How to Improve the Students’ English Abilities

上海市城市建设工程学校高二英语 盛建红

How to Improve the Students’ English Abilities

    Everybody knows that English is more and more important in our daily life. All of the parents hope that their children can master English in order to find good jobs or go abroad. As English teachers, we all face the problem of how to improve the students’ English abilities. That is to say, how can we improve the students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities? If we just reiterate how important English is, our students will feel boring. I think we can think of a lot of ways to motivate our students to learn the foreign language. For example, once I asked my students why they need to learn English. Most of them answered that they wanted to earn more money or some of them wanted to go abroad. So I told them even the shop keepers in Xiangyang Road

Clothes and Gifts Market could speak very fluent English, why? Finally they got the answer themselves. They understood the importance of English in our actual life. So they decided to improve their English. Here are some of the good ideas I have given to my students.

First of all, we can listen to the foreign radio stations in our spare time, such as BBC or VOA; we can also watch the discussions on TV such as CCTV-9 because these discussions usually feature columnists and commentators who are very knowledgeable and well-educated. Listening to the ways they express their ideas gives us a better idea of how to express ourselves. While listening, we can write down some new words, sentences and language structures. In this way, we can not only improve our listening ability but also improve our writing ability. So if we have time, we’d better watch more English movies.

 Secondly, we should be confident of ourselves. We needn’t worry about making mistakes. We should be brave enough to open our mouths. We should speak English as often as possible. For example, our teachers always give the students chances to have the daily talk. We should be brave enough to catch the chances to give the presentation in our English class. We can also go to the English corners to chat with the foreigners. We can talk with each other in English in our classroom. At home, we can talk with our parents in English. (We all know most parents know English very well.) In a word, if we want to improve our speaking ability. We should speak English as often as our Chinese.

Thirdly, reading is very valuable in learning English. We can read English newspapers, magazines and so on. We all know reading provides the knowledge we are unable to gain from personal experience. By reading books, we can gain information about the differences of different countries and we can obtain knowledge of the past. So reading a lot can not only enrich us all kinds of knowledge but also make us keep up with the advances of modern science. Reading English materials aloud every day is also a useful method of learning English. If we keep reading aloud every day, we can gradually adapt to the language environment. Thus, we are able to make the best use of the language.

  Last but not least, we should practise writing in English. We can write diaries in English every day. We must write compositions carefully at school. And if we write letters to our friends, we can use English. If we send E-mails to our friends, wecan use English. If we want to send short messages to others, we can also use English.While writing, We can look up the news words in the dictionaries. So if we can insist on catching every chance to write in English,we can be familiar with the words phrases and language structures. At last we can use the language skillfully.

  Learning English well needs perseverance and accumulation. We should devote more time to learning English. If my students can follow my suggestions and try these techniques,I’m sure they can improve their English abilities.