It is important for students of English to think about what the steps are deeply themselves in the very beginning before they set out to acquire good English skills. We as teachers, or as we prefer to call ourselves “coaches of communicative confidence”, can list up the steps and tell the students that these are important but really it’s best if the students make this list themselves. Here is mine but I encourage students to make their own list. Maybe it’s good to read my list a few times and then wait a day to think about it and then make your own list. But please don’t stop there! Take action! You will be glad you did!
- Decide that you will speak English each time you have a chance. (Try not pass up the opportunity)
- Find someone to speak English with a few times a week. (This could be a Japanese friend or a person from any country who speaks English quite well.)
- Write down your own introduction and practice telling it to someone. Be prepared to talk about yourself, your family, your job, your hobbies and favorite foods, sports, entertainers and places.
- Make a list of everyday verbs, nouns, adjectives (with their opposites) and adverbs. Make sentences using present, past, future, continuous and perfect tense forms of the verb. (You can do passive voice/active voice practice then or later.) I think you should have between 130 and 150 verbs in your list.
- Describe your room and town using lots of prepositions and adjectives.
- Practice asking and answering everyday questions. Do some Wh questions, some yes-no questions and some alternative questions using “or”.
- Choose a topic and read about it in English or your native language and write down and practice giving your opinion of it. (“I think ….is ……, because……”). Do one topic everyday.
I am sure there are other steps but these are quite useful and if you do them you will absolutely make progress. So try it!
Take care and work hard!
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