People who learn English as a second language tend to do very well in reading and writing English, but often do badly when it comes to actually speaking the language. Are you in this situation?

With certain adjustments to speech patterns, it’s amazingly easy to improve your English speaking level with virtually no effort.

1. Speak slowly

8 out of 10 people speak lightning fast. Our fast-paced lives have taken over our speech as well, so we try to say as much as we can in as little time as possible. This is unfortunately transferred to other languages, even if we’re not fluent in them. When you speak English you speak fast as well, but if it’s not your mother tongue you inevitably face issues. You make a lot of grammar and syntax errors, you miss whole phrases, and you might not even make sense as your accented English might be hard to understand if you’re speaking too quickly.

The key here is to slow down when speaking English, if English is not your native language. By doing so you minimize your errors and allow yourself to form correct sentences so that you sound like a native speaker. Don’t speak too slowly; just set an average speed level that makes you sound composed. If you’re speaking thoughtfully and deliberately, this also assigns some sort of prestige to your words, in contrast to those always speaking in a rush.

2. Build your vocabulary

An extensive vocabulary allows you to explore ideas and express feelings that you cannot otherwise communicate. A broad vocabulary ensures that you won’t stumble upon conceptual gaps simply because you didn’t happen to know a word. Vocabulary building software like Ultimate Vocabulary™ helps you widen your vocabulary and thereby express yourself more eloquently and accurately when speaking English.

3. Watch your language

Our speech is littered with fillers – uhms and wells and you knows – that we insert automatically. Try to pay attention to your own language production and listen for this habit. You’ll be able to pinpoint patterns as to when and why you use fillers when speaking in English.
A great trick to avoid fillers in your speech is to make some sort of physical movement each time you catch yourself using them. A simple, light tap of your fingers can be enough to make you fully conscious of your filler use, for instance.

4. Read aloud each day

The truth is that people with English as their second language rarely get a chance to speak English, so when a situation demands it they find themselves unprepared. When you practice your oral English daily you allow yourself to stay fit in producing English speech. All you need to do is either communicate with someone in English as much as you can; if this is difficult, you can always choose a text to read aloud.

This habit can be of great help as it allows you to get used to the idea of speaking English, and it keeps you in touch with all the idiosyncrasies of English, from its accent, its intonation, its rhythm and everything else in between.

With these simple tricks you can easily improve your speech, and without much effort either. Before you know it, your speech will be as good as your reading and writing level in English.

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As e-learning becomes more widespread, gaining in popularity and reaching levels equal to conventional university classes, magnificent developments are expected. Here are some 2013 e-learning developments:

1.    More e-courses and languages available from Coursera.

Up until now, many people regarded the Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) as often being rather elitist, featuring specific disciplines and conspicuously emphasizing certain schools and colleges over others. As a result, distant learning students who wanted to learn through MOOC platforms were sometimes disappointed by being given very limited choices. Coursera, an online education portal featuring thousands of course from top-notch universities, is now expanding its list of courses and universities it collaborates with, in an effort to provide a more inclusive, representative, and realistic learning platform that has the potential to accommodate any student’s needs.
In fact, Coursera is said to have an agreement with about 29 educational institutions and universities across the world so far in order to provide its users with relevant courses, in their native language, while also expanding considerably the sheer number and variety of disciplines available for e-learning.
This development is expected to be copied by other major MOOC online platforms, as the competition in providing higher-education e-learning becomes more fierce.

2.    Robot technology at the service of teachers.

If you ever felt that your 4th grade books where somewhat childish, but suddenly your 6th grade ones were more suited to be used at the college level, you’re not alone. A growing concern over how books and syllabi are chosen for each educational level is what spurred the introduction of a recommendations database which teachers and other education experts can consult for the most appropriate books, providing options that specific student groups at various age and learning levels can benefit from.
This idea by the Washington startup company Unbound Concepts has the potential of revolutionizing learning and e-learning, as it will allow interested education experts and learners themselves access to relevant educational content, be it books or an entire instructional syllabus.

3.    Google helping you build your own course.

Google already has a reputation for being flexible when it comes to education and learning, and it’s now working towards allowing users to build their own courses with a new software called Course-Builder. Although still at an experimental stage, Course-Builder was the same software Google itself used to provide its own e-learning offering, a course called “Power Searching With Google.”
This new project by Google seeks to establish itself as the number one choice for educators who wish to create courses and enhance their online education presence. With e-learning moving into mainstream education even in universities, using technology like this to work towards “electronic tenure” is a growing trend in higher education.

4.    E-learning getting credit equivalency and status.

You might say you’re taking an e-course for your own sake, but having it officially acknowledged as a proper credit-awarding course wouldn’t hurt, would it?
A California senator recently proposed that public universities ought to acknowledge credits gained from online courses as equivalent to conventional college credits. This proposal for certifying e-learning as being as good as on-site learning does worry some over the tendency to entirely forsake college attendance. However, academics suggest it can only help promote learning further. The rationale is that it will allow users otherwise not able to get involved with education (either in view of money or location), and give them free access to knowledge. This makes education truly democratic and widely available. Needless to say, committees and different assessment panels will need to take up the project of evaluating e-learning courses and deciding which ones deserve certification and credit equivalency and which don’t.

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It used to be that it was only in sci-fi films that we saw people strolling around the city with high-tech mobile libraries in their hands. But e-readers have been a reality for some years now and as technology has been moving forward faster and faster, it’s been hard to keep up with all the new resources. The educational world in particular has yet to fully explore the potential of these new devices for boosting reading and literacy in general.

A lot of ink has, or should I say keystrokes have, been spent on discussing how e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle can be effectively used for teaching English. Kindle’s essential advantage is the mind-blowing access it offers to thousands of books. No library check outs, no book swapping, just a few clicks and hundreds of formerly-bulky books can fit into the palm of your hand.

Education undergoing transformation

There are many promising benefits of using Kindle for teaching English, though the idea of each student having their own handheld library is a concept some people find hard to fully grasp. Knowledge and information have never before been so readily available, and that’s an exciting prospect and a wealth of potential.

Many educational experts argue that learning English can become a much easier and a more widely available option than ever before with this digital, at-your-fingertips library. If all students have equal access to the technology, when put to proper and efficient use in educational contexts, English language learners can only benefit from using e-readers.

Kindle usage benefits in education

Reading has always been recommended for sharpening and boosting language knowledge and with devices like Kindle, the process of learning English is becoming shorter and more enjoyable thanks to these mobile, digital libraries. The nature of e-readers also promotes speed reading, allowing those interested to absorb information much faster than is the case with standard paper-book reading.

When technology and education are combined the results are always surprisingly positive; reluctant readers suddenly become voracious readers, and for the rest of us bookworms, simply discovering the endless wealth of reading material is definitely a positive development – although it means we may never go to sleep again!

The potential is there, but careful research is needed

The potential of mobile learning hasn’t been fully explored. The ability to learn English faster thanks to gadgets like Kindle is one aspect that needs thorough research before implementing. The advantages of such an educational implementation touch upon many issues,  including ecology and economy. In the future, it’s realistic to envision schools that are paper-free, entirely replacing books with e-readers.

But as with every innovative new technology there has to be a clear mission, a genuine motivation, and proper, expert guidance to fully unveil its potential for English language teaching. We’ve seen many incidents where technology has actually impeded productivity and learning and promoted instead mindless clicking through websites, wasting time – just look at the statistics on the average employee’s usage of social media during work hours. There’s also the issue of whether conventional paper book reading allows the reader to retain much more information than when reading the same copy on a screen, especially given the distractions of web page links.

Many aspects of this technological innovation need to be addressed before we seriously think of ways to promote English learning by taking advantage of Kindle’s educational potential, but it’s something that we need to keep in mind.

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If you want to read fast, a good vocabulary (and to a lesser extent spelling) is essential. Studies show that those with better vocabularies not only read faster, they also have better comprehension.

You can also look at it another way. Not knowing a word will dramatically slow down your otherwise fast reading.

If you want to improve your vocabulary and spelling there are lots of free and paid solutions available. eReflect’s vocabulary builder “Ultimate Vocabulary” is a popular solution. There is also a spelling software version of this product called Ultimate Spelling.

In terms of free solutions, Improving Vocabulary.ORG has some excellent free info that you can put to use right away. There are also lots of great vocabulary videos youtube.

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