Take Your Foreign Language Skills To The Next Level

Posted on 28. Jul, 2009 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Expat Life, Relocation, Tools & Resources
2 comments

You’ve been practicing up a storm and you are now ready to take your language skills to the next level. You’re almost at the end of your lessons or self-study course and you’re not sure what the next step is.

Here are a few suggestions that will have you on your way to fluency fast:

1.    Time for a change?

Are your lessons challenging enough? Your current teacher may be wonderful with beginners, but not the best match for more advanced students. Likewise, you may have reached a plateau with your home-study course.

Why not try something different?

Find out which school or association has the best intensive courses. Don’t hesitate to switch – your needs as a learner will change as you study further, so it’s perfectly OK to change teachers or schools.

Ask a foreign language message board what products and resources they recommend for intermediate / advanced levels.

If you find it challenging to keep blocking off chunks of time to study, sneak in smaller doses of language learning throughout your day. Play your CDs or take an mp3 player with you for your morning jog, during your commute, or while doing the dishes.

2.    Go beyond your books and CDs

Seek out “real-life” materials such as foreign movies, books and magazines.

Radio stations in virtually any language can be streamed online or via iTunes.

You can also use a foreign language search engine to find information and news in the language you are learning. Yahoo! International has local search engines in 40-odd different countries – why not try a search related to your hobbies or other topics of interest

3.    Keep track of all this new vocabulary!

Keep a small, easily portable notebook with you. When you come across a word you don’t know, jot it down and look it up in the dictionary.

Figure out the best way for you to remember new words. If you are an auditory learner, record yourself pronouncing the new word. Include it in a sentence, and repeat it out loud several times a day.

If you are more visual, write the word on a sticky note and post it on your fridge. Or make flash cards. (I must confess that I have an irrational hatred of flash cards, but they work for many people so don’t mind me!) In case you want to supplement your own deck, you can buy pre-printed flash cards from Visual Education.

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Emmanuelle

Images by banlon1964 (top) and Guin’s View (bottom), both via Flickr Creative Commons