How can you improve your

English in your own time?

E 1– I2

Read!
Special Tip
Everyday Life
Read about how to work and solve problems in everyday life in this website. These interactive lessons
give you the opportunity to experience daily challenges in English without facing real-world
consequences.
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/everydaylife

Reading will not only help you to improve your reading skills, but also your vocabulary and grammar as well.
But what should you read? And how much? Here are some tips to help you…

1) Join the KLC! There are lots of novels, magazines, newspapers, non-fiction and graded readers.
Graded readers are books which have been made easier for English language learners. They’re often
quite famous titles and are a good way to read literature classics. Also, there are often vocabulary and
comprehension exercises at the back of these books.

2) Try reading short newspaper articles on the internet. This is a good site: http://www.ananova.com/

3) Try to read at least one book a month. The Graded Readers are a great place to start. When you have
finished the book, try and write a short summary of the story.

4) Go to the website ‘Into the Book’: This is an absolutely incredible resource designed to help students
learn reading strategies — visualize, predict, summarize, etc. Users are led through the process of
learning each reading strategy with interactive exercises http://reading.ecb.org/student/index.html

Listen!
Special Tip

Total Physical Response has numerous animated activities for learners to match with audios.

All the actions in the exercises below should be physically done first.
http://www.digischool.nl/oefenen/hennyjellema/engels/tpr/voorbladtpr.htm

Practicing listening will help you to improve your speaking skills as well as your vocabulary. If you hear
someone say a word which you don’t understand, ask them what it means or try and remember it so you
can look it up in a dictionary.

1) Have a look at the Learning English section of the BBC website –

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/ there are lots of listening activities you can do.

2) Have a look at the “CBBC Newsround” website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/default.stm Click on

‘hear’ to listen to news reports. This website is originally for children so the language is a bit easier to
understand.

3) Watch English DVDs and turn on the English subtitles. This will help you to improve your listening and
reading.

4) Have a look here: http://www.esl-lab.com . There are lots of listening activities!

5) Listen to English language songs and try and learn the words – then sing them in the shower!

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© The British Council, New Delhi 2013

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
 How can you improve your
English in your own time?
E 1– I2

6) Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab: It has provided high-quality listening exercises on the web for a
longtime. It’s now gotten even better with the addition of videos.http://www.esl-lab.com/

7) Grapevine is an audio “chatboard” that is super-simple to set-up. It’s a private forum where students
can listen and respond to others and don’t have to be online at the same time. Grapevine gives groups
of people a place to get together and talk. English Language Learners can communicate with other
classes around the world, http://www.grapevinetalk.com/index.html

8) English Listening Lesson Library Online (Elllo). A range of listening comprehension tasks that use real
English language from around the world. http://www.elllo.org/

Speak!
Special Tip
Real English®, is a completely free site for learning English. Original videos & interactive lessons, an
English teacher always present to help you, and a Community of teachers & students learning
together. Extra activities on Facebook. Follow http://www.real-english.com/new-lessons.asp

Try to speak in English for at least two hours every week – with your friends, family or perhaps people you
have met in this class. Don’t worry too much about making mistakes – this will help you to improve your
confidence.

1) Exchange phone numbers with the other students and arrange to speak to one or two of them on the
phone once a week. Try and have a ten minute conversation – you can talk about what you’ve been
doing recently, current events or your homework!

2) Organise your own speaking club where you meet up with other students from the British Council, your
college or place of work once a week or even once a month for a discussion. You can take turns
choosing a topic.

3) Talk to yourself (silently!) on the bus. Have a set of general topics to choose from and take a new one
each day. (For example: your family, hobbies, favourite film, last holiday, job, ambitions, three wishes)
Try to think in English.

4) Try to work on your listening skills – this will also improve your speaking, including pronunciation.

5) If you want to work on your pronunciation have a look at www.soundsofenglish.org

6) English Central Watch, Learn, Speak! Learn English using thousands of the most engaging videos on
Business, Social, Travel, English Proficiency Exams, English Pronunciation and more. You can
listen to parts of the video, then repeat what they say and compare it to the original.
http://www.englishcentral.com/videos#!/

Write!
Remember to always read what you have written carefully after you have finished. Sometimes it helps to
wait one or two hours before checking it, instead of looking for mistakes straight away.

1) Read as much as you can! Read different types of things: newspapers, novels, non-fiction – this will
help you with your own writing and increase your vocabulary.

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© The British Council, New Delhi 2013

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
 How can you improve your
English in your own time?
E 1– I2

2) Keep a diary! If you can’t do it every day, try writing once a week, perhaps on the weekend. Every now
and then, read through the earlier entries and see if you can find any small mistakes.

3) Remember to always plan first before you begin writing. Think about what you want to say and make
some notes.

4) Collect your classmates’ email addresses and keep in touch via email.

5) Join a pen-pal or e-pal club. There are lots advertised on the internet. Here is one place you could try:
http://penpalsnow.com

6) Try doing some creative writing – short stories, poems or even recipes. Show them to your friends and
see what they think.

7) Listen and Write It is a new web tool where a user first chooses a text he/she wants to hear. Many of
the choices are from the Voice of America, and are both high-interest and accessible. Their levels of
difficulty are also indicated. Then the story is dictated to you, and you have to type it correctly. You can
choose the speed of the reading and how often it’s repeated. When you type, only the correct letters
actually show-up on the screen, and you can ask for hints. http://www.listen-and-write.com/audio

Grammar!
Remember that working on speaking, reading, listening and writing will help you to improve your grammar,
as well as doing grammar exercises. Here are some places you can find some good activities:

1) Have a look in the E-Zone of the KLC. There are lots of worksheets in the study boxes for different
areas of grammar. Find out what colour worksheets are for your level of English.

2) Get a copy of Raymond Murphy’s English Grammar in Use: Intermediate or Essential Grammar in Use:
Elementary. These are available at most good bookshops and cost about 200 rupees. There are lots of
grammar exercises as well as clear explanations.

3) Join the KLC and use the software on the computers like Network English and Tense Buster

4) English For All is a website designed for learning very practical English skills, grammar practice and
listening practice. http://www.myefa.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=welcome

5) Virtual Grammar Lab helps you search for free English grammar information and practice activities on
the Internet. http://www.spunkyenglish.com/

6) English Grammar Lessons has tons of engaging activities. Click on the grammar lesson you want on
the left side of the page and, then, when you get there, click on any of the exercises that will be on the
right side. http://www.english-grammar-lessons.com/

7) If you dread the perfect tenses this is the site for you:

http://www.multimedia-english.com/contenido/ficha/present-perfect-tense-1/3288

8) Another grammar site is: http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/grammar_topics.php

Vocabulary !

Special Tip
For Beginning and Early Intermediate English Language Learners, The Language Guide is clearly the
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© The British Council, New Delhi 2013

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
 How can you improve your
English in your own time?
E 1– I2

best place to go. It’s easy to navigate, and has excellent images, audio, and text.
http://www.languageguide.org/english/

Other interesting sites that will help you to master words suitable for your level:

1) pdictionary is an online picture dictionary of basic lexical sets with activities like word scramble/fill
in the blanks. http://www.pdictionary.com/
2) http://www.vocabulary.com/
3) http://www.vocabulary.co.il/building-vocabulary-adults/
4) http://www.vocabularya-z.com/
5) In2English has an excellent series of Animated Idioms exercises. They include an animated
cartoon with text and audio explanations of each idiom. This site is clearly a fun site and a
favourite on the list http://www.in2english.com.cn/working/archive.php?cid=10021028

Pronunciation !
1) ABC Fast Phonics is a phonics tutorial with sound and cartoons for all ages. It has audio narration
and clickable words to teach phonics. This method teaches just basic phonic concepts and includes
rules for vowels, consonants, and blends along with practice pages http://www.abcfastphonics.com/
2) If you want to work on your pronunciation have a look at www.soundsofenglish.org

Extra Resources !
1) Oxford University Press – Headway series. OUP has lots of extra resources to supplement your
course books. Headway is a popular title, and on this section of the site, learners can practice their
English by doing the various interactive exercises, puzzles, and games. There is also a Test Builder
where you can create their own tests for self-assessment.http://elt.oup.com/student/headway/

2) http://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/ You can test yourself here.

3) http://www.ego4u.com/ This site is a storehouse of facts and is good for projects.

/conversion/tmp/scratch/437721727.doc

© The British Council, New Delhi 2013

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.