5 Ways to Improve YOUR English without even Trying! for people who speak English as a second language

By : Kim Rogers

Learning a second language can be a very stressful and arduous task if you let it. Somehow, the words you learn in the books don't seem to apply very well to real life situations. Those small and seemingly un-important elements the show a person to be in command of not only the language, but the culture of the people who speak it cannot be adequately expressed by words on paper.

So, how do you learn these little secrets of mastering the ability to articulate yourself in another language?

Here are 5 proven techniques that will help you improve your English without even trying, if you are learning to speak English as a second language. Do they really work? Yes. I've tried them myself as I've had opportunity to live somewhere where English wasn't the primary language. I found it to be a fun, exciting, and painless way to learn both the language and the culture. The culture is simply learning the way the natives express their own words. The genuine accent, facial expressions, hand gestures, sighs, moans, groans, laughter, smirks, and other things that go along with everyday conversation.

Regardless of how extensive or not your vocabulary is, if you master the ability to "sound" like you know the language and can speak it, people will be more than generous to assist you.

1. Watch Movies!

Watching movies is always a fun thing to do. In order to get the most out of your movie watching experience, if your vocabulary is limited, watch a movie in English that you are very familiar with in your own language so you always know what's going on. Try not to translate as you go because you lose blocks of conversation this way. Instead, watch the picture and listen. Hear all the words, but determine what's going on by the pictures you see and the words you're hearing that you already know. Believe it or not, other words will sink in too, and so will the accent and everything else that went with what you saw and heard.

As your vocabulary grows, expand your movie selections to other movies you'd like to see but are only available in English. Try to be able to see the film more than once if possible.

According to the location and type of film you intend to view, you will be able to experience different accents, and other cultural expressions of the English language. Pick and choose the things that you think will suit you best. If it doesn't work out, pick and try something else! Have fun with yourself and your efforts.

2. Watch Soap Operas

The place where extreme expression and limited vocabulary meet! This is such a fascinating way to learn a foreign language. Every accessory that goes with the expression of a word is demonstrated on a soap opera. "Outrage" expressed with a word, facial expression or two, and perhaps even a subsequent face slap, all of that being understandable in any language. "Love", another universal subject, or violence, good versus evil can all be discerned quickly and easily on a soap opera. Plus, soap operas are naturally designed to allow anyone just tuning in to pick up the story quickly. The characters are easily loveable and deliciously "hate-able" so you turn to it again and again to see what's going on, and not only improve your English each time, but reinforce what you've already learned.

3. Read the Comics/Funny Papers

Very non-stressful! Pictures with words, or words with pictures, however you want to look at it, it's a great way to learn! For each thought presented there are words that match a picture, and vice versa. It doesn't matter if you read comic books, or the comics in the Sunday newspaper, read whatever will make you laugh and cause you to enjoy learning at the same time.

4. Read Children's books

If you know any little kids between the ages of 5-8, try reading one of their books to them. Usually little kids know their favorite books by heart, so if you stumble a little, they'll be able to help you.

If you enjoy this method of improving your English, and you find yourself to be pretty good at it, then try reading a few Dr. Seuss books. The rhyming will challenge you, but once you master it, your pronunciation of English, and your delivery will have been considerably refined and improved.

5. Take a service job like waiter or waitress; bartender, or sales person.

This type of job can be done if you have a decent vocabulary of verbs, and know how to say "I, we, she, he, they", etc. The only other thing necessary is a working vocabulary of things relevant to your specific tasks and goals.

For example, as a breakfast waitress, you want to be able to ask if they want their eggs, "scrambled or fried", if they want "more coffee", if everything is "alright", do they want "anything else", and the total of their bill in their own language!

If you sell real estate, you'll want to incorporate words like "mortgage, loan, co-sign, 30 year fixed", etc.

If you sell shoes, you need words like "how does that feel", are they "too tight, too loose, to short in the toe, to big", etc.

The longer you work at your job, the more your working vocabulary will improve.

6. Learn these two sentences and you'll be set for life . . . seriously!

"How do you say (blank)", in English (Spanish, French, etc.), and "What is that called?" (Point if you have to, and smile too). Smiling is a universal language. Once I learned how to ask these two questions, I was on my way to being conversant in the language of my choice!

I could use my limited vocabulary to ask the question and then when I got my answer I would repeat it a few times to make sure I was saying it correctly, and "BAM" I had a new vocabulary word. And, because I asked my question to the best of my ability in the native tongue, the natives realized my sincere desire to learn, and helped me!

7. What happens if you make a mistake?

Nothing. The world won't come to an end, and you haven't embarrassed yourself to the point where you can't show your face again. Just apologize if that's what's called for, or laugh at yourself, make the correction, and count it as a learning experience.

Once I was in a restaurant and I wanted to ask the waiter for a "to go" box, however, I was speaking to my kids in English, and trying to think of what I wanted to ask for in Spanish, and I promptly and incorrectly asked him for a "house to go". He looked at me kind of funny, but he was very courteous, and didn't laugh until I laughed.

I've committed other language faux pas as well over the years, all of which have been a learning experience, and if given enough time, will become a humorous story as well.

Imagine… Proven Way To Become An Educated And Respected Person In This Society With Online Education!

By : Everaert Patrice

Not so much time ago people had to travel days, months, even years just to go and search for a little bit of knowledge. The day of today we have all this technology at our sides but it seems that we don’t use this benediction. In only one mouse click we can download as we desire all the books, articles, courses, software's and such, but do we really use our minds as we should?

With online education we can go very far in our path to gain knowledge so lets get focused on that. Any kind of knowledge is findable on the web with its history and all of its details. We have at our disposition online software’s to research the oldest sayings and cultures. To discover how they where living, eating, dressing, learning, and so on…

There’s nothing that you really want to learn without finding it on the web. If you could only have the passion to build a car, a plane, a house, an empire… The web is going to teach it to you. Showing to you step by step how to handle, where to buy, why to build…

It’s a universal project to ease a lot of things to human kind. From grand-mothers to new born babies, they all find their interest with online education. For example a granny is able to learn how to make baby clothes and the baby will have a warm winter!

The World Wide Web is really a very big school where everything is offered to you for a little amount of money but most of the time it's even for free. Isn't that a wonderful thing? You don't have to make any efforts to educate yourself or your children. It's even surprising that using the web doesn't costs a lot of money.

It's really cheap and easy so use this chance to take knowledge and be useful for yourself and for others by spending your time to use what you've learned and to teach it to others. Please be modern, go on the web and surf on the "online education" forums, blogs and sites to gain what you really need to be integrated in 2007.

The only thing I know is that the clock is ticking while we aren't really progressing as we should. As I said before: "Not so much time ago people had to travel days, months, even years just to go and search for a little bit of knowledge." Shouldn't we be ashamed to be ignorant of the simplest things such as a second language, a foreign culture or even our own history…?

It isn't hard to become respected and educated in this society but you have to really want it. Just go and surf on the web to find the best of online education and get started…

Online Schools: the Changing Face of K12 Student Learning

By : Susan Bond

With each decade the face of education has changed to reflect the current trends in education. The policy initiatives of each president, governor, community leader and parent have been aimed at transforming children's learning environments into the ideal situation. While these initiatives may never succeed to meet every child's needs the combined result of their work has created an environment where education can now be tailored to meet the needs of every child through online schools.

Much like the advent of the search engine and booking our own airline travel, the Internet has introduced the nation to online education. To many, the commercial products available from higher education degree granting giants like the University of Phoenix define online learning. However, to a growing population of Americans, online schools have come to define the middle ground between home schooling and personalized public education.

While charter schools continue to spring up across the country, there are a select few that have been created in the charter school mold simply because the education establishment can not keep pace with today's innovations. In Ohio for example, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) was created in 2000 not to revolutionize charter schools, but to bring to Ohio's children and families leading education content in a format designed to enable every child to succeed. ECOT provides every child with an education option that delivers to each student exactly what they need while providing the comprehensive state standards based education that is the hallmark of successful public and private schools.

Other online schools and content companies such as the Florida Virtual Academy and K12 Education are part of a growing trend that brings together the real-life education community and the technology community. In many instances this partnership is a thorn in the side of traditional education and educators who see only standard classrooms as the answer to the ills of the American k-12 system

Online schools have revolutionized the workplace for skilled teachers and administrators. The result of this union is the ability to create a tailored classroom for gifted, struggling and needs-based students that, until the advent of online learning, were often segregated to specialty teaching groups to meet their potential.

The education landscape has changed and for many brick and mortar school districts this is a hard fact to face. The local school boards and education departments in America have begun to realize that business as usual isn't he solution to a rapidly advancing world and have begun to embrace the assets of online education.

Unlike the as-we-know-it classroom the online environment can be adjusted to meet the needs of every child and instill the state standards required of students since the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act without stagnating the classroom experience. From thousands of courses to graduation test practice sessions and immediate intervention opportunities, online schools offers to the students and families of 2006 what the computer breakthroughs of the past several decades offered to the business community. Simply put, online schools have the ability to provide every individual with the right information in the right format at the right time for optimal success.

Online schools were once considered the wave of the future. That future is now and the online revolution continues to shape the world of real life education without the boundaries of classroom walls.

Home Schooling: Determining The Length Of Your Child's School Year

By : Phil Kuermam

A practical alternative or replacement to schooling institutions is Home schooling. In conformity with your state laws concerning this kind of education, parents teach their children to study and learn themselves.

Parents have different explanations as well as justifications as to why they want their children to be educated through home schooling. Parents are concerned regarding the safety of their wards, as well as the quality of education that provided in public schools. The costs of private schooling and the struggle that the child undergoes to keep up with the entire class is one of the major factors in favor of such alternatives.

Most parents feel defenseless when their kids are labeled as ‘slow learners’ by their peers, or other such emotional baggage.

In a large class, usually teachers have limited options and remedies to act on such children who might be “slow learners” compared to others. This leads to the need for tutoring, where they are provided the attention they seek, and can learn at “their own pace”, without having to compete with others children even while maximum attention is being paid by the teacher.

Again, a student who is very enthusiastic about learning and who generally does well in class is a good candidate for home schooling, since he can successfully juggle the absence of interacting with his friends and encouragement for excellent work that are components of a regular classroom.

A home schooling teacher must be have suitably eligibility, which suggests that he or she has at least had a “high school education” to educate lower elementary students.

The parent or teacher must be inspired and encouraged enough to educate the students, since home schooling entails hard work as well as rewards; it is, nevertheless, a satisfying job, when the results are for you to see.

Parent or teachers should be available for each day of schooling, there should be no interruption due to daily chores, and dedication to the program is a must.

Plan what the child needs:

The child will need a certain study area that is quiet, with no disturbances at all. Study time should be well scheduled and well planned.

Have a focused attitude towards the child; this is essential, as your child realizes that you are committed and enjoy your time together rather than acting irritable or unsatisfied with your child’s limitations.

A reward is a must to encourage and stimulate your child to create an affirmative emotional and informative experience. You should provide your child with basic school materials such as textbooks, encyclopedia, globe, and dictionaries. Try out the resources the internet provides as an addition to your home schooling program; such information is forever updated.

Store up on educational games of different varieties, art materials and supplies and create an environment for reading books. After your home school hours the kids can do crafts, play games, and read books as and when they like.

How do you define your “home school period?”

To begin the process of lesson planning, you have to determine a timetable or what is the “school year for your program”

Begin, by knowing the total number of “school days” in a formal school.

While determining this there are two main factors that one should understand. Firstly, the certain number of teaching or tutoring days as obliged by the State you are resident of. Usually, 180 days are needed, although some States require more and some less. Consequently, this is the minimum number of days recommended for your program.

Another factor is the total number of days necessary to complete the longest type of curriculum planned by you for the coming academic session. When the particular “longest” session necessitates less than the lowest number of teaching days, then it need not be a reason for outlining your home school yearly curriculum.

If it should need more than the lowest or minimum days, its time will conclude the time span for your year of home school. For example, if your State requires a minimum of 180 days of teaching, you discover in your curriculum, for example that algebra, will need 200 days of teaching to complete. Then 200 days would suffice for your home school year.

Once you have finalized and resolved which days are more, than that of the lowest number of your State's or your longest duration of program, then you should estimate the “actual number of days” of your home school year. That will then be the total number of days that your lessons should be based on.

Looking For Free Online Distance Education?

By : Ras Reed
Is there anything like free online distance education? Yes and no. Want to know what I mean? I said yes because it’s available online. If you log on to the internet now and conduct a search using google, you’ll discover that there are lots of online institutions offering people like you free online distance education. This means that it does exist. I said no because nothing is free in this world. You have to pay the price before you can get anything good. In other words, there is no free lunch. It must be paid for.

Because of the power of the word ‘free’ many institutions are using it and luring many people into what they term free online distance education. Many of the institutions doing this are online fraudsters. I believe you know them. They have a way of getting their victims. Many times I have received mails in my Inbox and bulk box offering free online distance education. I don’t normally waste time about this. I delete them immediately. I advise to the same.

If any school claims to be offering you free online distance education, kindly and politely ask them who will pay for the downloaded materials, the building and maintenance of the website, the online instructors, the certificates etc. their answers will help you know the type of school they are. The fraudulent will have no answer while the reliable ones will give you good answers.

What you’ll get from free online distance education won’t benefit your career in the long run. This is because the certificates you’ll be issued will not only be bogus but won’t be useful for getting those good jobs you’ve always dreamt of. And moreover most employers of labour out there are very skeptical of online certificates. And they won’t waste time contacting the online school you get it from. If the school is not genuine, they won’t spend their precious time interviewing you for the job.

Once you’re sure that somebody somewhere has to pay for everything used in transferring knowledge and skills online, you won’t have detecting fraudulent free online distance education institutions.

Instead of frantically searching for free online distance education, its advisable you do comparison shopping in order to get affordable online institutions. There are online schools whose fee is quite affordable. Some exist that can even give you a loan for the duration of the program you want to enroll for. However, I urge you to consult your attorney before putting to such papers.

About The Author

Ras Reed provides more detailed and free information on his website. Get more info at http://distanceeduguide.com/sitemap.html.