Vocabulary showing English fluency

How does vocabulary show you have a higher English fluency level? This can be an important characteristic if your responses on exams such as the TOEFL iBT, but you should keep certain things in mind.


1.) Should I memorize a lot of exotic or complicated words?

Absolutely not! Exams such as the TOEFL iBT are measuring the quality of your response. If you memorize a lot of exotic vocabulary and fail to use them correctly, you will be hurting your score rather than helping it. Focus on skills that will help make your response clear and easy to follow. I am not advocating that you do not spend any time on studying vocabulary, but the idea is to have a balance of all skills. You should also keep your audience in mind. If they do not understand your vocabulary, you will not be understood.

2.) I am worried about topics I do not understand. What about words from them?

This is part of your preparation. Before taking a TOEFL iBT exam, you should make sure that you are adequately prepared. Rather than reading topics from encyclopedias to try and learn as many academic topics as possible, concentrate on areas such as what you would hear in the news. Exams such as the TOEFL iBT do not require you to have special knowledge in specific subjects such as astronomy or chemistry, but the terminology you will hear in sources such as CBC, CNN, or other English news programs will give you a general background in almost all of the topics you will face. You should also concentrate on your vocabulary in context skills. If you can identify what the word is acting as in the sentence, you will be more likely to correctly guess its meaning even if you have not seen the word before.

3.) Can you give me a list of recommended words?

ESL Study Guide maintains many word lists for it members and even places some in the free section of the website. Feel free to browse the site and see what it available.


Finally, avoid sounding too simplistic. A broad vocabulary base will help you avoid sounding like a child or having a response that is too simple (ie, I am a student. I am from Korea.) and ensure that you are easily understood.



Good luck with your studies,
ESL Study Guide

New Years

Hi All

Happy New Year. I hope everyone had a good New Years. I spent my New Years in New York and got to watch the ball drop in Time Square. I hadn't known what to expect but the whole experience overall was not too bad. My hotel was only 5 minutes away from Time Square so I didn't have to walk far. It was a little strange, in that everyone was hearded into pens setup and patrolled by the police. Unless you started waiting hours ahead of time you were not able to get very close to Time Square or could only get as close as your hotel. The fireworks were pretty good (though I prefer China on Chinese new years, now that's a display!). The most interesting point of the entire trip was the people. I was standing in Time Square and could see people standing on the roof of hotels and buildings watching and waiting for the ball to drop. It was pretty windy that night, not sure if I would have the nerve to sit on the edge of a 60 or so story building.


Happy New Year everyone, hope 2007 brings success to your studies


ESL Study Guide

So you want to learn English

Hi All


I am often asked, "I want to improve my English" or "I want to learn English so what should I do?". There is no step by step guide to learning any language, but some common sense will get you a long way to accomplishing your goal.

1.) What specifically do you want to learn?

Clarifying your purpose in wanting to learn or improve your English is the first step in planning out your goal and how to reach it. Do you have a specific purpose in mind, such as wanting to take academic classes or do you just want to be able to understand your favorite song? For those of you wanting to improve your overall level of English you need to first find a place to start.

2.) Finding a place to start.

Have you completed any placement tests within the last 6 months? The majority of commercial placement tests will give you a general idea of your English level. A test such as the TOEFL test will measure a variety of aspects of your English broken up by skills. Remember, learning a language is very much like building a house, you need a good solid foundation to build on.

3.) Working on your weaknesses

Knowing what areas of English you are weak on, you can now concentrate on improving those areas. It is not a good idea to allow some of your skills to be high while others are low. For example, if you just wanted to improve your speaking you should be aware that you need to improve your grammar as well. If you only worked on speaking but your grammar level was too low, while you may pronounce everything properly if you can't say it with the correct grammatical structure, it is not likely you will be understood.


4.) Practice, Practice, Practice

The final and probably most important step is practice. If you do not practice with English you will quickly forget it. Interacting with people, whether online or offline, will help you not only keep your English but improve it.




Happy Studying,



ESL Study Guide

Spam

Well, as you can see, the forums have been removed from the free section of eslstudyguide.com because of the recent excessive spam. It is very unfortunate! As the site becomes bigger it is important that the website can be easily maintained and is Spam free without requiring an excessive amount of time policing it. Therefore, the forums have been put in the members section.

I have started a new blog, and any interesting article or videos will be posted here from now on. You can still post comments to the blog but they must be approved first before they can show up. This should hopefully put an end to the problems with spam. As you can see, the site is finally taking shape nicely. I have to admit, starting from scratch and watching it grow is like having a child. You watch the birth, then watch as it slowly begins to grow. However, like many parents, when do you ever get a night out ; )


Good luck with your studies,
ESL Study Guide