Studying and Practicing English in HCMC Vietnam

Before you begin studying English, you should ask yourself a few questions:

Why do I want to study English?
What are my objectives in life?
What do I hope to achieve by improving my English communication skills?

There could be many reasons why you want to improve your English language skills. Is it because you want to improve your scores at school? Maybe you just want to improve your speech to make your holidays abroad more enjoyable. Or better yet, it could be because you want to improve your communication skills at work with your foreign colleagues or customers. Maybe your parents are pressuring you to study English.

Many students try to study English as if it were a science subject like mathematics or biology. In my view, they are making a big mistake. English is an art. As such, it needs to be practiced. Doctors practice medicine. Lawyers practice law. They are always practicing to improve their skills. Studying grammar will give you the basic rules of how to express yourself in any language, but only practice will give you the vocabulary and confidence to improve how you use it to communicate with others.

Like every decision in life, practicing English must be something you want to do. If you don’t make a strong commitment to constantly practice your English then it just won’t happen.

After you have made up your mind that practicing English is something you really want to do then setting goals is easy. As an example, maybe you want to travel to an English-speaking country to study at a university. That would be great right? To achieve your goal, you should list all of the steps you need to reach your goal. The steps should be progressive from the easiest to the most difficult. Keep a record of your goals and which ones you have already achieved. For example, you know if you want to study at a university in America, you will need to take a TOEIC or TOEFL test and also pass an oral interview at the embassy to get your F-1 student visa. All three of these tests combine the four basic language skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing. Students have so much stress about these tests.

To best achieve your long term goal, I recommend you practice English the natural way. The natural way would be to focus on listening, speaking, reading and writing in exactly that sequence. That is the natural way people have learnt their own native language. If you can remember back to your childhood, you will know you learnt to listen before you could speak. As a small baby, you always looked up at your mother and wondered why she was making all those strange noises. Then, when you were about 1 year old, you suddenly realized some of those sounds your mother was making actually meant something. So, you began to listen more intently to determine which sounds were related to the things you wanted until you could eventually copy those sounds and make your mother understand what you wanted.

Unfortunately, many school systems adopt a different point of view because they prefer the native language of the student to be firmly in place before teaching the child a new language. In most Asian countries, schools don’t teach English the natural way. They teach the student in reverse order and most of the English classes are given in the student’s native language. That is why some of you are English grammar experts, but have difficulty expressing yourselves with simple sentences in a conversation. That is why practicing what you already know is so important.

To practice English you can start off slow, but practice regularly. Use challenging material, but not too difficult. Find out what works for you. After you have practiced for a few weeks, adjust your practice schedule accordingly. Do you practice best at night? Do you like to practice alone in a quiet place, or with friends and background music? Everyone is different. Here at Cebusmart, you have a great opportunity to practice your English all the time because you are living with a family of English speakers.

The important thing is that you make a commitment and stick with it. Learning English requires a lot of motivation. Remember, nobody is going to take your tests for you.

Try to have fun while learning English. The things we do best in life are the things we enjoy doing. If you aren't having fun practicing English then, in my opinion, you're not practicing the right way! You can be a serious student who has fun at the same time. Make up your own rewards program to give yourself incentives to stay focused.

It’s important to balance the importance of all four major skills. Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing are the main components you need to communicate in any language. Being very good at only one of these skills will not help you to communicate effectively. For example, you need to be able to read before you can write well. You also need to be able to listen before you can speak. It helps to think of these communicative skills in two groups.

Audio<<<

Listening (in through your ears)
Speaking (out through your mouth)

Visual >>>

Reading (in through your eyes)
Writing (out through your hand)

It's simple. Think of it this way. First, you need to understand English (listening). Next, you will need to express yourself (speaking). First, you listen to someone ask you a question. Second, you speak and give them your answer. First, you read a letter from someone. After that, you write back to them. These are examples of communicating.

Audio and visual communications don't necessarily go in any specific order. Sometimes you speak first and then you listen. Sometimes you write about something you hear. During communication, the person you are communicating with uses one of the opposite skills. Therefore, in order to understand each other, everyone involved must be skillful in all four areas.

Sometimes people ask me which skill is most important. Since all of the skills rely on each other, they are all important, but listening is probably the most important of the four because it is the one we use the most.

For effective results, create a plan combining all four areas of language study. Allow one type of studying to lead into another. For example, read a story and then talk about it with a friend. Watch a movie and then write about it. Ask someone else to read your article to see if they can understand what you have written about the movie.

Then, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goal. Good luck!