10 tips to practise your English in Summer

Hello everybody,

The summer holiday started two weeks ago, and now that you've had some time to relax, I'm sure you are wondering how to keep your English skills over the summer. Well, here are some tips to enable you to practise on your own!

1) Travel: I know, it was an easy one, but beware! Don't travel in France or in Belgium (except maybe in Flanders where you could use English instead of Dutch). Aywhere else in the world, locals speak and understand English. So when the hotel receptionist is adressing you in Spanish (or in Thaï if you're a lucky person), ask them if they speak English. Better yet, take a trip to the UK, even for a couple of days and test your new skills on native speakers!

2) Also, instead of buying your traveling guide in French, buy it in English, like a Lonely Planet! This can be quite challeging I realize, but what a great way to prepare your trip AND to learn vocabulary at the same time!

3) Okay, so you're stuck in your house all summer and you think all your chances to practise are ruined? You're wrong! Watch a summer series or catch up on the series that you missed! Orange is the New Black, Game of Thrones, Pretty Little Liars, Modern Family, The Good Wife, The Walking Dead, anything that you like. Don't forget the English subtitles to continue developing your listening skills and vocabulary range!

4) It might be time now to start reading your books in English! There is a great bookshop in Brussels called 'Waterstones' (Bd Adolphe Max), or there's also Amazon of course, where you'll litteraly find any book you're looking for. If you are below a B2-C1 level (upper-intermediate/advanced), you should probably start with a graded readers book. Those of you who were in my class know what I'm talking about. They are books that are especially adapted for learners; you just need to pick your level (1 - 6) and the story that you want to read. Enjoy!

5) Not so much of a book reader? What about articles? The magazine Vocable is a great tool to develop your vocabulary range and grammatical structure. It's a magazine regrouping the international press in O.V. (original version). Choose the "All English" version to progress even more. There is also a (more expensive) version with CDs to develop either listening and pronunciation, or conversation. I have it at home and work with it all year long, it's a real treasure!

6) Watch TED speeches. Those are inspirational speeches about many different subjects: one is bound to draw your curiosity. If you are not confident, start with short speeches (4 minutes) before attacking the longer ones (15 min). You can select English subtitles and if you want to challenge yourself, you can even take notes as if you were attending a conference!

7) If you are a little bit more advanced, you could follow a class. There are now developing e-learning platforms available on the Internet. If you want to follow university level classes, you could go on "Future Learn", it's a platform created by the British Council gathering classes from different universities. If you browse the classes, you will find some that interest you (various fields of knowledge) and start following it. I'm following a class about dyslexia and another about history. And it's completely free! If you are more of a manual person, another learning platform is Craftsy. In Craftsy, you find the word "craft", so there you can learn to sew, to knit, to decorate a cake, to paint, to do patchworks, to do scrapbooking, whatever craft you might be interested in, in various price range. Some of their beginners classes are free, and they often do offers (- 50%). They also have an application so you can follow their classes on your mobile or tablet.

8) Watch you favourite movies again, in English. This is rather accessible to any level. If you know the story by heart, and you see the images, chances are you are going to understand a big part of the movie without much of an effort. But still, you are going to learn. And as you know by now, it's not absolutely necessary to sweat in order to learn.

9) Write a journal. Start writing about your daily life, in English. First of all, it's a great self-therapy. I've been doing this for years! I started my first diary in English when I was 15 years old! So, not only are you going to feel more centered and better about yourself, you are also going to train your little inner voice to be bilingual! And it doesn't matter if you make mistakes, it's all about getting the flow of the language, to make it your own! And that's free too...

10) Come to a conversation table! My conversation table events are going on all summer, though not every week. And remember, you get a -10€ discount for the first time! More info at jessica.ruelle@gmail.com

What about you? What are your tips for practising English outside of the classroom?

I hope that you'll find my tips useful and I wish you a great summer, full of discoveries and full of English!

Cheers to your success!

Jessica