An excellent way to improve your English fluency is by reading extensively. It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner, an intermediate or an advanced student, extensive reading is one of the most effective ways to improve your fluency. Extensive reading is also known as free reading or reading for pleasure. It is widely believed that extensive reading facilitates the acquisition of new words through inferencing and improves comprehension either in your mother tongue or in a foreign language.
How to choose a good English book
1. Look for graded reader series.
A graded book series are books that increase in difficulty depending on the level. Books for beginners have short texts and use more common words while books for advanced learners have longer texts with less common vocabulary.
Most of the grades reader series have been produced by British publishers and only one small series have been published in the United States.
Click HERE to find a list that I have created with the most popular books for Beginners, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate and Advanced English learners.
2. Follow the 5 finger rule
If you are not sure if you are going to understand a book or not, follow the five finger rule.
Five Finger rule for Extensive Reading
3. Read, relax and enjoy
Remember that one objective of extensive reading is reading for pleasure and fun. There won’t be any tests or quizzes about the reading. You can read at your own pace and re-read a the paragraphs as many times as you want.
The more you read extensively the more confidence and motivation you gain. That in turn will help you improve your fluency and become a more effective language user.
Read, Relax and Enjoy
A fellow teacher,Cris Nishimura from Brazil, recently asked me to talk to her students about the five finger rule for extensive reading. If you want to learn more about it, watch the videos below.
A great way to improve your pronunciation and fluency is by saying tongue twisters as fast as you can. Tongue twisters are great to exercise your English muscles. Are you ready to complete this fun challenge?
Have you completed Intensity level 1 and 2? If not, click the button below.
If you are an intermediate student, you can use Intensity Level 1 as your warm up.
Say each of the following tongue twisters five times as fast as you can. If you are not sure about the correct pronunciation you can play the audio first and repeat after me. Then you can say the tongue twister slowly and when you feel confident about your pronunciation you increase the speed.
1. I scream, you scream, all scream for ice cream.
2. Three free throws.
3. Rubber baby buggy bumpers.
Let’s increase the intensity
4. Birdie birdie in the sky laid a turdie in my eye. If cows could fly I’d have a cow pie in my eye.
5. Yellow butter, purple jelly, red jam, black bread. Spread it thick, say it quick! Yellow butter, purple jelly, red jam, black bread. Spread it thicker, say it quicker!
6. Betty Botter bought some butter But she said the butter’s bitter If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter But a bit of better butter will make my batter better So ‘twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.
A great way to improve your pronunciation and fluency is by saying tongue twisters as fast as you can. Tongue twisters are great to exercise your English muscles. Are you ready to complete this fun challenge?
Have you completed the Tongue Twister Intensity level 1? If not, click the button below.
If you are an intermediate/ pre-advanced student, you can use Intensity Level 1 as your warm up.
Say each of the following tongue twisters five times as fast as you can. If you are not sure about the correct pronunciation you can play the audio first and repeat after me. Then you can say the tongue twister slowly and when you feel confident about your pronunciation you increase the speed.
Six sticky skeletons
2. Flash message
3. Black back bat
Let’s increase the intensity
Say each of the following tongue twisters five times as fast as you can
What does already/ yet mean? Well, it’s not easy to talk about their meaning if we remove them from sentences. For words like already and yet we need to rely on grammar to understand the context and meaning.
Already and yet are time words. More precisely they are adverbs that are commonly used with present perfect.
Present perfect + already/ yet is used to show how a past event relates to the present.
To do list already/ yet
We use already to say that an action has been completed some time in the past, sooner than expected.
Example: I’ve already finished my homework.
We use yet to say that something hasn’t happened when we expected it to happen. It often means that you have the intention to do something but you have not been able to complete the action.
Example: I haven’t studied for my test yet.
We also use yet to ask questions about things that were completed in the past.
Example: Have you called your mom yet?
*We use already to ask questions about things that we already know or to express surprise. We don’t expect an answer we only want to confirm the information.
For example, your mom hears you telling your friend on the phone that you have already studied for your final test. When you hang up, your mom tells you:
“Have you already studied for your final test? I can’t believe it! Back on my days we spent hours studying for the final tests”
Your mom is surprised. She only wants to verify the information that she just heard.
A great way to improve your pronunciation and fluency is by saying tongue twisters as fast as you can. Tongue twisters are great to exercise your English muscles. Are you ready to complete this fun challenge?
Let’s warm up
Say each of the following tongue twisters five times as fast as you can. If you are not sure about the correct pronunciation you can play the audio first and repeat after me. Then you can say the tongue twister slowly and when you feel confident about your pronunciation you increase the speed.
1 You know New York, you need New York
2 So, this is the sushi chef
3 Stupid superstition
Let’s increase the intensity
Say each of the following tongue twisters five times as fast as you can
4. I saw a kitten eaten chicken in the kitchen
5.Eddie edited it
6. Willie’s really weary
7. The big fat cat sat on the rat
8. She sells seashells by the seashore
DOWNLOAD the worksheet with audio to practice anytime, anywhere.
A common question that my students ask me very often is this: Teacher can I speak English fluently in 2, 3, 6, 8…X months? Honestly, there is no exact answer for that question because each student is different. Not everybody learns at the same pace because not everybody invests the same amount of time and resources to improve their English. Thus, the first step to start progressing is to reflect on our own learning experience, be realistic and make a plan accordingly.
You need something more than a plan
It is obvious that if you want to get results, first you need a plan. For example, if your goal is to get in shape, a good plan plan might be going to the gym three times a week, or changing your eating habits, or walking 8,000 steps every day, or all the aforementioned options. However, it’s not enough to have a plan. It’s not enough to buy a membership at the gym or enroll into cross-fit classes or fill your fridge with healthy food. You actually need to go to the gym to activate your muscles. You need to eat the food you buy and stop eating junk food in order to change your metabolism. Although it can be painful and not pleasant at all, we all know that we need to make some sacrifices and work hard to get results.
No pain, no gain
The instructor at the gym can guide, motivate and support you. However, he/she doesn’t have control over your muscles. You are the one who has the will power to move your body. You are the one who has the temperance to stop eating junk food. You could hire the best trainer or the best dietician, but if you don’t do your part you won’t get any results. The same happens when you want to learn a new language. You could hire the best teacher, or enroll in the best school. Nonetheless, if you don’t PRACTICE you won’t get results. In other words, NO PAIN, NO GAIN.
If you are committed to start an intensive and effective training to improve your English fast here are my 5 tips:
Tip 1: Activate your English muscles
What kind of tasks can you do to train your English muscled? After a number of years teaching English, I have realized that the best way to activate your English muscles is by READING, LISTENING, SPEAKING and WRITING.
I’m sure you have heard this advice millions of times. In fact you already know that perhaps you need to improve your reading, or your listening, or your writing, or your speaking, or the fours skills. Thus, I’m going to share with you specific tips that you can apply to your English practice.
Tip 2: Don’t read boring stuff
Whether you like it or not, READING is one of the most effective ways to learn new things, including new vocabulary. If you don’t like reading in your own language it will be a big challenge for you to read texts in English. However, reading doesn’t have to be painful. Look for readings about topics of your interests. If you like sports, look for readings about sports. If you like fashion, look for readings about fashion. Reading doesn’t have to be a torture.
Tip 3: Read and listen at the same time
If you want to improve your reading along with your pronunciation and listening, you can use audio-books, podcasts or TED talks. Download the text or the script so you can read along while you listen to the audio. You can also listen to the audio and read out loud imitating the intonation and pitch of the narrator or speaker. After that, you can read out load and record your voice using your phone or computer. Then you can compare your voice to the speaker’s voice.
After you finish reading and listening the text, write down 3 to 5 questions about it. Pretend that you are the teacher and you want your students to answer those questions. Then with your own words try to answer those questions.
Tip 4: Join a reading club
If you have the chance to join a reading club then you will be practicing your reading a lot and on top of that you will have the chance to speak with other people who have the same reading interests as you.
If you don’t feel confident enough to join a reading club… yet, you can start reading alone. If you don’t know exactly what kind of books you should start with, start reading children’s books. They have cute pictures; they are easy to understand and fun.
The Heinle Reading Library: Illustrated Classic Collection has my favorite ESL reading books. The readings are adapted to different ESL levels. You can identify them by colors, green is for beginner/ pre-intermediate English learners. Red is for intermediate and purple is for advanced English learners.
Photo: eltbooks.com
You can find some of these great books on Amazon (US/Mexico/ Brazil, Spain/Germany/Australia/ Japan) and eltbooks.com (Japan) or bookfinder.com (worldwide)
Tip 5: Join a conversation course
If you want to read and talk about current issues, or topics related to science, technology, history, politics, environment, social justice and geography you might want to join a conversation course.
Conversation courses are also a great place to improve your comprehension and speaking skills in a friendly and safe environment. If you join a conversation group you will read or listen to a variety of topics and engage into meaningful discussions and debates. During each session you will learn new vocabulary and expressions in context. At the same time, you will practice how to process the information you read or listen in order to express your ideas in a coherent manner.
During my last year at university I enrolled in an English-speaking course. I thought it was going to be like typical a speaking class but to my surprise it was a super fun conversation course. I loved it, I engaged into thought provoking discussions and improved my English significantly. I highly recommend conversation courses to improve English fluency and increase your confidence.
Finally, don’t forget that “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Be patient with your own learning process and acknowledge your progress. Today you know more than you knew yesterday and tomorrow you will know something that you don’t know today.
What English muscle do you have to train more? Share your answer in the comments below.
Watching movies in English can be one of the best ways to improve your English. There is no doubt that it’s easier to learn something if you are having fun and enjoying what you are doing. However, for lower level students watching a movie in English sometimes can be a torture. It is not fun when everybody is laughing or crying and you don’t understand what’s going on.
My students always ask me about the best movies to practice their English. I honestly don’t know much about movies because I don’t like to watch commercial movies. I prefer to watch movies about real and meaningful stories. I have to admit that I’m not the kind of person that can suggest a movie to pass time. Each person has different preferences in regards of movies. However, I can give you some tips so you can choose a good movie yourself.
Tip # 1
Watch a movie that you would watch in your first language. Don’t watch a movie just because everybody is watching it. The same rule should apply to books. Just because Shakespeare was the most famous English writer of all times, it doesn’t mean that you must read “Romeo and Juliet”.
Tip # 2
Watch a movie that you have already watched in your first language. When you already know what the story is about it is easier to focus on the vocabulary and new expressions. It’s not easy to learn new phrases and expressions if you don’t understand the plot.
Tip # 3
Don’t try to understand everything the first time you watch a movie in English. It is okay not to understand everything. It is okay to watch the same movie many times. It is okay to watch a movie with subtitles in English several times.
Tip # 4
Try to memorize the dialogues or songs of your favorite scenes. If your favorite movie is a Hollywood movie or a Disney movie, watch it in English and try to memorize the dialogues. I’m sure that you have already memorized some dialogues in your first language. It will be super easy to memorize the dialogues in English.
Other teachers may have different opinions. Thus, you have to follow the advice that is good for your learning style and your learning capabilities. I’m sharing my advice as an ESL teacher who has worked with literacy and beginner students for a number of years. I have seen how torturing it is for someone who doesn’t understand what is going on to enjoy something that is supposed to be fun.
Remember that watching movies is a hobby and hobbies are meant to be pleasant, not torturing.
I would like to share with you three English movies that according to my students are easy to understand even for lower levels:
If you watched any of these movies, I’d love to hear your comments. Did you like it? Why? If you watched the three movies, tell me which one was your favorite. Why?
If you want to improve your English it is critical that you have a rich vocabulary. Among other skills, the ability to identify word meanings is extremely important if you want to speak fluently.
Here I am going to share five tips that will help you remember new words and their meanings easily.
Tip # 1
Identify the part of speech of the words you learn. Along with the writing or pronunciation patterns, learning the part of speech can help you remember words and create sentences more easily. The part of speech indicates how the word functions in meaning as well as grammatically within the sentence. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are examples of parts of speech.
Tip # 2
Organize your vocabulary by word families. A word family is a group of words that have a common pattern. Words that belong to the same family have the same combination of letters or a particular sound. They are an excellent tool to learn and remember words.
Tip # 3
Look for other words that belong to the same family. Most online dictionaries display a list with nearby words or other entries for the word. Look for those entries to find out other words that belong to the same family.
(source: McMillan Essential Dictionaries Magazine, Issue 14, December 2003)
Tip # 4
Write down in your notebook all the words that belong to the same word family. Graphic word organizers are the best. You can draw a table in your notebook or download a super cool word organizer that I have created specially for my students.
Write your own examples using each of the words that you add to your notebook or word organizer. It is crucial that you understand the meaning and how to use each word that you learn.
It seems like a lot of work. However, in the long run it will pay off; specially if you are planning to take the IELTS, TOEFL, CELPIP or any Cambridge test.
Challenge
Let’s practice. Complete the sentences below using the correct word from the table above.
“_____________ is in the eye of the beholder” ~Shakespeare (hint: noun)
Although Maria has been looking for a new job _________, she hasn’t ___________ yet. (hint: adverb, verb)
John is a very ___________ person. He exercises every day. (hint: adjective)
What’s you final _____________? Are you going to buy the detached house in the suburbs or the condo downtown? (hint: noun)
I’m not going to _______________ such disrespectful behavior! (hint: verb)
