How to improve my English skills (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

How to improve my English skills
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Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3472 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin	Message 1 of 3 04 December 2014 at 12:00pm \| IP Logged
	On English How can I improve my overall English skills? Goal at long term: Reach real C1 (C2 would be desirable just in case I move to an English speaking country and live there for years…). Before I start being criticized for not paying attention to the “same threads” already post by other HTLALers, yes, I have already read everything from the links bellow. +Reaching C2 level http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=39170&PN=2&TPN=1 +CPE advice http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38978&PN=3 +How to bring up English from B2 to C1 ? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=39249&PN=2&TPN=1 +C2 Temptations http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38507&PN=4 + Advanced English: How to progress? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38109&PN=6&TPN=1 +English: What to do next? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38024&PN=7 +How to improve spoken English http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=37803&PN=7&TPN=1 +Non-Reader learning English http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=37554&PN=7&TPN=1 Aside from my traveling experiences as a backpacker, I haven’t practised active skills in both Japanese and English for more than a decade. Therefore, my overall abilities got very rusty over all these years. I just read thesis, articles and books related to my field during my academic life and watched some TV series and documentaries, but not so often. At the beginning of October, I wanted to register to both Toefl and the Ielts exam and take it this month as part of my personal English challenge. So I started doing some mock exams. I have taken 30 mock exams (one every day). My listening average score was about 38 out of 40 questions. As for the reading, out of 30 mock exams, I scored full points in 14 of them. In the first mock test, I missed just one, so it was 39 out of 40 points. I didn't have trouble at all, though I thought I would have serious problems especially with English idioms, collocations, phrasal verbs and more advanced vocabulary. It was much easier than people have told me before. I guess I had about 10 minutes available after finishing the reading section, so it gave me some time to rest my brain because I always think that proficiency exams drains our brain. As for the speaking and writing section, I hired professional teachers on Italki. I took lessons with both male and female native teachers from UK and US (a few times with native people from Ireland and Australia as well) to get used to different accents (personal goal) and to hear different feedback regarding my performance. Some teachers sometimes are too polite to not give you straightforward critics and not “hurt their students’ feelings”. I don’t have problems with that, so I asked my teachers to be honest and criticize me so that I could avoid making the same mistakes and try to achieve somewhere between 6.5 and 7 in both speaking and writing sections. However, because the English center misunderstood my calling, I missed the chance to take the exam this year. What a pitiful story. Since I was already registered to Toefl which I just wanted to take for fun, I took it. I checked the results today and I got more points than I expected: 110 points. Reading: 30 points out of 30. Listening: 30 points out of 30. Speaking: 25 points out of 30. Writing: 25 points out of 30. I used the “cheating method” in the exam since I didn't do any specific preparation for Toefl. My writing and my speaking are clearly below passive skills. I just imitated how teachers answers to the Toefl exams' tasks by watching their Youtube videos. I spoke very slowly, but clearly, giving some good insight about what I was talking about with good examples in all my answers. I am not willing to take any Toefl exams anymore. Perhaps I am going to take Ielts and Toeic exams in. Other than that, I just want to ask you how I can achieve higher English level and restart improving again. I know it requires a lot of time, but still I think my case is simpler than if I were starting from the scratch. On Reading (vocabulary and grammar usage): On newspapers and magazines I am reading the New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, CNN, DW (English version), USA Today, The economist, New Scientist, American Scientist, Scientific American, National Geographic, some publication from the British Museum, The Guardian, The Independent, the Telegraph and the Times. On second tier priority (once in a while I click on the news or articles from one of the following newspapers or magazines): Business Week, Today Online, The New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, The Wall Street Journal, Men’s health, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Denver Post. I usually read about world, sports, business, tech, lifestyle, science, opinion or editorial, not necessarily in this order. I can say that I was missing an average of 1 word in the New York Times for the longest news or opinions/editorials. However, when it comes to the Washington Post, sometimes I miss 3 words (by reading about almost the same content to NY’s) and as for BBC, for the longer ones, I sometimes miss 3 words as well. I check the dictionary (I have Cambridge, Oxford, Longman and Macmillan; every day I pick up one of them). Is it only my impression or the WP is written with just a bit more sophisticated words? I have been reading topics on HTLAL related to my target languages and some other languages that I wanted to know more about. I have noticed that since I have sign up on this website, I could read and understand all the words without using any dictionary. Is it my impression or C1/C2 level speakers and even native speakers are using very simple words all the time? On books I am interested in reading fiction and non-fiction books. I am interested in many different fields: travelling (those travelling guides and also well written blogs related to the countries I would like to visit in the next few years), history, languages, literature, mythology, religions, translation, geography, psychology, anthropology, cuisine, visual and performing arts in general, architecture, sports, and so on. It is always better when you read for fun, not for specific proficiency tests which I find boring. I will start with audio books or perhaps read original books translated into English. I am looking for Harry Potter in Japanese and English. No Stephen King and no Tolkien suggestions, thank you. On speaking As I have already stated, I took lessons for Ielts purposes with professional teachers. I also took conversation lessons with community tutors who are English native speakers. One of the things my teachers and tutors have commented is that I mix both American and British English. Another thing is that they said that sometimes I stress the wrong word, though I could clearly express myself accordingly to what I was asked for (the Ielts’ tasks). Since I have finished watching Game of Thrones, I have been doing shadowing exercises. I am trying to imitate some random characters. I am also speaking to myself while I am in the gym (during one minute which is the resting time). I am like: “what would I tell this nice girl in front of me?”. No, I am kidding; I just try to focus on short and quick tasks such as the models asked in Toefl exams, for example. However, I choose something nice to think about and I try to summarize my ideas in 45 seconds. On listening Besides Ielts listening tasks, to improve my comprehension, I watched four seasons of Game of Thrones in four days last month.I also have been watching several random videos on Youtube regarding many field of my interest. Other TV series I watched: IT Crowd. I’d like to watch large amounts of sitcoms. The following ones are in my list: The Big Bang Series (I watched until season 4), The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Prison Break, How I met your mother, Orange is the new black, Criminal Minds, Fargo, Fresh Meat, Silicon Valley, Suits, The Americans, Veep and so on. I usually watch one whole season. If it keeps my attention and interest, then, I continue with the following season. I usually watch without the subtitles to force myself. I decided to watch documentaries from BBC and some Japanese TV (in English) as well. Writing I don’t know if people on lang-8 will correct my English writing, but I will give a try starting from 2015. I will try to write once every two weeks. I will try to give myself 100 to 200 hundreds words to summarize some article or chapter of book I have read. Cons: Lang8 won't work for long texts; I have noticed that as for some languages, native speakers don’t provide an accurate correction… I can ask some of my foreign acquaintances to read my writings as well, though I am not sure they will do that, unless I exchange languages with them. (The problem is that I cannot teach or offer them anything of their interest). I have many grammar books including “Grammar in Series” and grammar for CAE, for example. Would you recommend me using them? I don’t enjoy them myself. Some other resources I used in November and during two weeks in October: http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html http://learningenglish.voanews.com/?refresh=1 http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ http://www.liveleak.com/ http://www.ted.com/ https://www.englishclub.com/ http://teacherluke.co.uk/ http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/index.shtml http://efllecturer.blogspot.com.br/ http://www.english-test.net/ http://oupeltglobalblog.com/ http://teflgeek.net/ http://random-idea-english.blogspot.com.br/ http://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/ http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/ http://www.englishblog.com/ http://areti-aroundtheworldinenglish.blogspot.com.br/ http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/ What am I missing? Any other tips? How did you guys have learned idiomatic phrases, phrasal verbs and collocations? I also have noticed that one of my problems is the usage of certain prepositions. What do you recommend me? I personally don’t like grammar books; it is so boring that it gives me headaches. PS: I do listen to some songs sung in English, but “lyricstraining.com” doesn’t work with me. PS2: I don’t like SRS for English purposes only. I am already using SRS for Chinese and Korean. I am already using for many different purposes (L1  L2, L2  L1, Cloze, translation of expressions and so on). Thanks in advance! 2 persons have voted this message useful
Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4810 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian	Message 2 of 3 04 December 2014 at 7:02pm \| IP Logged
	Oh, that was a detailed one. About me: My speaking is probably not C2 (I haven't been tested in years) but I dare say the other skills are already there (I wasn't tested as it would be waste of money I need for something else right now). I used quite alternative methods to get to this point, including a few years of addiction to an awesome text based multiplayer rpg. :-) So, my two cents: 1. "Reaching real C1", that can mean various things. Even the most detailed cefr definitions leave some wiggle room and there are overlaps between the higher levels (B2-C1-C2). The only way to confirm your level is formal testing. CAE or CPE are the most common european ones. While the cefr scale has got a lot of uses, it is sometimes practical to define one's goals differently. Where do you feel you need to progress? What do you want to learn? I hope I understood the answers in your post correctly. And don't forget vast majority of mock tests on the internet gives only approximate results and includes only the few skills that are easy to test online. 2.As you repeatedly mention mixing American and British English to be a trouble, which one would you prefer to learn? The cefr exams test the european variant, even though it is well possible the americanisms may not be a trouble. 3.Speaking: In general, the higher level you aspire to, the fewer are the good quality teachers who are actually able to help you. If possible, read some recommendations before spending money on a teacher. If you wish to stop mixing Am-Br together, choose one and apply your choice to everything. The teachers, the tv series, anything. There is as well an impression I got several times while reading your post. Your learning is very test centered. But test formats are different from real life and various test formats differ from each other. You mention brief exam tasks being inspiration for your selftalk practice. Well, a C1 speaker should be able to hold longer and structured "speeches" as well. I think this is one of the points where you should primarily target skills you want to learn (such as "explain a scientific idea I read about clearly enough for my granny to understand", "tempt a friend to watch your favourite tv show with a vivid review"). 2.Reading: You surely read lots of newspapers. But the key to progress is leaving your comfort zone. I think it's high time you tried some novels. Harry Potter is a good start and quite anything else will serve. You might like to read about our Super Challenge. Basically, quite all the htlalers have found large amounts of input to be beneficial to our progress. Sure, there are various tastes in the genres and in methods to use the books, movies and so on. But the one thing we usually agree on is: "The more you read, the better." I am not giving you suggestions because you don't need them. Just take something you enjoy as it is much easier to get through a difficult book you enjoy than through an easier one that bores you. 3.Yes, even native speakers use quite simple words 99% of the time :-D That doesn't mean you shouldn't learn and use the rarer words though. Quite the opposites. The natives may use just the basic words most of the time but they understand the more sophisticated ones and they use them when appropriate. But I believe there is a point where vocabulary is no longer a huge obstacle to comprehension and your struggles will change to "what does the sobbing crying girl in the movie say?" or "how on earth can I understand someone with this speech impediment" or "what tiny village has this weird accent come from" :-) 4.Listening: I am not sure what kind of advice do you expect here. You are already doing the most important thing: you listen a lot. That is good. And if you wish to make your speech pure American English, your choice of tv series is correct. If you are interested in the Br as well, at least for comprehension practice, you might want to add something like Sherlock, Doctor Who, the Red Dwarf etc. Documentaries are fine but they tend to be more challenging in specialized vocabulary than in other aspects of listening. Many could be too easy for you. 5.Writing: Finding a pen pal can be helpful. You can offer awesome languages! Native Portuguese and Japanese, that is awesome! Try looking for a language exchange as a Czech native for a while and you'll appreciate your language background much more. ;-) lang8 is not for longer texts but texts of middle lenght are being corrected on Italki all the time. You might like to write for yourself and than wait a few days before rereading. Such a distance can reveal majority of serious mistakes, from my experience. 6.Grammar: Yes, it may be useful to go through some of it but you surely don't need many. I have good experience with murphy's English Grammar in Use and the follow up: Advanced Grammar in Use. But there are many options. 7.I think that is actually pretty important. There are more resources for ESL than you can use in a lifetime. Or in ten lifetimes. Just choose something you like and let the rest rot. Large amounts of real input are more important than large amounts of grammar books. 8.Idiomatical phrases and all that necessary dust: I learnt it from exposure. You are quite likely to internalize all you need from books, movies,... This is where fiction and stories prove more valuable than documentaries and news, in my opinion. Well, I hope you'll find something useful in the post. P.S. If it doesn't work for you, don't use it. Go for something more challenging :-) P.S.2 SRS is not obligatory either. There are other ways, such as extensive reading and listening, wordlists, just making an exemple sentence with a new word you encounter, mnemonics, and all that jazz. Edited by Cavesa on 04 December 2014 at 7:11pm 5 persons have voted this message useful
Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3472 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin	Message 3 of 3 04 December 2014 at 10:52pm \| IP Logged
	Thank you for your comments, Cavesa. It is always good when others can point out things that I couldn’t perceive by myself. 1. Mock tests Maybe I misunderstood the definition of mock tests, but I have borrowed many Cambridge and Oxford books designed for Ielts’ takers. I think they are called “Ielts with answers” (in the case of Cambridge’s books). Actually I was tested many years ago and I took FCE and CAE with grade A, but that’s the past. I think those old certificates don’t count much since I seem to have lost my touch with English. 2. Speaking Yes, you are right. Since my short term goal was to take those exams, indeed it was test centered. However, I have taken classes with tutors to talk about a variety of topics out of the proficiency tests’ typical tasks. Basically we chose an average of one to three topics which I would talk about for 7 to 10 minutes. Of course, this is still not “long enough”, but I needed to start from somewhere in order to reactivate my memory, vocabulary and so on. For example, one of my tutors asked me to read articles from BBC, NYT and WP regarding Japanese current Primer Minister and then, describe, explain and compare governments politics and economy plan. I had to explain what the main achievements were, and what the population was expecting and so on. After the initial 7 to 10 minutes, we were kind of in a discussion based lesson and learning how to argue using more consistent expressions. With another tutor, I remember talking about the best Japanese literature romance I have read. This task was a bit different from the previous one. I had to simply summarize the book; I guess I spoke for 10 minutes and she gave me feedback of how I could improve to express myself. And then, I continued talking about this book. We both agreed that it would be great with a pause somewhere in between my “speech”, so that I could refine it. With an Aussie tutor, she didn’t give anything to prepare in advance and I was okay with that. She gave me one random topic to discuss with her during all the class and it was like a debate (1x1). There were other variations such as watching videos regarding one or two topics followed by discussions. I will not continue with the test centered speaking process anymore. I am not going to take English lessons for now since I have already found some people to exchange languages with. So, we are going to discuss about our topics we have in common. For instance, we decided to watch the same TV series (not all, of course), summarize them and read each other’s review. Before or after that, we are going to talk about it, too. I will ask them about books they are reading. If I have chances to borrow them from my colleagues or buy at cheap rates, I will try to read. I think they have read Harry Potter which would be a good starting since I already know the story. 3. Listening Sherlock is one of my favorite TV shows. I will add Red Dwarf to my list and perhaps Doctor Who. 4. Writing That was a good advice. I will try writing about something and reread it after one week. 5. I can borrow many grammar books for free, so, I will leave it there as a future choice. I am fed up with grammar resources. 6. So, I will go with fiction since it is probably one of the weaknesses I need to work at most. As for me, I think this was the most important part of your post. Extensive reading and listening seems to work pretty well with me. :D Of course your post was very useful. Thank you very much!:D Edited by Nieng Zhonghan on 04 December 2014 at 10:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful

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Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3472 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin	Message 1 of 3 04 December 2014 at 12:00pm \| IP Logged
	On English How can I improve my overall English skills? Goal at long term: Reach real C1 (C2 would be desirable just in case I move to an English speaking country and live there for years…). Before I start being criticized for not paying attention to the “same threads” already post by other HTLALers, yes, I have already read everything from the links bellow. +Reaching C2 level http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=39170&PN=2&TPN=1 +CPE advice http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38978&PN=3 +How to bring up English from B2 to C1 ? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=39249&PN=2&TPN=1 +C2 Temptations http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38507&PN=4 + Advanced English: How to progress? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38109&PN=6&TPN=1 +English: What to do next? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38024&PN=7 +How to improve spoken English http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=37803&PN=7&TPN=1 +Non-Reader learning English http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=37554&PN=7&TPN=1 Aside from my traveling experiences as a backpacker, I haven’t practised active skills in both Japanese and English for more than a decade. Therefore, my overall abilities got very rusty over all these years. I just read thesis, articles and books related to my field during my academic life and watched some TV series and documentaries, but not so often. At the beginning of October, I wanted to register to both Toefl and the Ielts exam and take it this month as part of my personal English challenge. So I started doing some mock exams. I have taken 30 mock exams (one every day). My listening average score was about 38 out of 40 questions. As for the reading, out of 30 mock exams, I scored full points in 14 of them. In the first mock test, I missed just one, so it was 39 out of 40 points. I didn't have trouble at all, though I thought I would have serious problems especially with English idioms, collocations, phrasal verbs and more advanced vocabulary. It was much easier than people have told me before. I guess I had about 10 minutes available after finishing the reading section, so it gave me some time to rest my brain because I always think that proficiency exams drains our brain. As for the speaking and writing section, I hired professional teachers on Italki. I took lessons with both male and female native teachers from UK and US (a few times with native people from Ireland and Australia as well) to get used to different accents (personal goal) and to hear different feedback regarding my performance. Some teachers sometimes are too polite to not give you straightforward critics and not “hurt their students’ feelings”. I don’t have problems with that, so I asked my teachers to be honest and criticize me so that I could avoid making the same mistakes and try to achieve somewhere between 6.5 and 7 in both speaking and writing sections. However, because the English center misunderstood my calling, I missed the chance to take the exam this year. What a pitiful story. Since I was already registered to Toefl which I just wanted to take for fun, I took it. I checked the results today and I got more points than I expected: 110 points. Reading: 30 points out of 30. Listening: 30 points out of 30. Speaking: 25 points out of 30. Writing: 25 points out of 30. I used the “cheating method” in the exam since I didn't do any specific preparation for Toefl. My writing and my speaking are clearly below passive skills. I just imitated how teachers answers to the Toefl exams' tasks by watching their Youtube videos. I spoke very slowly, but clearly, giving some good insight about what I was talking about with good examples in all my answers. I am not willing to take any Toefl exams anymore. Perhaps I am going to take Ielts and Toeic exams in. Other than that, I just want to ask you how I can achieve higher English level and restart improving again. I know it requires a lot of time, but still I think my case is simpler than if I were starting from the scratch. On Reading (vocabulary and grammar usage): On newspapers and magazines I am reading the New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, CNN, DW (English version), USA Today, The economist, New Scientist, American Scientist, Scientific American, National Geographic, some publication from the British Museum, The Guardian, The Independent, the Telegraph and the Times. On second tier priority (once in a while I click on the news or articles from one of the following newspapers or magazines): Business Week, Today Online, The New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, The Wall Street Journal, Men’s health, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Denver Post. I usually read about world, sports, business, tech, lifestyle, science, opinion or editorial, not necessarily in this order. I can say that I was missing an average of 1 word in the New York Times for the longest news or opinions/editorials. However, when it comes to the Washington Post, sometimes I miss 3 words (by reading about almost the same content to NY’s) and as for BBC, for the longer ones, I sometimes miss 3 words as well. I check the dictionary (I have Cambridge, Oxford, Longman and Macmillan; every day I pick up one of them). Is it only my impression or the WP is written with just a bit more sophisticated words? I have been reading topics on HTLAL related to my target languages and some other languages that I wanted to know more about. I have noticed that since I have sign up on this website, I could read and understand all the words without using any dictionary. Is it my impression or C1/C2 level speakers and even native speakers are using very simple words all the time? On books I am interested in reading fiction and non-fiction books. I am interested in many different fields: travelling (those travelling guides and also well written blogs related to the countries I would like to visit in the next few years), history, languages, literature, mythology, religions, translation, geography, psychology, anthropology, cuisine, visual and performing arts in general, architecture, sports, and so on. It is always better when you read for fun, not for specific proficiency tests which I find boring. I will start with audio books or perhaps read original books translated into English. I am looking for Harry Potter in Japanese and English. No Stephen King and no Tolkien suggestions, thank you. On speaking As I have already stated, I took lessons for Ielts purposes with professional teachers. I also took conversation lessons with community tutors who are English native speakers. One of the things my teachers and tutors have commented is that I mix both American and British English. Another thing is that they said that sometimes I stress the wrong word, though I could clearly express myself accordingly to what I was asked for (the Ielts’ tasks). Since I have finished watching Game of Thrones, I have been doing shadowing exercises. I am trying to imitate some random characters. I am also speaking to myself while I am in the gym (during one minute which is the resting time). I am like: “what would I tell this nice girl in front of me?”. No, I am kidding; I just try to focus on short and quick tasks such as the models asked in Toefl exams, for example. However, I choose something nice to think about and I try to summarize my ideas in 45 seconds. On listening Besides Ielts listening tasks, to improve my comprehension, I watched four seasons of Game of Thrones in four days last month.I also have been watching several random videos on Youtube regarding many field of my interest. Other TV series I watched: IT Crowd. I’d like to watch large amounts of sitcoms. The following ones are in my list: The Big Bang Series (I watched until season 4), The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Prison Break, How I met your mother, Orange is the new black, Criminal Minds, Fargo, Fresh Meat, Silicon Valley, Suits, The Americans, Veep and so on. I usually watch one whole season. If it keeps my attention and interest, then, I continue with the following season. I usually watch without the subtitles to force myself. I decided to watch documentaries from BBC and some Japanese TV (in English) as well. Writing I don’t know if people on lang-8 will correct my English writing, but I will give a try starting from 2015. I will try to write once every two weeks. I will try to give myself 100 to 200 hundreds words to summarize some article or chapter of book I have read. Cons: Lang8 won't work for long texts; I have noticed that as for some languages, native speakers don’t provide an accurate correction… I can ask some of my foreign acquaintances to read my writings as well, though I am not sure they will do that, unless I exchange languages with them. (The problem is that I cannot teach or offer them anything of their interest). I have many grammar books including “Grammar in Series” and grammar for CAE, for example. Would you recommend me using them? I don’t enjoy them myself. Some other resources I used in November and during two weeks in October: http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html http://learningenglish.voanews.com/?refresh=1 http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ http://www.liveleak.com/ http://www.ted.com/ https://www.englishclub.com/ http://teacherluke.co.uk/ http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/index.shtml http://efllecturer.blogspot.com.br/ http://www.english-test.net/ http://oupeltglobalblog.com/ http://teflgeek.net/ http://random-idea-english.blogspot.com.br/ http://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/ http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/ http://www.englishblog.com/ http://areti-aroundtheworldinenglish.blogspot.com.br/ http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/ What am I missing? Any other tips? How did you guys have learned idiomatic phrases, phrasal verbs and collocations? I also have noticed that one of my problems is the usage of certain prepositions. What do you recommend me? I personally don’t like grammar books; it is so boring that it gives me headaches. PS: I do listen to some songs sung in English, but “lyricstraining.com” doesn’t work with me. PS2: I don’t like SRS for English purposes only. I am already using SRS for Chinese and Korean. I am already using for many different purposes (L1  L2, L2  L1, Cloze, translation of expressions and so on). Thanks in advance! 2 persons have voted this message useful
Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4810 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian	Message 2 of 3 04 December 2014 at 7:02pm \| IP Logged
	Oh, that was a detailed one. About me: My speaking is probably not C2 (I haven't been tested in years) but I dare say the other skills are already there (I wasn't tested as it would be waste of money I need for something else right now). I used quite alternative methods to get to this point, including a few years of addiction to an awesome text based multiplayer rpg. :-) So, my two cents: 1. "Reaching real C1", that can mean various things. Even the most detailed cefr definitions leave some wiggle room and there are overlaps between the higher levels (B2-C1-C2). The only way to confirm your level is formal testing. CAE or CPE are the most common european ones. While the cefr scale has got a lot of uses, it is sometimes practical to define one's goals differently. Where do you feel you need to progress? What do you want to learn? I hope I understood the answers in your post correctly. And don't forget vast majority of mock tests on the internet gives only approximate results and includes only the few skills that are easy to test online. 2.As you repeatedly mention mixing American and British English to be a trouble, which one would you prefer to learn? The cefr exams test the european variant, even though it is well possible the americanisms may not be a trouble. 3.Speaking: In general, the higher level you aspire to, the fewer are the good quality teachers who are actually able to help you. If possible, read some recommendations before spending money on a teacher. If you wish to stop mixing Am-Br together, choose one and apply your choice to everything. The teachers, the tv series, anything. There is as well an impression I got several times while reading your post. Your learning is very test centered. But test formats are different from real life and various test formats differ from each other. You mention brief exam tasks being inspiration for your selftalk practice. Well, a C1 speaker should be able to hold longer and structured "speeches" as well. I think this is one of the points where you should primarily target skills you want to learn (such as "explain a scientific idea I read about clearly enough for my granny to understand", "tempt a friend to watch your favourite tv show with a vivid review"). 2.Reading: You surely read lots of newspapers. But the key to progress is leaving your comfort zone. I think it's high time you tried some novels. Harry Potter is a good start and quite anything else will serve. You might like to read about our Super Challenge. Basically, quite all the htlalers have found large amounts of input to be beneficial to our progress. Sure, there are various tastes in the genres and in methods to use the books, movies and so on. But the one thing we usually agree on is: "The more you read, the better." I am not giving you suggestions because you don't need them. Just take something you enjoy as it is much easier to get through a difficult book you enjoy than through an easier one that bores you. 3.Yes, even native speakers use quite simple words 99% of the time :-D That doesn't mean you shouldn't learn and use the rarer words though. Quite the opposites. The natives may use just the basic words most of the time but they understand the more sophisticated ones and they use them when appropriate. But I believe there is a point where vocabulary is no longer a huge obstacle to comprehension and your struggles will change to "what does the sobbing crying girl in the movie say?" or "how on earth can I understand someone with this speech impediment" or "what tiny village has this weird accent come from" :-) 4.Listening: I am not sure what kind of advice do you expect here. You are already doing the most important thing: you listen a lot. That is good. And if you wish to make your speech pure American English, your choice of tv series is correct. If you are interested in the Br as well, at least for comprehension practice, you might want to add something like Sherlock, Doctor Who, the Red Dwarf etc. Documentaries are fine but they tend to be more challenging in specialized vocabulary than in other aspects of listening. Many could be too easy for you. 5.Writing: Finding a pen pal can be helpful. You can offer awesome languages! Native Portuguese and Japanese, that is awesome! Try looking for a language exchange as a Czech native for a while and you'll appreciate your language background much more. ;-) lang8 is not for longer texts but texts of middle lenght are being corrected on Italki all the time. You might like to write for yourself and than wait a few days before rereading. Such a distance can reveal majority of serious mistakes, from my experience. 6.Grammar: Yes, it may be useful to go through some of it but you surely don't need many. I have good experience with murphy's English Grammar in Use and the follow up: Advanced Grammar in Use. But there are many options. 7.I think that is actually pretty important. There are more resources for ESL than you can use in a lifetime. Or in ten lifetimes. Just choose something you like and let the rest rot. Large amounts of real input are more important than large amounts of grammar books. 8.Idiomatical phrases and all that necessary dust: I learnt it from exposure. You are quite likely to internalize all you need from books, movies,... This is where fiction and stories prove more valuable than documentaries and news, in my opinion. Well, I hope you'll find something useful in the post. P.S. If it doesn't work for you, don't use it. Go for something more challenging :-) P.S.2 SRS is not obligatory either. There are other ways, such as extensive reading and listening, wordlists, just making an exemple sentence with a new word you encounter, mnemonics, and all that jazz. Edited by Cavesa on 04 December 2014 at 7:11pm 5 persons have voted this message useful
Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3472 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin	Message 3 of 3 04 December 2014 at 10:52pm \| IP Logged
	Thank you for your comments, Cavesa. It is always good when others can point out things that I couldn’t perceive by myself. 1. Mock tests Maybe I misunderstood the definition of mock tests, but I have borrowed many Cambridge and Oxford books designed for Ielts’ takers. I think they are called “Ielts with answers” (in the case of Cambridge’s books). Actually I was tested many years ago and I took FCE and CAE with grade A, but that’s the past. I think those old certificates don’t count much since I seem to have lost my touch with English. 2. Speaking Yes, you are right. Since my short term goal was to take those exams, indeed it was test centered. However, I have taken classes with tutors to talk about a variety of topics out of the proficiency tests’ typical tasks. Basically we chose an average of one to three topics which I would talk about for 7 to 10 minutes. Of course, this is still not “long enough”, but I needed to start from somewhere in order to reactivate my memory, vocabulary and so on. For example, one of my tutors asked me to read articles from BBC, NYT and WP regarding Japanese current Primer Minister and then, describe, explain and compare governments politics and economy plan. I had to explain what the main achievements were, and what the population was expecting and so on. After the initial 7 to 10 minutes, we were kind of in a discussion based lesson and learning how to argue using more consistent expressions. With another tutor, I remember talking about the best Japanese literature romance I have read. This task was a bit different from the previous one. I had to simply summarize the book; I guess I spoke for 10 minutes and she gave me feedback of how I could improve to express myself. And then, I continued talking about this book. We both agreed that it would be great with a pause somewhere in between my “speech”, so that I could refine it. With an Aussie tutor, she didn’t give anything to prepare in advance and I was okay with that. She gave me one random topic to discuss with her during all the class and it was like a debate (1x1). There were other variations such as watching videos regarding one or two topics followed by discussions. I will not continue with the test centered speaking process anymore. I am not going to take English lessons for now since I have already found some people to exchange languages with. So, we are going to discuss about our topics we have in common. For instance, we decided to watch the same TV series (not all, of course), summarize them and read each other’s review. Before or after that, we are going to talk about it, too. I will ask them about books they are reading. If I have chances to borrow them from my colleagues or buy at cheap rates, I will try to read. I think they have read Harry Potter which would be a good starting since I already know the story. 3. Listening Sherlock is one of my favorite TV shows. I will add Red Dwarf to my list and perhaps Doctor Who. 4. Writing That was a good advice. I will try writing about something and reread it after one week. 5. I can borrow many grammar books for free, so, I will leave it there as a future choice. I am fed up with grammar resources. 6. So, I will go with fiction since it is probably one of the weaknesses I need to work at most. As for me, I think this was the most important part of your post. Extensive reading and listening seems to work pretty well with me. :D Of course your post was very useful. Thank you very much!:D Edited by Nieng Zhonghan on 04 December 2014 at 10:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful