Creative tips to learn English: There are moments when an inability to speak in English leaves you speechless in a group of people with great communication skills. It is not only embarrassing as an individual but also as a professional when you miss out on important conversations.

In this post, I will share my experiences of learning the English Language. Within my local community in Shimla and in most of India for that matter, the most trending question is how to improve English speaking and writing. You can improve your skills in English without doing any paid course.

My tips will help you with your upcoming job interviews and group discussions. I am also sharing some reinvented ways to learn English on the Internet. I am not an English teacher but I have years of experience that can be helpful for those who want to improve communication skills in English. Also, improvement in our English makes it easier to learn the best that the Internet has to offer in an efficient way.

You must be knowing well that English speaking and writing skills are a weak zone in most people’s careers. It is not possible to live your whole life without speaking in English. Some people take advantage of this fact by offering costly English Speaking Courses to those who want to develop English communication skills.

But if you are ready to convert your weakness into strength, you can start taking small steps to improve without the need to do any special course. You have the power to learn it by practicing yourself and utilizing the resources available at online English Learning websites. But you should follow expert’s tips too if you are already quite good and just want to enhance fluency in English.

The Problem:

People often talk about the handicap they face with the English Language. They say, “We understand well but we can’t write or speak that well. They are lying. The ears are just listening. But listening does not mean your brain understands. It is a behavior and you absorb the behavior. The problem is that many people try to enhance English communication skills by using a shortcut method. They fail to grasp the basics of grammar and vocabulary which makes them prone to commit mistakes.

The Solution:

Start with the basics. Familiarize yourself with nouns, verbs, articles, adjectives, tenses and finally proper sentence construction with the correct punctuations. It can be hard for many people because English is not our native language. A large section of our Education system does not lay enough emphasis on improving a student’s English communication skills right from the start of kindergarten and early classes. For a developing nation like ours, The Importance of English in India is vital.

Oddly enough, some of the schools don’t even pay attention to developing good communication skills in Hindi. As a result, the student has a poor capacity for sentence construction, correct spellings and meaning of different words even in his mother tongue.

How can someone learn a second language like English if they have a poor understanding of their primary native language? So it is absolutely necessary that if your native language is Hindi then you should be able to speak and write Hindi correctly.

You have to be great in your Hindi communication skills first only then you will be able to translate it into English in your mind. Hindi is our national language but many of us are unable to speak and write correctly. So first my first tip to you is to speak, write, discuss and communicate well in Hindi. Only then you will be able to get a good hold on both written and spoken English.

10 Tips to improve English Communication skills

1.) READ! As much as you can. Pick up a good book, novel or biography written by a popular author. Start with reading 10 pages a day initially. When you read, you should speak each word loudly so that you learn the correct pronunciation of that word. When you come across a word that you have not seen before, underline it and look for its meaning in the dictionary. This will be of immense benefit for increasing your vocabulary and fluency in English.

2.) Watch free videos by renowned English Teachers on YouTube. One of my favorite references is EnglishLessons4U – Learn English with Ronnie! [engVid]. When you watch these videos, observe how the teacher is using pauses between sentences and punctuation marks to emphasize his point. After you hear a sentence, pause the video and repeat that sentence a few times until you are confident you can say it without a break or mistake.

But don’t just repeat it, understand it! Then move on to the next sentence. You must use creative tips to learn English and make things fun at the same time. After a little practice, you won’t need to pause the video, you will become fluent enough to repeat the sentence without a break.

3.) Read an English newspaper daily to improve your spoken English. Pick out your favorite sections from the paper and read the articles written by experts. Notice how they use to choose their words to get the message across in the least number of words. Be creative and imaginative, try to imagine yourself as a newsreader who is presenting the daily news to an audience.

It is even better if you have a real audience and a camera to record yourself during this so that you can find out where you are most likely to make mistakes.

4.) Use Google Translator when you want to know an English word’s meaning in Hindi. It not only translates single words, but it can also translate entire sentences and paragraphs. You can click on each of the translated words to know its type and definition, whether it is a verb, noun or adjective. Besides this you can also click on the sound icon to listen to the correct pronunciation, this is of tremendous help for learning how to speak English fluently.

5.) Develop a habit of writing in English. It does not matter if anyone else will read what you write or not. Write for yourself and then read it out loud. Use Google Docs or Microsoft Word for typing. Spelling corrections and grammatical options will be highlighted in red and green color. You can press F7 to view the options.

6.) Make some friends on Facebook whose native language is English. Start conversing or chatting with them. If you seriously want to get better at English then don’t feel shy or embarrassed to ask your friend to point out your mistakes during the conversation. Always comment or post status updates in English on social networks after you are sure the grammar and syntax are correct. Also, join or like the English Language related Facebook groups and also select notification near like button.

7.) Don’t copy mindlessly, feel the behavior of English speakers. Understand their reasons behind using a particular word or sentence. Then practice in any of the above-mentioned ways. Personally, I am comfortable during bathing. I do speak with myself loudly and it helps me improve talking in English.

8.) Watch English movies on HBO, Star Movies, etc. without looking at the subtitles. Use subtitles as a last resort when you don’t understand the sentences. Role-playing also works very nicely for learning how to speak English. Imagine yourself to be one of the actors in the movie and repeat his dialogues exactly as he says.

If possible get a friend to join you in this role-playing exercise for learning English to make it more interesting. This can also be done if you can find a script of a movie or a play to enact as an English Learning Exercise. Do keep in mind not to get used to the slang words that are commonly used in movies.

9.) Watch English news channels daily. If you find the movies are full of nothing but heavy accents and slang words, switch to a news channel and learn from them because they do not use slangs. I find watching the news is one of the better ways of improving Spoken English because they are very fluent, grammatically correct and well presented. I would advise watching India based English news channels so that you develop a neutral accent.

Watching International channels is also fine but there is a chance that you will pick up their accent which may not be suitable for you when you go for an interview in an Indian company.

10.) When you finally step into the professional sphere, you have to speak in English with degree holders who’ve had an English-focused Convent education since childhood. Mingle with them freely and try to learn from them without feeling bad about yourself. They will argue with you about your mistakes and you can learn from the opportunity. Another thing that seems to really work, is to join an International call center just for the voice and accent training if nothing else.

Some of the better companies like DELL, Converges etc. will usually train a newly hired employee for 2-3 months in English Speaking before they ask them to take calls.

After a few weeks of practice, you will start getting positive results and notice a change in the way you speak and write English. Your confidence will develop slowly but surely. Remember, you don’t need to be perfect initially, it will come with time and practice. I know I am not perfect myself but I can’t wait to be close to perfect. I don’t have any other option. I have to do it and I do my best. Nobody can stop me or you from learning how to speak fluently in English once we set our hearts and minds to it.

Conclusion: Start now, convert your weak zone into the strongest zone. No one on this earth helps you better than yourself.