thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
or cassette, set of flashcards) all day and every day, you never know when you might have 5 spare minutes.If you are too tired to actively practice just relax and listen to an English pop song or talk radio station.Get onto Skype and Second Life. Start networking with other learners / native speakers / teachers (don't just restrict yourself to seeking out native speakers.This chart will help you determine your learning style; read the word in the left column and then find the answer that most fits you in the three columns to the right. Your answers may fall into all three columns, but one column will likely contain the most answers. The dominant column indicates your primary learning style. Knowing what kind of learner you are can help you to develop a learning strategy.When youVisualAuditoryKinesthetic & TactileSpellDo you try to see the word?Do you sound out the word or use a phonetic approach?Do you write the word down to find if it feels right?TalkDo you do so sparingly but dislike listening for too long? Do you favour words such as see, picture , and imagine?Do you enjoy listening but are impatient to talk? Do you use words such as hear, tune , and think?Do you gesture and use expressive movements? Do you use words such as feel, touch , and hold?ConcentrateDo you become distracted by untidiness or movement?Do you become distracted by sounds or noises?Do you become distracted by activity around you?Meet someone againDo you forget names but remember faces or remember where you met?Do you forget faces but remember names or remember what you talked about?Do you remember best what you did together?Contact people on businessDo you prefer direct, face-to-face, personal meetings?Do you prefer the telephone?Do you talk with them while walking or participating in an activity?ReadDo you like descriptive scenes or pause to imagine the actions?Do you enjoy dialog and conversation or hear the characters talk?Do you prefer action stories or are not a keen reader?Do something new at workDo you like to see demonstrations, diagrams, slides, or posters?Do you prefer verbal instructions or talking about it with someone else?Do you prefer to jump right in and try it?Put something togetherDo you look at the directions and the picture?Do you ignore the directions and figure it out as you go along?Need help with a computer applicationDo you seek out pictures or diagrams?Do you call the help desk, ask a neighbour, or growl at the computer?Do you keep trying to do it or try it on another computer?Adapted from Colin Rose(1987). Accelerated Learning.
How can I improve my english?Its hard to give specific advice without knowing more about you. So Im going to give you some general advice. Which may be of interest to other listeners and readers.Point oneBe clear about why you want to learn english. Do you want it for your job? To help you get a job. To talk to english speakers. To help you study.Point twoBe clear about, how good you want your english to be. How good do you want to be at speaking english? Listening... Reading... Writing...Point ThreeHave a clear image of yourself when you have achieved the proficiency that you want. What will you see? What will you hear? How will you feel?Point fourIf possible enroll on a language course, if you cant put yourself in situations where you can use english which leads on to point five.Point fiveLook for opportunities to learn and use english. Speak english whenever you can, listen to the radio and CDs in english, read and write in english. If you look for opportunities you will find them.Point sixWrite down new words and phrases in a notebook, keep the notebook with you. So you can look at it when you have a spare moment.Point sevenPractice practice practice... There is an expression in english If you dont want to lose it use it. This is very true when it comes to learning foreign languages.Point eightFind the learning buddy or colleague. Find someone you can learn english with. Speak with each other, send each other messages in english.Point nineLearn little and often. Make it a habit to learn english for 10 minutes each day, this is much better than learning for longer once a week.Point tenAnd a final point at the beginning of a learning period, ask yourself. What do I want to learn today?. At the end of a learning period, ask yourself. What have I learned today?There is a story about a teacher who told his students you know youre making progress in english when you speak in english, think in english and dream in english. One day a student came into the class very excited and said teacher... teacher. Last night I dreamed in english. The teacher said Thats wonderful, what did you dream about?. And the student said. I dont know it was in english. heheheSource: BBC Learning English 1. Start your own English language blog. Even for people who don't have to write in English, writing can be a great way of properly learning the kind of vocabulary you need to describe your own life and interests, and of thinking about how to stop making grammar mistakes. The problem most people have is that they don't know what to write about. One traditional way to make sure you write every day in English is to write an English diary (journal), and a more up to date way of doing this is to write a blog. Popular topics include your language learning experience, your experience studying abroad, your local area, your language, or translations of your local news into English.2. Write
a news diary. Another daily writing task that can work for people who would be bored by writing about their own routines in a diary is to write about the news that you read and listen to everyday. If you include your predictions for how you think the story will develop (e.g. "I think Hillary will become president"), this can give you a good reason to read old entries another time, at which time you can also correct and mistakes you have made and generally improve what you have written.3. Sign up for a regular English tip. Some websites offer a weekly or even daily short English lesson sent to your email account. If your mobile phone has an e-mail address, it is also possible to have the tips sent to your phone to read on the way to work or school. Please note, however, that such services are not usually graded very well to the levels of different students, and they should be used as a little added extra or revision in your English studies rather than as a replacement for something you or your teacher have chosen more carefully as what you need to learn.4. Listen to MP3s. Although buying music on the internet is becoming more popular in many countries, not so many people know that you can download speech radio such as audio books (an actor reading out a novel) and speech radio. Not only is this better practice for your English than listening to English music, from sources like Scientific American, BBC and Australia's ABC Radio it is also free.5. Listen to English music. Even listening to music while doing something else can help a little for things like getting used to the natural rhythm and tone of English speech, although the more time and attention you give to a song the more you will learn from listening to it again in the future.6. Read the lyrics to a song. Although just listening to a song in English can be a good way of really learning the words of the chorus in an easily memorable way, if you want to really get something out of listening to English music you will need to take some time to read the lyrics of the song with a dictionary. If the lyrics are not given in the CD booklet, you may be able to find them on the internet, but please note that some lyrics sites deliberately put a few errors into their lyrics for copyright reasons. Once you have read and understood the lyrics, if you then listen and read at the same time, this can be a good way of understanding how sounds change in fast, natural, informal speech.7. Sing karaoke in English. The next stage after understanding and memorising a song is obviously to sing it. Although some words have their pronunciation changed completely to fit in with a song, most of the words have the same sounds and stressed syllables as in normal speech. Remembering which words rhyme at the end of each line can also
be a good way of starting to learn English pronunciation.8. Write a film, music, hotel or book review. Another motivating and easy way to make yourself write in English is to write a review for a site such as Amazon or Internet Movie Database. Many non-native speakers write reviews on sites like this, and if you have some special understanding of the book, music or film due to your first language or knowing the artist personally, that would be very interesting for the English speakers who read and write reviews on the site.9. Only search in English. Switching your search engine to the English language version of msn, yahoo, Google etc. can not only be a good way of practising fast reading for specific information in English, but could also give you a wider choice of sites to choose from and give you an idea of what foreigners are writing about your country and area.10. Read a book you've already read or seen the movie of in your own language. Although most language learners under Advanced level would probably learn more from reading a graded reader or something from the internet than they would from reading an original book written for English speakers, for some people reading something like Harry Potter in the original can be a great motivator to improve their English. To make this easier for you and make sure that it motivates you rather than just making your tired, try reading a book that you already know the story of. This not only makes it easier to understand and guess vocabulary, but you are also more likely to remember the language in it. If you have not read the book before, reading a plot summary from the internet can also help in the same way.11. Read a translation into English. Another way of making sure books are easier to understand is to choose a book that was originally translated into English, preferably from your own language. Even if you haven't read the book in your own language, you will find the English is written in a slightly simplified way that is more similar to how your own language is written than a book originally written in English would be.12. Skip the first ten pages. If you have given up with a book in English or are reading it very slowly, try skimming through the first ten pages or skipping them completely. The start of most books tend to be mainly description and are therefore full of difficult vocabulary and don't have a clear story line yet to help you understand what is happening and to motivate you to turn the next page. If the book is still too difficult even after the introductionary part is finished, it is probably time to give that book up for now and try it again after you have read some easier things.13. Read a book with lots of dialogue. Opening up books before you buy one and flicking through them to find one with lots of direct dialogue in it has several advantages.
If there is less text on the page due to all the speech marks etc, this can make it easier to read and easier to write translations on. Dialogue is also much easier to understand than descriptive parts of a book, and is much more like the language you will want to learn in order to be able to speak English.14. Read English language comics. Even more than books with lots of dialogue, comics can be easy to understand and full of idiomatic language as it is actually spoken. There can be difficulties with slang, difficult to understand jokes and/ or dialogue written how people speak rather than with normal spellings, so try to choose which comic carefully. Usually, serious or adventure comics are easier to understand than funny ones.15. Read English language entertainment guides. Nowadays most big cities in the world have an English language magazine and/ or online guide to the movies, plays, exhibitions that are on in the city that week. Reading this in English is not only good value, but it could also guide you to places that English speakers are interested in and where you might hear some English spoken around you.16. Read English language magazines. Like books, if you can read two versions of the same magazine (Newsweek in your language and in English, for example), that could make understanding it much easier.17. Take a one week intensive course. Although you cannot expect to come out of a very short course speaking much better English than when you started it, if you continue studying a little over the following weeks and months, the knowledge you gained then will gradually come out and mean that your level of speaking, listening etc. are better than they would have been if you hadn't taken that course. This positive effect can still be true up to a year later.18. Follow your intensive course up with an extensive course. The more time you can spend studying English the better, but studying periodic intensive courses with a few hours of study a week in between is probably better value for money than any other system as it gives your brain time to subconsciously learn and start using the new language you have learnt before you introduce the next new "chunk" of language.19. Supplement your group class with a one to one class. Another good way to combine two different kinds of classes is to study both in a group class and one to one. Having a one to one teacher, even if just a couple of times a month, will mean that you can be taught exactly the language that you need, that you will have more time to speak, and that you can have as much error correction as you like.20. Supplement your one to one class with a group class. The benefits of having a group class are often less clear to students, but they include the fact that you will learn to deal with several people speaking at once, have a chance to practice skills such as interrupting people,
and will hear a range of different viewpoints and topics.21. Teach your children or friends some English. Recent research has shown that elder children tend to be a couple of IQ points above their younger siblings, and the most likely reason is that explaining things to their little brothers and sisters gives them an intellectual boost. In the same way, teaching someone lower level than you the English you already know is a great way of permanently fixing that knowledge in your own brain.22. Ask your company to start English lessons. Even if you don't need to speak English at work, English lessons can be a fun and reasonably priced way for your company to spend their training budget in a popular way.23. Have English radio on in the background while you are doing your housework. Even if you are not listening carefully, it will help you get a feel for natural English rhythm and intonation.24. Play English language learning games on your Nintendo DS. Although such games can have quite random language and are unlikely to improve your ability to speak English on their own, the next time you hear or read the same language elsewhere it will be really fixed in your brain by the fact you have played a game with it in already. It is also a nice way of taking a break from your other English studies while also doing some English. To make sure it really is a break and to avoid wasting time learning language from the game that is not much used in daily life, don't bother writing down any new language you see in the game, but just try to learn it from playing the game again.25. Say or think what you are doing in English as you do your daily tasks. As you are doing your chores, try creating sentences describing what you are doing, e.g. I am unscrewing the ketchup bottle cap'. This gets you used to thinking in English without translating, and can be a good way of seeing what simple vocabulary that is around you everyday you don't know. yet26. Watch English language films with English subtitles. For people who can't understand a film without subtitles but find themselves not listening at all when reading subtitles in their own language, this should be the way of watching a film that you should aim for. If it is too difficult to watch the whole film this way, try watching the (usually important) first 10 or 15 minutes of the film with subtitles in your own language, switch to English subtitles after that, and only switch back to subtitles in your own language if you get totally lost following the story of the film.27. Watch films in your language with English subtitles. If you are finding English films with English subtitles too difficult or you can't find English films with English subtitles in your local video shop, this is a good second best option. Looking for local films with English subtitles can also sometimes be a good sign of quality, as
it means the producers of the film are expecting it to be popular internationally as well.28. Watch English films with subtitles in your language. Again, this is not as good practice as English language films with English subtitles, but is more relaxing, can be easier to find suitable DVDs for, and is also possible with VHS.29. Watch the same film or TV episode over and over again. This can not only save you money on DVDs, but will mean that you can really learn the language without having to study it. Some comedies can also get funnier the more you watch them, especially if you watch them with no subtitles and so understand a little more each time you watch it.30. Be realistic about your level. One thing that holds many language learners back is actually trying too hard and tackling something that their brain is not ready for yet. Checking your level with a level check test on the internet, by taking an English language test (FCE, CAE, IELTS, TOEIC, TOEFL etc.), or by taking a free trial level check and/ or lesson in a language school will help you find out what your level is and so choose suitable self-study materials.31. Be realistic about your reading level. Most researchers agree that people learn most when reading something they understand almost all of. If there are one or two words per page that you have never seen before, that is about the right level. If there are three or more on every page, you should switch to something easier and come back later.32. Read graded readers (= easy readers). These are books that are especially written for language learners like you, e.g. Penguin Readers. Although it can be difficult to find something as interesting as things written in newspapers or on the internet, in terms of learning the language only people who need to read for their work or an exam usually gain more from reading things written for graded readers. Graded readers of classic books like Charles Dickens also have the benefit of giving you a lot of knowledge about the literature, and culture more generally, of English speaking countries in a short time.33. Read the whole thing with no help. Although using a dictionary has been shown to help with both short term and long term learning of vocabulary, the fact that using it slows reading down can stop some people reading in English at all. Reading a whole book quickly through just for pleasure from time to time will help you remember how fun reading in another language can be.34. Read and learn everything. At the opposite extreme, it can be hard work but very satisfying to get to the end of a book knowing that you have learnt every word in it. See other tips on this page to make sure it is a book that is easy enough to do this with and to ensure that the vocabulary you learn is useful.35. Watching English children's films or TV programmes. Although some of the vocabulary you can
learn from things made for children can be a bit strange (lots of animal names and maybe animal noises, including baby names for things), the fact that not only the language but the structure of the story is simplified can make it an easy and motivating thing to watch. Like good language learning materials, the same language is also often repeated to make it memorable, and the use of catchy songs etc. can increase this positive effect on your memory. 36. Read English children's books. This is very similar to watching English children's movies, but with the added advantage of there being more illustrations than adult books, which both helps you to understand the story and makes the page brighter and more motivating to read.37. Keep a list of language to learn, e.g. a vocab list. Even if you don't often find time to go though your vocab list and it keeps on building up, just the act of choosing which words you need to learn and writing them down on a special list can help you learn them.38. Go through your vocab list several times every day. If ticking off words on a vocabulary list on the train to work is inconvenient or embarrassing for you, you can keep your list of words to learn as an entry in your electronic dictionary, as a mobile phone to do list or as a text file in your MP3 player (e.g. iPod). Although the time spent transferring the information between different formats like these may seem wasted, in fact any time you spend using the vocabulary like this will help you learn it.39. Convert your vocab list to English only. One way to stop yourself translating and therefore increase your speed of comprehension and production is to learn all your vocabulary without the use of your own first language. Ways you can write a vocab list in only English include with synonyms (words with the same meaning, e.g. "tall" and "high"); with opposites ("high" and "low"); with pronunciation factors such as number of syllables (the number of beats, e.g. three for "de- ci- sion") and the word stress (the syllable that is pronounced louder and longer, e.g. the second syllable in "baNAna"); and gapped sentences (e.g. "I am not _________________ in science fiction" for the word "interested").40. Cross out and delete. Crossing out or deleting words, sentences or whole pages that you have learnt can be a great motivator, and save your list of things to learn becoming too big to handle.41. Throw everything away and start again. One of the things that can put most people off learning is a stack of half finished books or a huge list vocabulary waiting to be learnt. Simply getting rid of all that and starting again with something new from zero can be a great motivator and get your studies underway again.42. Label things in your house or office with post-its. The easiest vocabulary to learn is the vocabulary of things you see and use everyday. If you can write the names of things around