Do you want more accuracy in English?

These ideas can help you create good habits and break old, ‘bad’ habits.

3 ways to good habits in accuracy

1. Identify what you like about English.

When you identify what you really like about English, you build enthusiasm for learning. Enthusiasm is energy. You need energy to change.

2. Find a way to transport yourself into English. Be IN English! THINK in English!

Put on a pair of dark glasses when you are thinking, writing, reading or listening to English, but them on. Or imagine that you have them on.

The idea here is to really feel that you have gone into another world – in this case, an English world. Use your imagination. How do you feel as an English speaker? How do you see yourself? How do you see your surrounding?

some specific grammatical differences to how a native English speaker sees the world is:

everything is divided into COUNT and NON COUNT nouns. – which is why we have MANY and MUCH…

we have irregular plurals: PEOPLE, MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN….

3. Write, write, write. Do free writing for 5 minutes per day.

This will help with fluency too, but the intention of this free writing is integrate what you already know.

Here is a way to do this:

• Select 3 words, phrases or even a verb tense to use in the writing
• Take a minute to imagine a context you can you them in
• Then write for 4 minutes without stopping. If you can use them all, great. If you only use 1 or 2 that’s fine too.
  
• Then read what you wrote. Give yourself 2 pieces of positive feedback. “It’s funny. It’s long…”
• Now reread it and check to see if the new phrases are used well. If it feels right, that is good enough. If it doesn’t feel right, and you really want to be sure, then check www.wordreference.com or google it.

That’s all. You can keep it or throw it away. All that matters is that you do it. and keep doing it.

Soooo… to summarize, in order to make real lasting changes to our accuracy in another language, we need to answer these questions:

• What do I like about the language? What is motivating me to learn it?
• How can I best put myself IN that language (and have as little influence from my own language(s)?
• How can I PLAY (instead of work) with the structures so that I really learn them?
  

Feel free to comment on these ideas or to add any ideas. Comment on this blog, or send me an email:

info@barcelona-ingles.com

5 Ways to Gain more Accuracy in English

1. Listen to people speak the language.

Listen to the radio, watch TV, YouTube, movies, or just people around you who use it. Notice how it sounds – learn to listen. Imagine yourself imitating a phrase.

2. Listen to yourself – can you hear what you are saying?

After learning to listen to and imitate others, the most effective strategy for Accuracy is self-correction.

Most of my clients say they can’t self correct. OK. I’ll teach you. Write for 3 minutes about what you did yesterday. Now just correct the verbs. If you have any questions, look on www.wordreference.com for help.

See, you can correct yourself. All you need to do is focus on one element in the language. Don’t worry about the rest now. As a tennis coach will say, “watch the ball!”  In this case, the ball is the verb. Later the ball can be prepositions, or irregular plurals or phrasal verbs. Just focus on one thing. Then you can self correct.

3. Remember, there are different concept in another language.

“PEOPLE” “ARE”… we are individualists – as opposed to collectivists

4. Ask yourself questions – what is one thing you would like a clear understanding of?

5. learn to correct yourself – self correction is the best way i know to accuracy

and as always it always help to notice if you are enjoying this process. in the long run, it leads to more connection