For years we have been led to believe that watching television whilestudying, or instead of studying, will rarely lead to any academic gain. Itcomes as a delight to some students to know that this belief has been somewhatturned on its head because watching television can assist some students ofnon-English speaking backgrounds to learn and develop confidence in speakingthe English language.How is this possible?Because many people want to learn English, televisionprograms offer one way to pick up conversational English skills and new words.However, the process of learning to speak English requires a student to be farmore active than simply turning on the TV and watching. Unfortunately, Englishlanguage will not be automatically added to your vocabulary through passiveactivity.It is possible to add new phrases and words to your vocabulary bywatching TV. By memorizing, practicing and applying new phrases and words,confidence grows and a person becomes more adept at using words and phrases incontext.Speak, speak, speak...No matter what method you employ to try to improve your English, it iscritical that you put the knowledge and skills into practice by speaking. Thismeans that in order to become a more proficient speaker, you must speak inEnglish as often as possible.Active and passive vocabulary:The act of watching television has the potential to assist you toimprove your English but rarely will any improvement be noticed until you beginto work on your active and not just your passive vocabulary. It is important todistinguish the difference between active and passive vocabulary: Passive vocabulary is the words youcan recognize but have little or no skill in using because you lack practice inusing those particular words and phrases. Active vocabulary relates to therange of words you speak and use. These words tend to be used many times overand spoken when engaging in conversations with others.Although watching television can certainly improve your ability tounderstand English (passive vocabulary), it will only help with yourconversational skills if effort is made to practice the words learned and usethem in conversation.When watchingTV: Keep a notepad and pen with you.Write down the words and phrases that you hear and wish to develop confidencein using (no more than 7 per day). Resist the temptation to translate thesewords into your first language. Doing so can slow your progress and, from alearning perspective, it is far more beneficial to describe or explain themusing English words, no matter how simple they may be. It is also important totry to record the context in which a word or phrase was used. This can havenumerous advantages when using the word(s) yourself. Consider using the subtitles featureof your television. Of course the idea is not that you will just read thesubtitles, but will really listen to the dialogue. The benefit of usingsubtitles is that they can help you to more quickly understand what is beingsaid, particularly if there is a lot of action occurring in the background.Similarly, slang words and expressions can sometimes make it more difficult tointerpret what is being said. If you can do without the subtitles of aparticular film or program, keep them off, but if you struggle with thelanguage used and words