SPEAK LANGUAGES & TRAVEL THE WORLD
  • HOME
    • Samples of FAST FLUENCY TRAINER
  • IMPROVE with SUSAN
    • ABOUT
    • TESTIMONIALS
    • How Being Bilingual Led Me To Teaching
    • PUBLICATIONS by Susan Brodar
  • English SPEAKING COURSES
  • BLOG
  • TRANSLATIONS & INTERPRETING
  • TRAVELLER's TALES
    • A WEARY TRAVELLER's TALES
    • TRAVELLING the world for sports: INLINE SPEED SKATING
  • CONTACT

IMPROVE your ENGLISH by THINKING in ENGLISH! But how…?

23/6/2017

5 Comments

 
Picture

Why is thinking in English really important?

I've always stressed that listening is the first thing to help you learn English naturally with all its expressions, grammar, collocations and phrasal verbs. The more you listen, the better you'll be able to absorb all the grammatical structures. On the other hand, you also need to practice speaking.

All this can only be done if you're thinking in English. How can you think in English?

It's not as difficult as it seems: you have to incorporate it into your daily life and the best way is to talk to yourself. So if you're alone, it's no difficult feat; of course, if you're in company, it's a little harder.

I have tested it on myself: I have taught myself a little Spanish and I always practiced when I was driving.

What you have to do is to literally speak to yourself - you see a pedestrian who is crossing the road in the wrong place and you think, “Well, couldn't he have gone on the zebra crossing?”, that is, if your level of English is at least pre-intermediate, but you can also say, “Oh look at that man: he's not on the zebra crossing!” That's for beginners or for people who have less experience learning English. What you have to do is to use the little language you do know and say it out loud to practice your speaking & pronunciation - at the same time, you'll inevitably be thinking in the language.

I always recommend incorporating it into daily life. I often send my students out of the lesson saying, “Okay, now open the door, close the door.”

As you're walking towards your car you can think, “Hmmm, where are my keys? I'm putting my hand into my pocket; I'm pulling out my keys; I'm putting the key into the .... “ Not everyone will know the word 'lock' - 'to unlock the car' but you make a mental note, “Okay, I don't know the word for that thing with which I open my car.” When you have time, you can either google the word on your smartphone or when you get home you can look it up in the dictionary.

Not knowing a word mustn't worry you. You have to just carry on and say, “Okay, so I'm opening the door; I'm pulling the door; I'm getting into the car; I'm closing the door; now I'm turning on the engine and so on.” Speak to yourself during any of your daily activities - when you get out of bed: “I'm going to the bathroom and brushing my teeth”.

Use any activity where you can speak to yourself out loud. If you're speaking out loud you're sure that you're thinking in that language and don't be deterred by any vocabulary you don't know.

Simplify - use simple words to express things and make a mental note of the words you can't think of. Then check them and if you do this regularly - you don't need to do it all day but regularly every day, regularly in any case - you'll see that your pronunciation will improve and also that you'll be thinking in English.

Thinking in English is one of the first steps to improving it, to making the language become yours, to make the language become part of your being. That's when you start really improving because if you can listen a lot, speak a lot and think a lot, you're already on the way to raising the level of your English or any language if it comes to that.

So don't forget: think in English... speak out loud... you'll notice the dramatic improvements within a couple of days.

Hope you implement this advice!

Please write in the comments box below how you feel after trying it out for a week or two!

Looking forward to your comments,

Your English fluency guide,

Susan
5 Comments
Raaj
24/6/2017 07:25:45 am

I like this method.i will try, and send me more benefcial tips for english spoken.thanks

Reply
Susan Brodar link
25/6/2017 12:28:39 am

I'm glad you find these tips useful. You can download some of my fluency training tips if you fill in this form: http://eepurl.com/b230l1. Try them out!

Reply
Miriam link
24/6/2017 04:26:09 pm

I find these tips really useful and easy to practise!

Reply
Susan Brodar link
25/6/2017 12:35:41 am

Wonderful Miriam, try out my fluency training tips which you can download by filling in this form: http://eepurl.com/b230l1

Reply
Lyubov link
16/8/2017 01:33:06 pm

Your method is wonderful! I like it very much. Have you got the other useful ideas? I am sure, I"ll make a good progress using your tips! Best wishes, Lyubov.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Acting
    Adults
    Advanced
    Birthday
    Children
    Christmas
    Describing
    Elementary
    Game
    Grammar Revision
    HEARTELT.ORG
    IATEFL
    Intermediate
    Listening
    Listening Comprehension
    Modals
    Passive Tense
    Past Simple
    Prepositions
    Present Continuous
    Present Perfect
    Present Simple
    Pronouns
    Pronunciation
    Reading
    Reflections
    REVIEW
    Scanning & Skimming
    Senses
    Songs
    Speaking
    Strategies
    Teens
    Toddlers
    Writing


    Picture
    Would you like regular English learning & teaching ideas?  Subscribe to my blog so you don't miss a post!
    * indicates required

    Author

    My name is Susan Brodar, born in London into a multilingual family and brought up bilingual English / Italian.

    I went to school in London until 15 when we moved to Germany where I finished my British education at Munich International School. I started teaching Italian at evening classes aged only 17 and studied Mass Communications and Journalism at Munich University.

    I continued teaching parallel to interpreting at trade fairs and business meetings as well doing translations. After working at the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade for a year I married my Italian globetrotting companion in 1983 and we set up our home near Venice, Italy where we continue to live with our two teenaged children.

    Having taken my British High School-leaving ‘A’ Level exams in English, Italian, French & German I am completely fluent in all four languages and am taking a DELE certification in Spanish to complement them.

    ENGLISH (native)
    ITALIAN (native)
    GERMAN (C2)
    FRENCH (C2)
    SPANISH (B2)

    Archives

    December 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015

    tutors directory

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Immagine
    Connecting Online Conference (CO16) PRESENTER
    Picture
Picture
Picture
  • HOME
    • Samples of FAST FLUENCY TRAINER
  • IMPROVE with SUSAN
    • ABOUT
    • TESTIMONIALS
    • How Being Bilingual Led Me To Teaching
    • PUBLICATIONS by Susan Brodar
  • English SPEAKING COURSES
  • BLOG
  • TRANSLATIONS & INTERPRETING
  • TRAVELLER's TALES
    • A WEARY TRAVELLER's TALES
    • TRAVELLING the world for sports: INLINE SPEED SKATING
  • CONTACT