Communicating in English!

There is no question that learning English, or any language, as an adult is not easy. If you're learning, there is usually some reason, or many reasons, why. It may be for your job, or for your professional development in the future, or because your boyfriend is from Australia! Knowing why you need and want to learn can help you to direct your effort, and also to evaluate your progress.

I would argue that for most people who don't want to work as English teachers or editors, the most important element in learning English is communication. For you in your study, you can ask what you need to communicate, who you need to communicate with, and what the situation is. Some people need to know more formal expressions than others. Some people send a lot of email, for others the phone is more important. Knowing this can help you to target the areas you need to improve in.

Often, people communicate well but feel disappointed because they know they made some mistakes. In my experience, native speakers make mistakes all the time! In writing, on blogs, in speaking, in presentations, so many mistakes! Even in advertising campaigns! I'm not saying you should be happy about mistakes, only that the real measure of your success in English is whether or not you can communicate. You can always improve. But after you talk with someone, maybe you can ask yourself if you communicated with them or not. If the answer is yes, then you succeeded! Next you can think about how to improve for next time.

One of the best practices I see with my students is that they correct themselves in the moment. I think this is difficult, because it means that you are calm enough to do it, but it's an excellent way. Do you have any practices that have helped you? It would be great to hear about them...