5 Fun and Engaging Ways to Upgrade Your English Skills

One of the best ways to hone your English is through speaking to native speakers – whether that means talking online with natives or finding an English speaking group in your region.

Name the items in your house with their English names. Or play 20 Questions, where players secretly think of someone or something and take turns asking each other yes/no questions until one person guesses correctly.

1. Listen to Music

Listening to English songs is one of the best ways to expand and develop your language skills. Many songs cover a range of topics such as love, life, culture, history, philosophy and literature – plus music can help us memorize words more quickly!

Make the most out of your music learning experience by following along with the lyrics (also referred to as song text). Doing this can help expand your vocabulary while improving pronunciation skills – particularly regarding intonation (or changes in pitch a speaker makes when making statements or asking questions). Most lyrics for songs can be found online by searching with their name plus “lyrics.”

Transcribing songs, speeches or podcasts is another effective way to strengthen your English listening. Doing this forces you to slow down and pay more attention to every detail such as how words rhyme together in English and which syllables are stressed more heavily. There are websites available where audio recordings can be transcribed for free while your classmates or teachers could also transcribe audio recordings for you.

2. Watch Movies

Apart from reading English books, plays and stories, watching movies is another effective way of improving listening skills and expanding vocabulary words. Just make sure that any movies you watch fit with your English level – such as ones with difficult dialogue or strong regional dialects can hinder rather than aid learning! Instead choose movies tailored to suit your level so they can be watched again and again for optimal learning results.

Keep a notebook handy while watching films and write down any unfamiliar words you hear; this will allow you to associate their meanings more readily later when reading or conversing about them. When this occurs again later on in a book or conversation, looking up these new terms should become much simpler and understanding them will come more naturally.

Consider watching movies in their original language as this will expose you to different accents and pronunciations that native speakers speak with. If possible, stick with one country or region at first until your confidence increases.

3. Read

Reading is one of the key English learning activities because it helps expand your vocabulary and expose grammatical structures on paper – rather than only hearing about them through speech. Over time, these new words and language patterns will begin making their way into your spoken English too!

Reading various texts such as newspapers, magazines, novels and shorter online articles and blog posts will expose you to various styles of writing and topics. When encountering unfamiliar words try using context clues to figure out their meaning or count them separately to see what percentage of a text are new words for you.

Make reading more engaging by watching an English TV show or movie – even if only understanding subtitles – this will force you to focus on and pay attention to English while simultaneously honing your listening skills.

4. Write

Writing can be an excellent way of expressing yourself in English and honing your grammar and spelling skills. Start off by keeping a daily journal or blog, writing comments on YouTube videos with English content that contain English dialogue – these activities will allow you to develop deeper writing abilities while expanding your reach to a wider audience.

Imitation is another effective strategy for honing your English language skills. Similar to how infants and children acquire new languages, imitating what others say allows you to build your vocabulary and acquire proper pronunciations of various words. You could also try English learning apps as another means of strengthening these areas of your knowledge.

One effective strategy to expand your vocabulary is keeping a word diary. This will enable you to keep track of any new words you come across throughout the day and act as an aid when learning phrasal verbs, which have multiple interpretations depending on context. Cue cards may also prove helpful.

5. Speak

Speaking in English requires practice and concentration if you want to speak eloquently; to become fluent, your vocabulary must grow as you learn the proper way to pronounce each word.

One effective way of doing this is finding a conversation partner or tutor to assist with pronunciation and sentence formation. Record yourself speaking aloud before practicing in front of a mirror to see how your speech sounds; or give one-person improv shows to improve spoken English! Alternatively, take public speaking courses at large universities or theaters if time and resources permit.

As well as listening to and watching audio/video content in English on YouTube and attending language cafes offering open debates or improvised storytelling events, Duolingo can also help improve your English. Keep a record of new words you come across so they become part of your memory bank.