How to Improve Your English Skills

This post is completely dedicated for English beginners who want to improve, most particularly my cousins. First step, you MUST read this post as it is, don't go translate it, go through it word by word till the end of it. It's not like I'm Shakespeare! Improving your english skills is an easy process, all what you need to do is surround yourself with the language.

• Change everything Arabic to English, your cellphone, laptops and your online pages.. use them all in English. By this, you will create a space for you to practice the language you want to master.. and by time, you will.


• "Think in English." A great advice by Dr. Randa Alsheikh who taught me poetry in my last year in university. When you have these words in your mind but in Arabic and you want to speak them in English, that will consume more time and effort than if you just think of English words! Explantation: you want to say something > think of Arabic words & put on sentences togethers > translating them in English > finally saying what you want to say. That is my dear a very painful way to communicate! It is better to: think of English words + put them on sentences > say it! See how short and efficient this way is? By this way, you will train your brain to come up with longer and longer sentences. Maybe at first you will have some difficulties with structure and grammar but you will work on that with the next step.


• Expose yourself to the language. Watch movies without the subtitles, you will train your mind to pick up on sentences and different structures. Your ears will be more familiar with the language, it won't sound like gibberish anymore. Listen to more English songs, believe me, Rabih Saqir is bad to your health let alone your English skills! Keep in touch with English speaking friends, don't be shy or afraid to speak English. Give yourself a shot, you will never what you are capable of.


• Keep a journal and always write. Don't underestimate the power of writing, and reading but we'll get on that later. Write your diaries, song lyrics you like or new words recently learned, just keep on writing. If you kept writing for years, one day you will go back to read your first pieces and you will see how much you improved! I used to do that when I was ten and it got into writing!


• Read. Read, read, READ! I don't say that because I personally love reading but because I LOVE you and when I love someone, I tell them to read! I know that sound really stupid but it's true. Dr. Seuss, one of my favorite writers, once said: "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." Reading won't only help you to improve your English but it will open your eyes and mind to a whole new world, where everything is possible. Start with blogs that are written in English, take mine for example, or you can check out the blogs I have in my blogroll if you want, and work your way into reading books! Yes, books! Books will teach you everything, English sentence structure, grammar, vocabulary and culture! Don't be intimidated by this idea, I will give you books suggestions that you will probably like, and hopefully, it will get you into reading!


• Book Suggestions:

Shopaholic Series by Sophie Kinsella

1- Confession of Shopaholic



2- Shopaholic Takes Manhattan



3- Shopaholic Ties the Knot



4- Shopaholic and Sister



5- Shopaholic and Baby



6- Mini shopaholic



There another author who writes light material, cute stories and simple English. Cecelia Ahern, she wrote books such as P.S I Love You, Thanks for Memories and A Place Called Here.



Another cute series by a Chick Lit author, Darcy & Rachel series by Emily Griffin.



Last but not least, Meg Cabot's books! I'm not absolutely sure if you'd find all books above in local bookstore but I'm quite positive that you will find Meg Cabot's!

It will take me forever if I start talking about books but there is an amazing website if you want to explore the world of reading: www.goodreads.com. Sign up and build your reading list!

I hope I didn't bore to death with this post, I wanted to share my thoughts on English skills self-improving as I had the same experience when I was younger and it really paid off. I went to public schools where they don't teach English up until seventh grade, and by the time I got there, I was even better than the teachers, and I'm not exaggerating! The books were ridiculous, I still remember the stupid moment when I had to stand up and read Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the twelfth grade!

I hope this post was somewhat useful to you.