I have been quite active in a new social networking site lately and mind you it’s not facebook. In this site people come to improve or brush up their communication skills. These people are from all corners of the world. I spend a pretty good time chatting with them, discussing their difficulties with the language. Members here are smart, educated, ambitious and pretty much involved in their own field. Best thing, people here get together from different places and backgrounds but for common goal, to improveor learn English as a language, in addition to other communication skills.
There are already a plethora of websites, blogs and communities where one can go and learn or practice. However as far as I know, many lack interaction among their members, multiple chat. Anyways I managed to get few friends here from all across the globe. After chatting with them for a week now, they wanted me to share my knowledge and skills (whatever little I have).
So here I’m, trying to give them some tips which they may use in order to learn English.
Here goes the list.
Language or communication skill is comprised of 4 important factors:
Reading
Listening
Speaking
Writing.
Reading is a habit. As mentioned by Dr. Seuss, famous writer and cartoonist “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you'll go.”It’s important to read as; the more you read more you know and more you will be able to express yourself. Reading helps you in enhancing whatever little you have. Like how would you be speaking about some famous personality if you have never read about him? How would you be able to talk about any political, social or cultural scenario if you don’t know about it? Take anything, if you want to be a smart talker or thinker you have to read a lot about it. So read a lot to know a little about something. Make a habit of reading about things which are going around you. Best is read newspapers. Read about topics which you like the most; things like politics, sports, movies, food or fashion etc. This gives you a lot of ideas about things which you like and a lot of knowledge to share. Sharing is a key of communication. Read different articles, columns, comics, magazine, books, novels, short stories, blogs, applications and letters. These varieties of things will help you later while you start writing or speaking.
Listening is equally important. You know a good listener is a good speaker too. The more you listen more you grasp. Have you ever tried listening to someone who has accomplished so much in their life? I mean for example Nick Vujicic( google him), listen to him once, see what difference he makes to you in mere 10 minutes. Listening attentively to someone plays an important role in your job and relationship. A famous quote says: "The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them." There is a major difference between listening and active listening. When you actively listen to people around you, you leave a good impression on them. Active listening means listen attentively and acknowledge. To get the habit start listening to Radio or audio books or may be some pretty good songs, I mean a good piece of knowledge can come from any corner!!! We focus more when we listenin the absence of any visual. It takes more concentration than usual. Listening is a skill that we can all benefit from improving. By becoming a better listener, we will improve your productivity, as well as our ability to influence others.
Speaking, it’s a major factor of communication skill. You can be judged in a minute, the moment you open your mouth and utter a word. Experienced people at work place or somewhere else can literally scan you if you keep on talking for few minutes. It’s a one big factor which helps people to be judgmental about your personality. So we should always keep a check and think before we open our mouth in front of others. There wouldn’t be any war if we were dumb. As by now when we are aware of the importance of speaking, a major factor in good communication skill; we should also work on it to improve it, make it more effective. Start speaking among your friends, family or may be in front of mirror. Keep a check on two things, pronunciation and tone. Follow talk shows on T.V, dialogues in movies, read words out loud. Open your mouth when you say or pronounce words. A fun way is to go to you tube put a song along with lyrics, read the lyrics, listen to the music and sing the song along. It helps a lot in pronunciation. Believe me such a fun way to improve pronunciation and tone. Same goes with movie or talk shows; you’ll see professionals speaking in a correct manner.
Writing, it comes late in the picture as you can always have a proof check for your writing skill before you actually submit it unlike speaking where you make a quick impression, having said that, it has a major impact in you communication skill. You will be judged by the way you write. Spelling mistakes or incorrect sentences leaves you with an impression which is definitely not positive. Though it’s more of an art and it needs a lot of practice and exercise. Even the great personalities around the world hire people to write on their behalf. So it’s actually not that easy. You will have to work a lot on it, initially though. Later you can just start brushing it up, learn new words new style and you will be good to go. To have good writing skill, start writing NOW. Start with writing a diary about your daily activity, your likes/dislikes your interest, love interest, hobby, frustration almost about anything in your head. How would you know if it is correct or not, take some help from someone who knows, internet, mentor, online anywhere. See the point is to write, if you don’t you wouldn’t you couldn’t. Now here is how reading will help you. When you will read about something which someone has written you will know how it was written that will do the magic.
This is what I have experienced and learnt in last four years. If you wish, please follow and it will certainly show you the results. Be it English, French, Japanese, Russian, Arabian or German works out for all of them…guaranteed. I m proof myself I know all of these languages…no … just kidding I only know Hindi and English.
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