HOW TO PRACTICE ENGLISH in a non-English speaking country

Hello, my name is Emma, and I am here to help you with your English.

Today, I wanted to talk about a question I get a lot.

Many learners of English ask me, "Emma, what do I do?

I want to practice English, but I live in a country where people don't speak English.

How can I practice more?".

So, if you live in a country where people don't speak English and you want to practice

more, I have some great tips and advice to help you do this.

If you do live in an English-speaking country, these tips are also good.

You can get more practice, so let's get started!

So, the first tip I have is if you want to practice reading and listening, there are

different websites that can really help you with this.

I really like the BBC Radio and the CBC Radio.

So, you can find these websites online, and they give worldviews or news about different

topics including art, culture, current events.

The thing I like about listening to these short radio clips is that you can see how

long they are in advance.

I recommend to my students not to pick very long listening or reading in the beginning.

If they're advanced that's fine, but for people who are just starting to learn English, choosing

something short that may be a good minute two minutes is a good idea.

You can listen to one or two minutes of English every day.

Another great website I love is Breaking News English.

Here, you can see other news stories and you can get the news in easy English or harder

English.

You can also - you can also listen to the same news stories as well, so you can read

or listen depending on what you want to do.

So I recommend these these sites; I think they're fantastic for learning.

My second tip is that you can visit www.TeacherEmma.com . This is my website, and I have had this

website since January.

This website - I know I'm biased - is fantastic for learning English.

The reason is that I have a lot of students who come on and I teach different lessons

on different subjects, and in the comments, I have students post a lot of information

or questions and I respond, so this is a great way to actually talk with a native speaker,

so I recommend checking out this website.

I offer free lessons and there's also a paid subscription.

Alright, so let's see what other tips I have for learning English.

So, my third tip, and I love this tip, is you can make or join an English club.

I like learning with other people.

I find it sometimes difficult or boring learning things, especially a language, on my own.

So, I think English clubs can be a great way to practice English.

So, how can you find people for an English club?

Well, the library is often a good place to start.

A lot of libraries have an English section.

Maybe the library in your city or town already has an English club.

If not, maybe you can make a poster and try to find people through the library to create

an English club.

Colleges and universities are another great place to find people.

A lot of colleges or universities have an English department.

You can often find people who are learning English at college or university, so again,

if there isn't a club, maybe you can make one!

Create a poster and try and find other people who are learning English as well.

Sometimes, religious places have an English club.

I know in Toronto, there are many churches that run English conversation circles, so

it might be an idea to check out a religious place where you live.

Maybe it might be a church, a mosque, a synagogue, or a temple.

Whatever the case, maybe they have an English club, or maybe they would be willing to work

with you to create one.

So, when it comes to English clubs, it's always a good idea to have a goal or a plan for each

time you meet.

This can make your English club very successful.

So, one example of a plan you might have is you and the other members of your club can

choose an English song to learn together.

Maybe you can learn some vocabulary from the song, or some expressions.

You can talk about if you like the song, if you don't like the song, you can compare two

songs, which one is better.

So there's a lot you can do with just music.

You can also read or listen to the news together, maybe a short clip.

So for example, I talked about the CBC Radio and BBC Radio and Breaking News English.

These are all great places to find small examples of English you can discuss.

You can also go to websites like www.goodluckielts.com or www.goodlucktoefl.com.

These websites are for people who are taking the IELTS or the TOEFL, but they also have

great speaking questions, so if you ever want to find some great questions that you can

talk about, you can go to this site and look for the speaking section.

There, you will find many interesting topics and speaking questions you can ask each other.

So, these are all great ideas for what to do in your club.

Another thing that you can do is... maybe you are confused by something.

You don't know if it's "until" or "by", or maybe there's a new word you don't understand.

There're a lot of questions we often have about English, so what you can do in your

club is you can come up with a list of questions of things that confuse you, and then together,

you can search for the answer.

Sometimes, having more heads together is better than just one.

Most - in clubs especially - different people know different resources, so maybe your friend

here has a great website he uses to learn English, maybe another friend knows of another

place, so together you can use your knowledge to answer some of these English questions.

So, let's look at some other tips for what to do when you are learning English in a non-English

speaking place.

So, my fourth tip I used when I lived in China is to go to a popular ex-pat place.

So, what is an expat?

An expat is someone from another country who comes to your country to work.

Ex-pats often speak different languages because they are from all over the world.

So, you can find an English-speaking expat and practice with them.

How can you find an English speaking expat?

What I would recommend is go to the area of your city or town where people from other

places hang out.

So, for example, there's usually in different, like, in Beijing for example, there was a

place where a lot of English speakers would hang out, would go to the same clubs or the

same restaurants.

In other counties, you will find a lot of English speakers hanging out in the same neighborhood

or area.

So, find out what these places are and what you can do is, using, maybe make a poster

and try to find someone to do a language exchange with.

What's a language exchange?

Well, a language exchange is where you and another person teach each other your languages.

So, for example, if I want to learn Chinese and my friend here wants to learn English

and he speaks Chinese, we can practice together.

Half the time we can speak English, the other half of the time we can speak Mandarin.

So, it's a great way to learn English for free.

So again, going to the local expat area, maybe going to a coffee shop or a restaurant, and

putting up a poster saying you want to learn English and in exchange you will teach your

language, is a great way to meet people.

My fifth tip is it's always good to know what your mistakes are, and this is something you

can do on your own.

You can record yourself speaking.

When you listen to yourself talk, you often will notice mistakes you make in your speech.

So, you can listen and then you can make a conscious effort to try to fix those mistakes

the next time you speak in conversation.

Another thing you can do is with your writing, you can know your mistakes and you can look

for those mistakes anytime you write something.

When you know what your mistakes are, it's easy to learn from them.

So, how do you know what mistakes you're making if English isn't your first language, how

would you know?

Well, one thing I would recommend is find out what mistakes people who speak your language

often make when they speak English.

So, for example, I know a lot of French speakers make mistakes with "make" and "do" in English.

I know a lot of Korean speakers have trouble with with "L" and "R" in English and listening

to the difference.

I know that a lot of students I've had who are South American have trouble when they

write because they write really long sentences because that, I guess, is more common in their

writing tradition.

So, it's a good idea to know what are common mistakes people from your culture or your

language group make in English, and then record yourself speaking and check - do you make

these mistakes?

Or look at your writing; are you making these mistakes?

Another possibility you can do is create an edit checklist.

You can - when you edit, you re-read something to look for the mistakes and you fix them.

An editing checklist is something that reminds you which mistakes to look for.

So, maybe you always forget to use capital letters.

Maybe when you write, you write "i like", when really, "I" in English is always a capital

letter, it's always "I".

So If you know this is a mistake you make, you can write it down on a checklist and then

anytime you write, look at that checklist.

It can remind you what your mistakes are and how to fix them.

My next tip is - I would like to recommend a website you can check out: coursera.org.

This website has a lot of university courses that are free.

Maybe there's something you've always wanted to learn.

You can check out a course from courera.org and they often have forums where people worldwide

are learning together.

So this is the way to meet other people who know English.

You can write to each other on the forums about the course you're taking.

My last tip for today is to visit www.engvid.com . There, you will find myself and many other

teachers with a lot of different videos on different topics.

You can take quizzes on www.engvid.com on these different topics and you can also post

on the comments board, so you can write different comments to each other; you can meet a lot

of different people that way, so I really recommend checking out www.engvid.com .

I actually - I guess I have one more tip to give you.

You can also subscribe to my channel.

Don't forget to ring the bell.

By subscribing to my channel, you can get more videos on a whole bunch of different

topics, so I recommend subscribing and ringing the bell to make sure you get all this great

English content.

So, thank you so much for watching!

Everything covered in this video I'll actually be putting on a quiz at www.engvid.com , so

there you can actually practice what you learned.

So, thank you for watching and until next time, take care.