Monday, 8 April 2013

STEP 2: HABITUAL ACTIONS (USAGE OF SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE)

Let's take a look at some of the habitual actions of a student. Habitual actions means activities that people do in a repetitive manner. The form of tense used here is simple present tense. You can note that 'ing' forms are not used anywhere in the given examples. Many people make the mistake of using 'ing' forms when talking about their habitual actions.


I get up at 6 am

nI brush my teeth.
nI drink tea.
nI take bath.
nI read newspapers.
nI have my breakfast at 8 am.
nI wear my uniforms.
nI go to school at 8.30 am.
nI reach my school at 9 am.
nI attend the assembly.
nI greet my teacher.
nI study my lessons.
nI listen to my teacher.
nI play with my friends during the interval.
nI have my lunch at 12.30 pm.
nI leave my school at 3.30pm.
nI reach my house at 4pm.
nI recite my prayers.
nI take bath.
nI watch TV.
nI study my lessons.
nI have my dinner at 9pm.
nI go to bed at 10pm.

Thursday, 4 April 2013

STEP 1: WORD ORDER & SENTENCE



Good morning, today we will have a discussion on some of the basics in English language which would be useful for beginners. Remember, if you don’t have the basics right, you are more likely to make a lot of mistakes later on.

There is a lot of difference in the structure of sentences or how one frame sentences in their mother tongue and translate it into English. Many people just translate from their mother tongues to English word by word and eventually allow themselves to be made fun of in front of their friends or strangers. Imagine if it happens in your office when you are attending a meeting and you are asked to speak in English about the ongoing project of the firm. First of all you will be lacking the confidence to speak as you may have never tried it before and again even if you try to speak something you have lot of doubts on how to frame a sentence or may be lacking in essential vocabulary. The end result will be that you won’t be speaking anything at all due to fear or even if you speak something you would make a lot of mistakes. In both the cases, the consequences won’t be positive.

So, let’s have a look on how words combine to form a sentences and whether there is any particular order in which we need to arrange the words.

WORD ORDER: The way in which words are arranged is called word order.

                           Subject   +   Verb    +    Object

                                I               read        storybooks

                              He             speaks          English

Here, the subjects are ‘I’ & ‘He’

The verbs are ‘read’ & ‘speaks’

So you would have noticed from the above examples that the ‘Subject’ comes first followed by the ‘Verb’ and then the object. Try to identify the subject, verb and object from the following sentences.

a) I play football.
b) I watch reality shows.
c) She helps me a lot.
d) Mary writes poems.
e) John goes to church on Sundays.
f) I visit my friends very often.
g) My mother cooks very well.

Try to find out the answers and post it in the comments session. Let me see who makes it first.

We will talk more about different type of subjects and verbs later as it requires a lot of explanation to get a clear idea.

Try to read some articles or a newspaper and try to identify the subjects and verbs. Then you will get a better idea where certain subjects are used and whether some subjects make some changes in the structure of the verb.

SENTENCE: Sentence is a group of words arranged in a particular order which makes sense or gives a meaning.

I hope the session was useful for you and feel free to comment and let me know whether I should give a more detailed description. Do remember good students make a good teacher.
Let your comments and doubts help me grow into a better teacher.

Signing out…Have a great time…



Tuesday, 2 April 2013

AN INTERACTIVE COURSE IN SPOKEN ENGLISH (COURSE CONTENTS)


Hope all of you have gone through the previous posts. If you haven't, please take some time to go through those posts because from here onwards we are going to start the chapters. 

THE CHAPTERS ARE REFERRED TO AS 'STEPS'.  

THE MORE THE STEPS YOU CLIMB, THE MORE FLUENT YOU BECOME...

COURSE CONTENTS
  • COMMUNICATIVE ITEMS
  • COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR
  • SITUATIONAL CONVERSATIONS
  • SPEAK ON TOPICS
  • VOCAB BOOSTER
  • GROUP DISCUSSIONS & DEBATES
  • QUESTION OF THE DAY
  • SELF ASSESSMENTS

Monday, 1 April 2013

TIPS FOR FLUENCY


Most of you would have searched the internet for the easy ways to enhance your fluency in English. There would be a heap of information which could lead you nowhere. Again, the key to success here lies in your consistent enthusiasm towards learning the language.

Let's start with a brief account about the four crucial skills to be mastered to develop proficiency in English or any other language. They are reading, writing, listening and speaking. Many people can read and write well and can understand to a moderate level but face real trouble in speaking out their ideas in the right manner. Let me underline the fact that all these four skills are inter-related. Try to implement the following activities in your daily life with some passion.

1. Read English newspapers everyday. You can read any news that suits your interest.
Objective: Get acquainted with the sentence structure/Improve your vocabulary/Get familiar to different ways in which ideas are expressed
(You can also read storybooks or articles of your choice)

2. Watch any English news channel or any English programs; be it a movie or cartoons or a documentary of your choice.(Minimum of 15 minutes a day)
Objective: Listen to native English speakers and get familiar with their accent/Overcome MTI or Mother Tongue Influence/Learn usages in English which can be applied to your daily conversations.

3. Take any topic of your choice and speak about it in front of a  mirror and record your voice too..
Objective: Develop confidence/Identify your mistakes with the help of a tutor/Identify MTI/Develop creative thinking

4. Listen to songs in English and try to write down the lyrics. Listen  many times even though it could be a daunting task. Then get the lyrics of the song from Google and compare what you have written to the original one. Try to sing along by looking at the lyrics. (I have done this for years and had significant development in listening skills)
Objective: Improve your listening skills step by step and in an enjoyable manner..

5. Read a local newspaper in your mother tongue and translate a paragraph or two into English.
Objective: It helps to identify tour sentence structure and any issues with your grammar usage.

6. Speak in English to a friend who is really interested to develop his English proficiency. Do it at least twice in a week. Have a conversation about the latest movie you have watched. You can try to narrate the story of the movie in your own words. Don't worry about your mistakes. Let the mistakes come out. Then only your friend can help you out.
Objective: Overcome fear to speak English/ Identify and correct your mistakes/ Gain confidence day by day

There are some other interesting ways too but this is good enough to start with.. Wish you all the success and its very important don't keep it for tomorrow..
 
         START IT TODAY

            

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE IMPORTANCE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE


English, as a universal language, has a unique position in the world which influences people in all spheres of their lives. Be it social life, education or job atmosphere, it holds its unanimous position in our lives.

A decade ago, English was just an official language to a majority of non-native speakers in the world. But now, English language holds its position not only in the official atmosphere, but in all spheres of life. Just imagine someone making a post in facebook or other social sites which is completely devoid of its original meaning (even though short posts are the trend, at least the meaning should be understood), people will find it hard to understand what he/she meant by the post. So having less proficiency in English can really be an obstacle in our social lives.

Another example which I would like to quote is an interview I conducted with a candidate who applied for the post of Spoken English trainer in my company. You would understand how tiring it would be to interview nearly twenty candidates in a day for filling up a vacancy. And this guy was the last one who came for the interview. I checked his credentials and it made my heart ring with hope that this could be the man I am looking for. Having this great impression in my mind ( regarding the credentials only; he didn't speak a single word until now), I asked him to introduce himself. He started with ‘My name XY’. That made my heart startle wondering where the ‘is’ had gone. I thought that it could be a careless mistake and asked him to continue. He told me his place, family details, education and hobbies too. You could guess what happened. Let me quote some of his answers here.

I am coming from XX.
My family is three members.
I has two childrens.
I(something is missing) postgraduate in literature.
(LETTERS IN BOLD SHOWS THE MISTAKES HE MADE)

Look at these four sentences from a post graduate in English literature and someone who aspires to train children to speak English. How does it sound?

This is the situation with the majority of people where they don’t know grammar rules and even if they know grammar rules, they don’t know how to apply it while conversing with others.

Isn't it high time to check your proficiency in English so that you won’t commit the same mistakes?

 If your answer is yes, this blog is definitely for you...

Again, learning to speak English should be made a habit and you can’t learn to speak English fluently within seven days or a month as some of the websites advertise. It takes a lot of time and effort and that’s why I am here to help you..
I strongly recommend a student-teacher interaction just like in a normal classroom. Ask your doubts and clear it as soon as possible.

COME, LET’S START THIS WONDERFUL JOURNEY TO THE MAGICAL WORLD OF ENGLISH; TOGETHER; HAND IN HAND…


WELCOME TO FLUENCY STEPS BLOG




The objective of this blog is to help students to learn the basics in English language through an innovative methodology called 'Learn by doing'. It is also helpful for teachers who are passionate to work as communicative English teachers. The blog provides ample resources for students and teachers to meet their needs. The resources of the blog are managed by experts in the field of Communicative English. The site will cover an innovative course in English which is interactive. Readers are requested to learn the materials and start practicing it as soon as possible and master it. The materials posted are chosen from real classroom interactions from the real-life experience of the author.
Feel free to surf the blog and contribute towards a better learning atmosphere...