English speaking tutor – Megan:  Hello everyone.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Megan here.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Today I want to talk about a question that I get asked very frequently by people learning English.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And that is how can I improve my English and how can I improve my English skills?

English speaking tutor – Megan: This is a very important question for anybody learning any language.

English speaking tutor – Megan 0: How do you go about improving your abilities.

English speaking tutor – Megan: The best that I can give anyone is to create your own environment in this case.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Create your own English environment.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Because of most of us when we’re learning another language. We don’t live in a country where Languages are spoken natively.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And that causes us a lot of difficulties because were maybe not sure what to do to help ourselves to learn the language better or more easily.

English speaking tutor – Megan: So here are some tips about how to create your own environment.

English speaking tutor – Megan: First and foremost reading you should read every day.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And I always encourage people to read is something that interests them so.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Find a book or an article about a subject that you find interesting and even if you can only read for ten or fifteen minutes a day.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Trying to read a little bit every day and try to keep it at your level.

English speaking tutor – Megan: So let’s say you’re an intermediate English learner but you’re trying to read a very difficult book. That might not be the best idea for you. Don’t want it to be too hard.

English speaking tutor – Megan: If you’re a beginner and then you should start with children’s books and I know people might think well I’m too old for that I am an adult. But your level of English is only at that level.

English speaking tutor – Megan: I’m learning Norwegian and I’m still a beginner. so I read children’s books in Norwegian young children’s books and there’s no shame in that.

English speaking tutor – Megan: It means that you will get through the material in there it’s not so overwhelming.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Because there’s still a lot of words. You won’t know. So keep it a little bit level appropriate.

English speaking tutor – Megan: If you find something interesting and it proved to be a bit too hard trying to find something a little simpler and when you come across the word you don’t know. Write it down and look it up in the dictionary I think a lot of people are forgetting to use a dictionary these days and it’s very helpful in learning what does the word mean.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Next. I say it right every day so. This can be many different things you can write your grocery list in English or write a list of things you need to get done.

English speaking tutor – Megan: That day in English keep a journal and write about your day or how you felt about something that happened. Or maybe something that you watched you can reflect on it.

English speaking tutor – Megan: You can also take a picture of a flower or some scenery or a car and try to describe it in as much detail as possible. This will help you to expand your vocabulary slowly as you look at it and maybe you can then go back and look at look at how can I say this better what could I add to it further.

English speaking tutor – Megan: To improve my vocabulary. Well, I always say listen, so fine to show whether it’s a TV series a movie any some news programs documentaries watch them in English. That way you can listen to native English English speaking.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And you will see a lot of times in context with how we respond to things the way, that we search on the internet to words and sentences and the motion we put behind it in different ways.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And also just the pronunciation. Grammatical order of sentences will be there for you and you’ll just be listening to it as you go along again.

English speaking tutor – Megan: If there’s a word you come across that you’re unsure of and. You not know. You should write it down.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Maybe that’s harder because you’re listening to it and not quite sure how to spell it are quite sure what people were saying but you could also come to maybe the community here.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And ask well.

English speaking tutor – Megan English speaking tutor – Megan: You know do you know this show or this article there some words in it I don’t know maybe somebody can help.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Another key part and this is may be more difficult for people is speaking you should speak every day.

English speaking tutor – Megan: This is the problem when you don’t live in a country with native English speakers. It’s very hard to find people to talk to.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Thing I do is encourage people to find friends to speak with. They’re not native English speakers. But it doesn’t matter if you’re practicing the language for practicing opening up your mouth and saying the words that are still better than not opening your mouth at all.

English speaking tutor – Megan: So, ask some of your friends who might be interested in English as well that If they would mind speaking with you for a few minutes every day it would be good for all of you.

English speaking tutor – Megan: If you have no one to speak with or do you want to practice more. You can read aloud so that book or article that you’re reading you can read it out loud.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Not also gets your mouth more familiar with saying the word.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Might still be a little bit off that’s okay the more you say.  It more familiar it will be coming to you.  You can also repeat things that you hear in the show that you’re watching.

English speaking tutor – Megan: If you’re watching you know series you can just go back, Or pause it and say okay I want to say the sentence now and try to repeat the sometimes the way that the people are saying it in the show.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Now Ssomething else you can do, and that’s kind of something I’ve seen in groups like this one is that people will ask is there anyone who wants to speak with me.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And you can always try to find people because everybody here is trying to learn English. Maybe they want to get together on Skype or what’s up or what’s that messenger.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And Yeah talk with each other about you know things like general subjects whatever interests you to speak about.  I know a lot of people want to speak with native English speakers, but this becomes very difficult. I think that there aren’t that many native English speakers in a lot of facebook groups like this.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And We got a lot of requests. I personally got a lot of requests asking will you please speak with me I want to practice my speaking skill now.

English speaking tutor – Megan: I’m open to exchanging voice recordings when I have time,  but I can’t have a lot of conversation with most people. I don’t have the time and even if I have only ten minutes.

English speaking tutor – Megan: To everyone that asks I would have no time to do anything during the day.  So you know.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Understand that if a native English speaker says “no”.  There’s probably you know a good reason they’re not trying to be cruel. But maybe they’ve been inundated with too many people asking. Fortunately, there’s also the option of finding online teachers and tutors or local teachers and tutors,  perhaps if you live in a bigger city there’s somebody teaching classes or offer tutoring in your area.

English speaking tutor – Megan: But you can also go online there are a lot of people that tutor online,  but unfortunately you will have to pay for that. And you always have to be a little bit careful that they’re not going to rip you off.  If they’re offering learning and master English for just $499 dollars in ten weeks that’s probably a scam you.

English speaking tutor – Megan: In all languages a marathon.  you won’t learn the language in ten weeks.  You may learn some important things,  but anything that advertises that you can you know speak better speaks perfectly.  You know English or any other language in X. amount of weeks is a ripoff.  When I went to Dutch class when I lived in the Netherlands it took one to two years of three hours a day five days a week or more.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And that was then also having to turn around and study for about as many hours at home.  Before you spoke the language well enough to attend university. And that didn’t mean you were fluent in that language, you could cope with the university level of Dutch.  So languages are marathons anything that promises a quick fix is probably a scam.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Now to other things as vocabulary is important. And like I said tips like writing down words you don’t know when you come across them look them up.

English speaking tutor – Megan: But in practice and try to use them in a sentence,  either say it out loud or write it down are very good ways to practice using the word.

English speaking tutor – Megan: My mom taught me to do it even with English was trying to learn one new word a day. So find a word in the dictionary or in your book that you don’t know, and just pick that as your word for the day to study and learn how to use it.

English speaking tutor – Megan: One last thing is to understand the culture behind the language. Because if you know all of the words,  but you don’t know the way that people think. You will still make a lot of mistakes and be misunderstood.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Now. a good example of this was sometimes you know, we say things in a certain way in our own culture, but it comes out wrong in other cultures.

English speaking tutor – Megan: So I know when I was hanging out in Chinese chat rooms, many of the Chinese people were saying I am coming and it was to announce that they were in.

English speaking tutor – Megan: You know the group they were ready to talk with everybody. It was perfectly normal for them to say this.

English speaking tutor – Megan: But in English, we don’t announce our arrival we don’t say I am coming we don’t say I am here.

English speaking tutor – Megan: It would be just come into a group and say hello or start to engage in the conversation that’s going on.

English speaking tutor – Megan: So you need to know the way that the culture works in certain ways of speaking to people. Maybe appropriate or inappropriate based on culture.

English speaking tutor – Megan: And this can be very difficult because we all come from very different cultures and even you know the way that.

English speaking tutor – Megan: We speak and the US right comes from or perhaps you know even the U. K. Can very some of our vocabularies is different.  But even the way we might address each other.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Or joke about something could be a little bit different. Learn about jokes learn about idoms these are all.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Key things to pick up on slanting because you will run into it in everyday life.

English speaking tutor – Megan: So these are a few tips that I can give you about creating your own English environment.

English speaking tutor – Megan: If you have any questions about anything I’ve said in this video please feel free to ask below in the comments.

English speaking tutor – Megan: I really hope that some of this was useful for you.

English speaking tutor – Megan: So take care and have a good day.

English speaking tutor – Megan: Bye bye.

The End of Megan’s “Learn English Speaking – How can I improve my English skills” video transcript,

Thank you for watching and reading my online English learning class – “Learn English Speaking – How can I improve my English skills”.  I hope you find it useful.

Thank you, Megan Wilber.