This almost happened to everyone who learns a foreign language. Not only want to be able to write, read, the learners also want to have a good listening skill and to speak fluently. These four aspects are interrelated. Perhaps some people can master the respective aspects without problems but others can’t for some reasons. 

Well guys, I am not a language teacher but hey I want to share my personal experience with you, particularly yeah with you who are currently learning or planning to learn a certain foreign language so that this sharing gives you motivations and finally you can attain your objectives. 

In this blog, I am going to share my personal experience with you on how to ameliorate the skills of foreign language, so no matter what foreign language you’re learning or you’re about to learn you will be dealing with four elements which I mentioned earlier. 

Frankly speaking, what makes me bring this topic up here is that you know that many people expect to be able to speak the foreign language that they’re learning at earliest time possible, however, if this is in your case then you better know one thing to remember, that it is necessary to have a very good listening skill in order to speak fluently and apart from that you’re also required to understand how to exercise the grammar. 

Well, actually there are two points (i.e. listening and speaking) that I want to share with you.

The First point is Listening: 

How to improve the listening skill?, Well, to improve this you can use several instruments depending on your level such as Compact Discs, Audio, Audiovisual, Podcast, etc. And once you are able to master your level then you can move up to a more challenging level. 

One thing that you should bear in mind is that please please take a piece of paper to note something down, especially for the words or expressions that you’re not sure what they mean while listening to broadcasts or watching the audiovisual. Having done this will help you to enrich your vocabularies. 

So to give you an example: You know when I learned English I often listen to recorded voices in MP3, CD and of course some podcasts from British Broadcasting Corporation a.k.a. BBC. British Learning English. 

And Right now I am brushing up my French so I use all medias such as TV, educational section in the social medias, podcasts and so on.  

And while listening, I also take some notes for words or expressions that I don’t understand and then find out what the speakers mean later. Till here, am I making sense? If so, let me continue then…

Now the second point is the speaking skill:

As I said earlier in order to speak fluently you need to have at least a good listening skill and in addition to that you have to comprehend how to exercise the grammar. 

So the question is how to improve your conversational skill?, Well, there are tons of ways that you can do from classical to forward-looking way.  For example; talking to yourself in front of a mirror, it’s a kinda classic way though, repeating what you’ve heard from the medias but no need to shout aloud huh, and joining in your local communities that allow you to practice speaking.

A few years back where I was still in Surabaya, I was one of the Indonesians who joined in the sport club namely Surabaya Expats FC or shortly called S’expats, where most of the players were native English speakers such as British, Scottish, Iris. So… no wonder if people come across that my English sounds so British. Do you believe this? I am joking guys. Well, no matter where your accent is from what matter is that you speak the language correctly. Frankly speaking, I sometimes realize that I don’t articulate the words when speaking, for example.

Another best way to learn is that letting your speaking partners to correct your language whenever you’re making mistakes in the course of your conversations. So don’t be afraid of making mistakes and be ashamed of getting some corrections in front of the others. Because you’ll make some progress from your mistakes. In my case, I allow all my friends whose levels are much better than mine, native speaking partners either in French or English to correct my speaking skill whenever I make mistakes.

And talking with people in different sports clubs or local communities help improving your speaking skill. So never forget to thank them once they correct your language. In fact, there is a very interesting video that diffuses this topic. In the video, I invited two friends of mine to share their personal experience in ameliorating their foreign languages. Here is the link for the video https://youtu.be/65BsPJKIMk4

Alright, I hope that this sharing will be useful and let me know about your personal experience in the comment section either in my YouTube channel or in this platform.

All the best guys!
Stay safe and take care of yourself in the course of pandemic – covid-19!

Didi Le Javanais