Comments

Hello Samantha! Wow! Today we have lots of more information! My head is spinning (I´m kidding). I´ll really try to be more proactive, though in my city there isn´t any place like you mentioned in today´s blog.I´m attending classes once a week, which is not much, however I have some friends who also study English, but they are a little lazy, so I´m going to push them to speak to me, then we all be proactive. Good night. Ana Paula.

Dear Samantha,i must admit you do a really good job for us learners,and what's more,your blog blows my brain.Many new ideas about how to learn english and correct my previous bias toward language learning.It is necessary to read your blog over again.Your skill about memorise new words was very impressive.Have a good day!!

Hello Samantha, I had not clue about "checking in" meaning in your last blog. I was trying to find out the meaning from what you've written :( I was lost. Thank you for the tools you handled to us today. Wonderful idea that of the cards. It could be a good task for the commute (if not driving). I think to stick a word list in the centre of the steering wheel could help the people who have to drive. Even if not writing, it still helps doing it mentally. And for pronunciation, I use online dictionaries which beside the word and before definition there is the pronunciation key. And it's posible to hear the pronunciation too, after paying a membership :(. In case you know a site which offers pronunciation for free, please share the information. Thank you. Well, it's time I go and prepare my list, so I can elaborate some phrases while in bed before falling asleep. The best for you

It is the first time for me to this blog.I am chinese. I want to improve my english in this year.Because english is the most important in my job.I am glad to study english together.

Hello Samantha, I really enjoy your blog today and I don't find it as boring as you said. I find it really interesting. Well, I explain why.I find English language very attractive to me( I do not know if the verb find is accepted in this sentence for the meaning I want to describe). When I was kid I cried a hole week because I wanted to make English lessons, I did. I gave exams and took the first certificate in English as a foreigher language from the university of Cambridge. But when I went to High School I concertate in my goal that was to pass in the Marketing University and I did it and now I have the marketing degree. Why I tell all that, cause I had to stop my English I had not time to study English . But now I have this opportunity and I wil use all the adove hints for this goal, to learn good English and take the next level, higher, certification from Cambridge University. Samantha may you not realize that but as a student I have to tell that you make English learning an easy game. Thanks for all hints you wrote and the different option for learning you give. Platon

Hello, Samantha. Thank you for your lesson on activating our passive vocabulary. It’s not boring at all. I’m enjoyed learning it because I’m eager to learn English well. I think I am lack of two things in learning English. They are persistence and practice. But after reading your hints of learning, I know what I should do in the coming study. The next time, when I read an article, I will do as you tell me. I believe I can master English very well. Tomorrow I will begin a new job. I will have much more opportunity to use English then. I am looking forward to it. And I will report my jobs to you later. I do hope you can sleep earlier and have a good rest. Don’t work too hard. Take care. See you tomorrow. Jill.

Hi all and thank you Samantha for your very useful advice today. I certainly use the methods you recommended in my daily exercises. I am happy to tell you all, that our weather here in Northern Finland is glorious today. Sun is shining and the temperature is + 5 degrees C. I was so pleased this morning to be able to wash our outside veranda(water freezes below zero degrees) for the first time after the winter.

my biggest problem is listening, peole talk very fact. i don't follow them.

Hello Samantha, and all bloggers. Your pieces of advice are very usefull, and I consider introduce them into practice, especially careful analysis of newspapers text. I must admit that learnig English in systemtic way, as you have proposed, is so tireing for me... I suppose there are people who do it in ease, and other who have huge difficulties; or it may by only my excuse, but in fact I am too lazy! But you, Samantha, have done something good - you encouraged and forced me! It is an important adventage for my laziness. Moreover I feel ashamed because in my last entry I misstaked the word fog and the word frog; what's a shameful mistake... Best wishes!

Hi,Samantha I would like to thank you for your marvellous advice.I've done my best to improve my English but it has been messy and not well-organised.that means it was time comsuming and I couldn't see the light at end of the ternnel.I've already taken your leture and I have got a new notebook to keep a record in a way I was taught by you.I've taken two maths and an English lesson and I am preparing to take two exams in 3weeks time.The lessons are alright but to think the exams make me panic and if I had no time to revise the previous lessons I felt it was a catch22 situation to pass the exams.That is my excuse for being absence from your comment's page just in case you might have been wondering why hyoshil had not been attending my class for a quite long time.by the way it's been glorious day here.wish you have a great day and see you soon! hyoshil

Hello Samantha , I don't have anyone to speak English with , in fact I have opportunity somehow , but I rarely can find who really wants to speak English like me and I have a question and the questiont is , is it bad to write just English texts without speaking a lot ? by the way the first one I can easily afford it via internet or getting in touch with anyone by an e-mail , Messengers and so on , and also I like to read many English texts , for instance ,the newspaper I like to look at , and now it seems to me that I'm getting better at writing but at speaking I think that my level is Zero , and I'm sure with you our wonderful teacher I can get ahead with English likely get ahead with writing English and that's enough for me at least at the moment . May be you don't feel how much we need you , but I , for one , believe that seeing correct and typical English sentences helps a lot to learn how to use English properly .

Hello!I admire people who applying for exams. Fortunately I don`t work on writing comment a couple of days now.The task to oganize my homework papers stay on me, I am not good at this. Thanks for a lot of advice, Samantha. The ways are for me much clearer now. I am trying to speak in my head not succesfully yet. (Is that possible somebody can have dreams in English?) At first I must to work on activating vocabulary as you recommend us. For a pronunciation is useful listening to Callum Robertson here from the team BBC and Talk about English programs. The best for all!

Hi,dear Samantha, my wonderful virtual teacher. I really benefit lot from your fantastic blog today.I am going to follow your recipe for improving English. You said people usually use only about 5000 English words for communication during dairy life. I am sure my passive vocabulary is much more than that amount, unfortunally i cann't make it active. Sometimes i feel hard to express myself in English. Your tips and hints have already help me make a resolution to speak English confidently in near future. I have decided to compete for next student blogger for BBC.Am i ambitious and day-dreaming? I think the dream will undoubtly come true if we stick by your idea. All the best!

Thank you for your advice on study English.Here I want to tell you a story that happened to me this moring,hope you will give me some advice.When I came into the classroom as usual to give my students English lesson,I found they were very mystery.Even the worst child had handed in his homework.When I wanted to write on the blackboard,I saw "Happy Birthday to MIss...",a girl stood up and said Happy Birthday to me,then the whole class clapped their hands.I was so grateful,but I knew my birthday is a month ago,they made a mistake.I thanked for it ,I don't know if I should tell them the truth.I'm afraid they would feel guilty if they know they made a mistake.What shall I do ? If such a thing happened on you ,how would you act? Thank you

Hello! My name is Yana and I am 17 years old. I was born in Kishinov, Moldova (formerly a part of USSR). When I was a year old (a very small and quite fat infant, jokingly) my family immigrated to Israel. I have a big sister (Ira) whom I absolutely admire, and a dog called Jack,which I look up to even more!! I started reading this blog about a week ago in order to improve my English, and it really fascinated me! I believe today's blog will also attribute considerably to my vocabulary! I am definitely going to adopt the cards' sistem and I feel today is a great day to begin!! Sorry for writing such a long comment, I just wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to introduce myself and formaly check in! yours sincerely Yana.

Hi Samantha , This is the first time for me I read your blog and I find it wonderful for everyone who is learning english . You are giving us great hints about learning vocabulary . I will try this advise on my new job . I am also taking right now a class on how to learn and teach english because I would like to do this on the future and this is how I found about blogs and I am very impressed with this useful tool . Sincerely Lizbeth Calderon

Angélica, are you from Códoba or Córdoba? Are there two places in Argentina with similar names? Whatever, i'm wrinting to tell you that i find a pretty nice site with free pronuciation service. You have to access www.answer.com This is a self-denominated "online dictionary, encyclopedia and much more".

Samantha, thank you for all the hints, especially about putting cards in a pocket. It looks like a game, and in fact one keeps these words in mind all day long. There is no way one can escape memorising them. :)

your session today is defenetly not boring. it's rather very interesting to learn and help us to improve our word power. I will try to use your techniques to enhance it. I will specify the time to memorize the new words. And I will concentrate to use in my daily life.

Hello Samantha, Having read your recommendations regarding how to activate our passive vocabulary, I must admit that I have found your tips on reading analytically really valuable. Regardless of time constraints, taking our time to read analytically, being aware of the words usage in context and categorizing words will help not only me but others enjoy books in such a better way than we have ever experienced before. A great deal of usefulness though the former tips offer, I would say that what you have mentioned in this regard fits an advanced learner's needs. While in their early stages of learning, students might benefit from their trying to grab the main idea of the text instead of finding the meaning or grammar role of every single word. On this account, we might entertain an hybrid approach whereby students or every person who wants to improve their English is encouraged to get the main idea and look up only the key words of the text. Regards

Dear Samantha,Thank you very much for your excellent ideas and guide lines to learn and remember new vocabulary words. It is very constructive information for all virtual learners as me. First of all we have to tell our thanks to BBC/learning English service, to assign excellent and knowledgeable english teachers for us. Samantha you have made big different in my learning style. The most important factors in teaching are the interaction with students and the knowledge and personlity of the teacher. You have every thing. If I had a teacher like you in my chilhood, now I would have been very excellent in English and in good position too. The time is big factor for me to do things as you said to learn, because I am a morning person,I can't stay up long time at the night as you. But I will certainly try my best to be proactive. At the start, when I wrote comments to teacher's blog or student's blogs I had problems in grammar and vocabulary, but now it is easire than before. One of the teachers from BBC had written that if you want to talk in english very desperately and if don't have anyone to talk in english talk to your pets. It is an excellent idea in that atmosphere. I think, writing is easier than speaking, because when you speak, it is difficult to think of the right word at the right time-and even more difficult to know what to do if can't find word that you want. Even in our mother language saying the right thing, in the right way, at that right time is some time difficult. Now I have confident to overcome from thses difficulties as I get guides form good english teacher from BBC/learning English. Samantha as you said I will be proactive. Now on I will be active and analytic when I read something in english. How are you vegetable garden? Did you plant or seed anything to grow and eat during the summer time. You are very lucky to have fresh organic vegetable form your own garden. It is a privilege to live in such a lovely place on the earth. Kind regards.

Hello everybody. This is the first time I enter this blog. Since I decided learning English I've made it by myself. Because I am a very shy person, I don't know if one day I'll reach the goal of speaking it fluently, but now I can read and hear quite well. My next step will be trying to write it. I am learning english only for fun I really don't need it. However I ejoy learning very much and search on the internet to improve, and I have to tell you that the BBC Learning English site is which I prefer. I've been visiting this site for about one year but I've visited the blog section only one week ago. By the way, this is not my first enter in this blog it is my first writing in english language. Thaks Samatha for ecourage me to do it.

Hello Samantha, I think all your ideas are very useful. I promisse I'll try some of them after my test because I have already passed in speaking and writing. So for awhile I'm a little relaxed about this. I have to concentrate more on listening and reading. I have the same problem as Ana Paula. We don't have any association like that in our city. You know, my city is not a BIG city. When I have the opportunity to talk with a native person from english speaking background, which is rare, I try to do my best. I had this opportunity when I met an american doctor lady here. She was married with a brazilian man who is my patient and she was trying to recognise her degree here but portuguese is not easy for her. It's true about people feeling alone in other country. She felt a relief when I started to talk in english with her. Then I knew a retired american man who was tired to stay at the beachs all the time and had decided to teach english here. I tried a lesson. It was good because I could speak a little bit and I loved his billingual cute dog that understood everything in english and in portuguese. Samantha, on the BBC Website there is a section where they give advices on creating a Learning Circle. It's interesting. The problem here is to find a time suitble for everybody to meet. So I had the idea to make this on line. I tried to find people who wanted to improve english in a learning circle making debates, interviews about many issues: politics, science, news...Do you believe my idea was a failure? The guys that appears are not interested in talking seriously. Why the BBC Learning English doesn't do that for us, learners? I think they could arrange this and organize easily a learning circle in order to improve our speaking skills.

thanks for help.now iam clear.i going to do regularly in my daily life and i sure that i ll develop my Vocabulary skills.once again than u.

hey samantha, It is my first time in this blog and i am thoroughly impressed. i am preparing for IELTS and i hope this blog will help me. My biggest problem is with speaking, writing is not a major concern to me because i have time to go back and correct the mistakes but when it comes to speaking, i kind of feel i need time to phrase my sentence before speaking. Any idea of how i can improve?

Thank you Samantha your discussion was useful ,Actually we had to use such stratigies much earlier,still we have time for this .This is my first time I write in English for some one ,so I would like to be in touch with you.

thank you Samantha your discussion was great , It opened my mind for many stratigies I may use to improve my English.

Hi Samantha. I'm from Kosovo. This is first time for me in this blog.Those information are great. I really want my english to be better. It's very important in my job, and I can't speak english yet. I think it's terrible.I've been learning english for 5 months in Cambridge school,I think I'm learning something but to slow.