Ways to improve English

By FADZILAH AMIN

Read, write, listen and speak and you will get there.

Dimitar Berbatov, the handsome Bulgarian football player now with Manchester United (though maybe not for much longer), worked on improving his English by watching the Godfather films again and again, especially Godfather III.

This featured Andy Garcia, to whom Berbatov bears an uncanny resemblance. I won’t really recommend that method to all Malaysians, for fear you might give the wrong impression here! From time to time, I get letters from readers asking for ways to improve their English. Sometimes they want to improve it in general, but sometimes a reader like Mohd Sharafudin specifies certain aspects of his English that need improvement, like writing and speaking.

We are told that there are four skills to be developed in the teaching of a language: Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking.

Malaysians who started school in and after 1970 learnt English for 11 years up to Form Five. But a lot of them still find the need to improve their understanding and command of the language after leaving school.

Let me try and suggest certain ways in which they can do that.

Reading

Read books whose subjects interest you, and try if possible to get some advice on whether the books you have chosen are written well.

Also, choose books whose language provides some challenge to you, but not too much, because that might discourage you. If there are 10 or more words on every page that you don’t know the meaning of, find a simpler book.

I once taught a class of science students who were weak in English. The weakest (who was very good at mathematics) came up to me on the first day and said he had obtained a P8 for English in the SPM exam and couldn’t understand most things he had to read.

After much thought, I lent him some Ladybird fairy tales that my children used to read when they were in primary school. A week or so later, I asked his dorm mate if he had read them, and the answer made me really smile. His dorm mate said that both of them read the books and enjoyed them! At the end of the semester, the weak student had a clear pass in his English exam.

Sometimes you may hear of a good classic English novel, like Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, and you can’t find it in a bookshop.

There is also no library near you. You can go to the Project Gutenberg website at gutenberg.org/browse/ languages/en

Here you can find lots and lots of good books, but they are all out of copyright, meaning that they were first published more than 70 years ago. You can read them online or print them, all for free. But if you have some money to spare, you are encouraged to donate any sum you like to the project.

The books have been made available by people who have lovingly typed every word in so that these treasures can be read by everyone.

Dictionaries

Reading alone is not enough, of course. I really do think that Malaysians have to develop the dictionary habit. I have observed how reluctant so many Malaysians are to look up a word in a dictionary to find out its exact meaning or meanings.

This is such a pity, because never before have we had so many free dictionaries available, on the Internet. So please take advantage of that! Some of them even pronounce the words for you if you click on the right icons.

Here are the links to some of them: 1) oxfordadvanc edlearnersdictionary. com/online Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

2) dictionary.cambridge. org/online Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and Thesaurus

3) macmillandictionary.com/ online Macmillan Dictionary and Thesaurus ldoceonline. com/ Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

4) oaadonline.oxfordlearnersdictionaries. com/Oxford Advanced American Dictionary for learners

5) merriam-webster.com/ Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, 11th Edition (an American English dictionary)

6) oxforddictionaries.com/ (type your word or phrase under the green rectangle that says “Dictionary” and you will get a definition that is more advanced than that of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, as well as the origin of the word)

If you want to see the definition of a word in several dictionaries, go to the site: onelook.com/, type your word in, click “Search”, and you will see the names of several dictionaries.

If you see “Compact Oxford English Dictionary” in the list, clicking on it will lead to the site oxforddictionaries. com/ that I listed above.

Writing

How about improving your writing? If you have no tutor or a friend to help you, just write a diary. You don’t need to write every day. But whenever you feel happy or upset or angry about something, try to write how you feel in your diary.

Never mind if it is somewhat ungrammatical at first: you will get better as you read more and write more. And if you feel upset or angry, writing it all down may actually help you feel less upset or angry.

The BBC has a useful website for learning English, where you can also improve your listening skills through listening to the passages that are read aloud, and the conversations between people.

Try browsing the following site: bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/ index.shtml

Speaking

Speaking may be the skill that is hardest to improve. Having a friend who is proficient in English would be helpful. If you don’t have such a friend, try getting a tutor, if you can afford it.

If you have neither friend of that description, nor cash to pay for a tutor, don’t despair. If you listen to the language often enough, you can try to speak it on your own.

Try reading aloud in the privacy of your home or room. It can be enjoyable.

Finally, what about grammar? The BBC website has a grammar section, and you can also try to get a grammar book from a big bookshop.

Browse around and find one that you think is at your level and also affordable.

> Fadzilah Amin taught English literature at university, but after retirement, started teaching English language. She believes we learn most when trying to teach others. Mind Our English is published once a week on Tuesdays. For comments or inquiries on English usage, please contact the writer at fedela7@yahoo.co.uk