An English Improvement Plan for Advanced English Speakers
Since English is the second language for me, I have to keep learning it everyday to get better and better. I have been learning English for more than twenty years, therefore I have a lot of experience and ideas about learning English as an advanced English speaker. In general, the more advanced level you are, the more difficult you can improve, since you are picking up high-hanging fruits. Even though spending time and efforts is the only way for language learning — no other shortcuts, you can still save some of your time by good reference books and learning techniques.
Vocabulary
Learn ten or twenty new words per day and review them every couple of days. If you can use some advanced vocabulary properly, you look more as an advanced English speaker, otherwise you will remain an average one.
- Verbal Advantage: 10 Steps to a Powerful Vocabulary by Charles Harrington Elster
- Improving Vocabulary Skills by Sherrie L. Nist
- Advancing Vocabulary Skills by Sherrie L. Nist
- Accumulate unfamiliar words from The New York Times and NPR News.
Speaking
- American Accent Training by Ann Cook
Reading
Keep reading English everyday, especially well-written books and scholarly works. For example,
- Paul Graham’s articles
- Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
and so on. There are too many good books to enumerate.
Listening
- NPR News
- Or other TV shows, movies with either English subtitles or no subtitles.
Writing
Practice makes perfect.
- Writing blogs or daily journals (such as ohlife) in English is a great way to practice your written English. I personally benefit from it.
- Send SMS to your friends, seriously! Here is a helper you might need — Urban Dictionary
- Don’t forget to revise what you have wrote. With revising back and forth, your benefits will easily be doubled.
Reference
http://www.wikihow.com/Become-an-Advanced-English-Speaker