the nearly 20 years I’ve been studying/practicing it. They are easy to do at home by yourself (except for one), and are not only valid for learning English, but any second language of your choice.

Read a book in English

Literature is a wonderful window into the soul of a language.

At first, reading an entire book might seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to scare you. You can start by reading one page at a time, then a few pages, then a chapter. All you have to do is push through the initial discomfort until you gain momentum.

There will be words you don’t know the meaning to, and that’s exactly the point, to discover new words and get used to how they’re used in a sentence.

Don’t be shy, reach for the dictionary or resort to Google when you’re in doubt about a word or expression — that’s the best way to gain vocabulary and confidence in your knowledge.

If you can’t decide which book to read, start with one of the classics. They’re classics for a reason, and most of those can be found for cheap at your local bookstore, if not for free in e-book format.

Listen to a song and write down every word you understand

This is a great exercise for listening.

You chose a song you like, grab a piece of paper and write down all the words you understand. Play the song multiple times, as many times as you’d like. After you’ve gotten all the words you understand, compare your notes to the actual lyrics, than listening to the song again, reading the lyrics as it plays.

Understanding songs is a challenge for non-native speakers, at least in the beginning, but writing down words as you listen will help you sharpen your hearing. You can chose slower, easier songs in the beginning, and faster, more complicated ones as you improve.

Watch a movie in English, with the subtitles in English

Non-native English speakers are used to watching movies in English with subtitles in their native language, but to bring your English skills to the next level, you need to forget your native language for a minute and start training yourself to think in English. Watching a movie with both audio and subtitles in English will help you do that.

As a non-native speaker, I sometimes turn on subtitles when actors have an accent I’m not used to, or if there’s a lot of whispering going on in the movie, but in these situations I choose English subtitles to keep up the habit.

Listen to yourself speaking

You don’t really know how you sound in another language until you listen to yourself speaking it. Trust me, you don’t know which words you’re mispronouncing until you hear them in your own voice.

How can you listen to yourself speaking? Record yourself speaking for a few minutes, then play it back.

You can read from a piece of text, but a better exercise is to choose a question, then answer it in your own words. This exercise will force you to think about what you’re saying as well as articulate your answer.

Write an essay and have someone who’s more proficient in the language give you feedback

The only way to improve your writing skills is to practice. Reading helps, but it’s not enough.

To get the most out of your writing practice, ask for feedback from someone who’s more proficient than you. You should be able to find private tutors in your area, or you can seek online writers’ groups where members engage giving one another feedback .

Proficiency in a second language requires practice

A second language isn’t one of those things you can study once and be done with it forever.

Knowing a language is like a muscle — it atrophies if not properly exercised, and the exercises above can help you not only improve as you’re learning, but also keep you in shape in the long run.