WRITING STRATEGIES

Writting strategies

What can you do to be a better writer? The first you have to do is to not be afraid to write, feel free to do it and your results are going to be impressive.

Writing sometimes makes students suffer, because they don’t know how to handle it.

Here are some things that you can do to feel more comfortable while you’re writing:

• Have your own space to write.
• Enter to writing-related web sites.

When we write a composition, it is not enough to have good ideas or persuasive arguments,It is important to express them correctly.

Good writing doesn't happen by accident.Writers use strategies all the time to keep their writing going and to make it come out the way they intend.

When you write you have to be aware of this following things:

• Time expressions can come at the beginning or at the end of a sentence.
• Don´t separate the verb from its object.
• Frequency adverbs (often, always, never) often come before the main verb.

A good composition has three elements: an introduction, a body and a conclusion and should have a strong opening which gets readers´ attention and makes them to read more. A few good ways of opening your composition:

 

• A question
• A surprising statistic or fact

A good composition has to have:

1. Contrast or opposing ideas: although, while, in spite of, but, however.

2. Comparison: like, similarly, both, just, as + adjective + as.

3. Reason, cause and effect: because, since, as, so that, in order that.

4. Time and sequence: when, while, first of all, secondly, finally.

5. Result and consequences: therefore, thus, as a result of.

6. Addition and example: moreover, in addition, for instance, such as.

SPEAKING STRATEGIES

SPEAKING STRATEGIES

A lot of students complain about understanding English, but not feeling confident to join a conversation. Improving your English speaking skills will help you communicate more easily and effectively.

Some of the tips that will help you are:

• Speak to yourself in front of the mirror.
• Interactive with others.
• Maintain smalls talks to your friends or family

Things that a speaker has to do:

• Pronounce the sounds of the language clearly enough so that people can distinguish them. This includes making tonal distinctions.
• Use the correct forms of words. This may mean, for example, changes in the tense, case, or gender.
• Use appropriate vocabulary.
• Use the register that is appropriate to the situation and the relationship to the person.
• Practise where you can, when you can. Any practice is good whether you speak to someone who is a native English speaker or not.
• It's important to be confidence.
• Try to experiment with the English you know. Use words and phrases you know in new situations.
• Try to respond to what people say to you.
• Don't speak too fast! It's important to use a natural rhythm when speaking English, but if you speak too fast it will be difficult for people to understand you.
• Relax when you speak.
• Don't be shy to speak .
• Remember to be polite – use "please" and "thank you" if you ask someone to do something for you.

The first rule of improving speaking skills is to speak, so just practice every day as many times as possible and you’ll see the difference. 

READING

READING STRATEGIES

Reading is something that keeps our mind open. Reading makes your imagination fly. Not reading means just novels, but academic resources. I'm going to give you some strategies that you can use to improve you reading skills:

• Read at the desk with a good light.
• Keep background noise to a minimum. Classical music may help you with your reading.
•  Give yourself a quiet environment so that you can concentrate on the text.
• Have a piece of paper near to you just in case you need it.
• Before reading, think about the purpose for the reading.  Why has the teacher made me do this?  
• Survey the reading.  That means look what the text is going to talk about.
• Read the introduction and conclusion, then go back and read the whole text.  Or read the first line in every paragraph to get an idea of how the ideas progress, then go back and read from the beginning.
• Scan the entire reading, then focus on the most interesting or relevant parts to read in detail.
• Pay attention to when you can skim.
• Take notes andhighlight the most important things.  
• If you get stuck in the reading, don't worry just think and write about where you got stuck.  
• If you get confuse don't panic, confusion is important because it's the first stage in understanding.
• If you don't understand the reading, breathe and read it again in a slowly way.
• Break time. Read 10 pages, then do something else.  Later, read the next 10 pages and so on.
• Summarize what you are reading.
• Create an alternative text.
• Answer these question in your own words: What's the author talking about?  What is he trying to tell me?
• Ask questions about what you don't understand.

1. If you have doubts you look for what does another author have to say on the same topic.

You have to think about what is between the lines, the conclusions and inferences the author means.

Listening

LISTENING STRATEGIES
How can I improve my listening skills? Just like improving any skill,you need to do that action to improve it. Listening is an active process. Not only you have to hear what a speaker says, you must understand it and then judge whether the information make sense or not.
Another skill that has similar strategies to listening is reading. The basic listening strategies are anticipating and predicting all the answers are correct. Getting all the words are not the most important thing when you start to learn a language, if you don't get a word just don't get stuck and keep listening to the rest.
Basic things you should do when you are doing a listening:
-Listentening for the main idea
-Predicting
-Drawing inferences
-Summarizing
Listening  is probably the most difficult task for almost all learners of English. The most important thing is to listen as often as possible. The next step is to find listening resources.
Accept the fact that you are not going to understand everything.
Even if you don't understand a word keep listening to the rest of the listening.
Do not translate into your native language.
Try to get the general idea of the conversation. Don't concentrate on detail until you have understood the main ideas.
While you are listening to another person speaking another language our natural temptation is to translate into our native language. This temptation becomes stronger when you hear a word you don't understand. When you concentrate into translating a word you don't understand, your attention is focusing on that and you are missing the the rest of the listening. The translation doesn't allow you to understand anything at all.
One of the best ways to improve your listening finding a TV show you like and download some episodes. By listening to it many times you get used to how each actor talks and it improves your listening skills a lot and it's very fun too.
If you're having an informal conversation you can ask questions if you are not sure you heard something correcting or you didn’t understand. Provide your full attention on the person speaking
Just be confident and give your best at listening, and you'll become a good learner.

Grammar strategies

Grammar learning strategies

Grammar is really important if you want to learn a language and of course is not the only thing you should focus on.

If we use incorrect grammar, sentences can become meaningless and their message unclear. This means that you aren’t able to communicate effectively and the person who is reading your work may be quite confused about what you are saying.

Grammar shows you how sentences are structured and how the language is formatted. At first for most of the people who is learning a language may be boring but I'll give you some tips in order to achieve faster progress and use your time more efficiently.

• The first thing you have to do is to own a grammar book. Once you  own it, work in an aspect every week, like the first week you can start by preparing the present simple and continous and the following week by present perfect. Learning a language is something gradually. So you better start for the easiest part and keep learning still you get to the most difficult one.

• The second thing you can do is to read a text or listent to a radio program and determinate wheter the grammar is well used or not.

• Reading books may be the third thing you could do to learn a language. By reading, your brain pays attention to all the structures, and you'll improve your grammar knowledge withouth realising it.

• The foutrh thing may be doing execrcices, and try to repeat them every week, or may every two weeks, in order to keep the information abou that aspect in your mind.

• When you talk, pay attention on what and how you're saying things, this will help you too.

So these were some strategies that you can use if you are learning grammar.

There are many types of learners: kinesthetic, auditory and visual. Depending on the type of learner you are, you should follow different ways of learning.
But for example if you want to look for a word in a dictionary or you need some grammar exercices, on the internet, there are some pages that are really good and you can check out whenever you need, and it doesn't matter what type of learner you are.
The bilingual dictionary which is really good is the: wordreference.com You have the pronunciation in the american and british accent, you have of course the meaning and some examples to make easier for you to understand the word. The Layout is quite simple but nice at the same time.
If we talk about monolingual dictionaries, the best would be: macmillandictionary.com In this dictionary it explains you what the word means with good examples, it also tells you if the word you are looking for has a lot of people looking for it or not. And in the same as the bilingual one it tells you how the word is pronunced,

The best grammar book in the internet would be: manythings.org/e/grammar.html  Because it has a clear index, which is really good if you need to look for specific things. It has also examples in context which help you better to understand what you are studing. This grammar book has execrcices and the answers of each, and other things that this has are games. It's a good grammar book because it contains anything that you need plus the games.

So these would be the the dictionaries and the grammar book that are the best for studing English even though if you are: Kinesthethic, auditory ot visual

When you know your learning style you need to find out how best to study and revise for exams. For kinesthetic learners it’s difficult to sit during lessons.

For this type of people, hours of lectures, or pages of notes it’s too heavy. This doesn't mean they are bad students, it just means they haven't found the best ways to study yet.

l  Study in short blocks of time rather than extended periods.

l   Have as many experimental learning opportunities as possible.

l  Utilize study groups.

l  Role play/simulation.

l  Use memory techniques requiring movement.

l  Make a photocopy of your notes.

l  Take notes and repeat them to yourself while walking.

l  Studying while yo-yoing.

l  Visit art galleries or museums, depending on the subject or subjects you are studying. 

l  Use computers and the internet while studying.