vocabulary

Why Am I Not Improving English?

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Woman Writing in Daily Planner

Avoid translating

  1. You are translating from your native language into English. That’s a big “no-no.” Avoid translating from your first language into English. You can speed up your progress in English if you simply focus on listening to English and catch the words you understand. Use the context to guess understanding. For instance, if someone says, “There will be a big shin dig this Friday night.” Imagine you don’t know the word shin dig. Don’t translate it. Just imagine what those words could mean in terms of happening on Friday night: a feast, a reception, a get together, a dance, or a dinner party.

 

  1. You are not practicing enough English speaking with a native. Dedicate enough study time to make advancements. Don’t expect to study English only a half hour per week and improve rapidly. Intensive language learning of a few set hours every weekday can expand your progress. When you do have a set study session in-person with a native speaker, don’t forget to speak. Sometimes, when you are conversing with someone in another language, it’s easy to just listen, but you won’t learn English faster if you don’t practice participating more in the conversation. So, the more you converse, the more you will learn to communicate better in English. If you spoke English just one time today, next time or tomorrow, try to speak two times. Of course, the more often you practice speaking, you can improve your confidence and your fluency in the language.

 

  1. You lack confidence in your English abilities. How can you improve in the language if you do not believe in yourself? Be confident that you are learning, and you will acquire more language skills day by day. Avoid saying, “Sorry,” if you don’t feel confident using English fluently yet with a native speaker. If you come across a new word/phrase/express, you can always ask a native speaker, “What does (~phrase) mean?” Just because you may not be familiar with idiomatic expressions or advanced vocabulary, you don’t need to apologize if you are not at the highest level. Remember that you are trying. Give yourself a break because you are learning a language. Keep trying your best, be confident that you will learn more and more. No doubt, you will learn more vocabulary as you progress to a higher level.

 

  1. You are not listening to a sufficient amount of English daily. Perhaps you do not understand enough of what you listen to. Let’s say that you comprehend only about 65%. This is particularly a concern if you live in a foreign country (a non-English speaking place) and do not have access to listening to speakers of English face-to-face. Solution: get a native trainer online or in-person, or listen to English on the web. Practice listening to English every day to train your ears to focus on words you already know in English and listen for word chunks, phrases, which you may be familiar with to comprehend the context. Avoid listening just for grammar. You won’t be able to attain fluency by picking apart a conversation through grammar points. Stop trying to catch single words. Neither will you be capable of advanced fluency if you are concentrating only on individual words in a dialogue. You need to listen for how phrases are grouped together in a pattern. You can listen to music, television, or movies to gain more fluency and understanding. Tell your ears they must listen to English phrases, understand English in context, and capture the bigger picture, the overall meaning.

 

  1. You forgot what you already studied in previous lessons. If you are not remembering your intake, then taking notes on what you learned during your study sessions will help you review and keep the knowledge fresh. For example, keep an English notebook for acquiring more information. In your journal (digital or paper,) you can take note of phrases that are new that you can learn. Then, try to use these new groups of words if you think of it in context. If you write down only the vocabulary word, you may not understand in the future how to use it in context, so try to catch an entire phrase. Later, when you review your notebook, the whole phrase will serve as a reminder of the meaning in context. Consequently, it will be much easier to recall. Furthermore, it will be a base for you to move up to the next level.

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Accurate Content on the Integrated TOEFL Writing

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MC900442141When writing a summary for the TOEFL integrated writing task, use a set approach to maximize quality content, organized structure, and sound clarity of ideas. The main difference in this task is that it is important to reference the reading and lecture sources. In this essay, you do not write your opinion; rather, you report and contrast the viewpoints of each source. Since the reading and lecture main ideas and key points and structure of your essay count for a lot in the score, proper note-taking is an advantage.

Precise points from the reading and lecture are crucial. To be accurate, take notes. Avoid being vague by writing notes and using those notes to write an effective summary. In fact, the more precise you get with the lecture details, it will be to your advantage on your score, since this task evaluates your listening ability by testing your skills to integrate reading, listening and writing.

In order for the summary to be credible, use formal academic writing for this TOEFL task. If you refer to the reading points, cite the author, whereas to emphasize the lecture ideas, then report from the lecturer’s perspective. You can write the words “the author, the writer, the reading, the passage” to describe what the reading states or “the lecturer, the professor, the lecture, the speaker” to describe what the lecture mentions.

If you organize your essay with a clear structure, it will give the rater an obvious indication in the introduction as to where you are going in the summary. A few different ways to structure an essay exist. One organized approach is to write five paragraphs with an introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction would answer the question and state the main ideas of each source with their relation. Each body paragraph can be geared towards a point-by-point explanation: one reading point with one lecture counterpoint and their relation. In the conclusion, restate the thesis.

A variety of word choice can add clarity of ideas to your essay. However, an essay where the same word/phrase/or sentence structure is repeated again and again is often scored lower since repetitions are considered poor academic writing. Consequently, avoid repeating. Instead, use synonyms or similar phrases. When using similar phrases, be careful not to substitute a technical word choice for a more general word and vice versa. For instance, if the essay topic is about dinosaur (technical) legs then write that, even if this means using the same word over again. Do not insert random general synonyms such as “animal.” Also, avoid repeating the same phrase or verb when referring to what the author or lecturer said. In formal essay writing, use a variety of reporting verbs to cite the source. It can be written as follows: “Although the author suggests that…, the professor asserts the contrary” or “According to the lecturer…” or “While the lecturer alleges that…., the author claims the opposite.” To make an essay flow smoothly, use various reporting verbs such as “argues, adds, alleges, affirms, acknowledges, asks, asserts, assumes, believes, challenges, claims, concludes, considers, contradicts, denies, demonstrates, describes, disagrees, discusses, disputes, emphasizes, explains, finds, hypothesizes, mentions, maintains, observes, proposes, puts forth, posits, points out, postulates, questions, recommends, refutes, rejects, reports, says, states, stipulates, suggests.”

Approach this task by taking notes on the main points in the reading and lecture and integrating that content accurately in an organized structure with a variety of vocabulary words. In this manner, the summary will flow smoothly, and the rater will understand the content more readily.