How to improve your English by reading

How can reading improve your English? What reading strategies can you use to improve your vocabulary, pronunciation, fluency, and enunciation? In this instructional and motivational video, I tell you how picking up a book can not only help you to improve your vocabulary but your speaking confidence and presentation skills as well. Watch the lesson, and let me know some of your favourite books in the comments section! https://www.engvid.com/how-to-....improve-your-english

TRANSCRIPT

Hey, everyone. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on "How to Improve Your English By Reading". So, it might be very obvious how reading can help you improve, you know, your speaking in English, particularly your vocabulary, but there are a number of reasons and a number of things that reading regularly and reading in specific ways can actually help you to improve your English, and also not only like your reading English, but your ability to speak properly or to speak confidently. And again, this applies not only to English as a second language learners, but also to English speakers, period. So pick up a book, and here's how picking up a book can help you to improve your English.

So, number one: You can improve your English by picking up any book, reading out loud, and exaggerating what you're reading. You might think: "This sounds ridiculous", but if you are a second language learner, this is a fantastic way to improve your enunciation, your pronunciation, and presentation skills. Even if you're not a second language learner... English as a second language learner.

So, for example, it doesn't matter what type of genre you like, what type of books you like. Me, personally, I love science-fiction, I love fantasy. And I can turn to, you know, pages in any of these books and read out loud, exaggerate what I'm saying, and just the act of doing this, of speaking out loud what I'm reading makes me feel, again, more confident speaking in front of an audience, for example.

So I'll just open to a random page here and... Okay, so in this book, just so you know, there's a horse, his name is Artaq. And it says: "Artaq did not hesitate. He veered toward the Silver River. The wolves came after, soundless, fluid, black terror. Will was sure that this time they would not escape. Allanon was no longer there to help them. They were all alone."

Now, what you notice is I'm... I'm trying to exaggerate: "They were all alone." Even like my l's. And focus on every letter when you're reading, because this type of reading, reading out loud, exaggerating, if you are a professional, this is a great way to build that clarity in your speech when you're speaking in front of people, and pacing yourself, how fast you speak as well is important, obviously, when you're giving a presentation.

This second part... Again, this one can apply to both native speakers of English, but it's more specifically geared towards English as a second language speakers, and that is: Paying attention to word endings. And especially "ed" and "s" endings. So, specifically past tense words, like "wanted", okay? Or plural words, like "hawks" instead of one hawk, because a lot of, again, English as a second language learners sometimes forget the "ed" ending when they're reading. I've taught classes where, you know, students have to read out loud, and they're so focused on reading and getting the words correct, but the pronunciation, they just drop the ends of words sometimes, especially "ed", especially "s".

So let me see if I can quickly find an example. Okay, here's one: "When he stayed on his feet..." When he... Oh, why am I pointing? You can't see that. You can't see that. So: "When he stayed on his feet" this is one part of the sentence. Again, you have the verb "stayed", so some new learners of English will sometimes read that as: "When he stay", "When he stay", and they just drop the end. So please, please, please focus on those "ed" and "s" endings, and this will really help your fluency, the ability of others to understand you, as well as your enunciation. "Stayed", okay?

Number three: Pay attention to punctuation. Now, punctuation refers to the use of commas, periods, question marks, exclamation marks when you're reading. By paying attention to these things, you can actually focus on improving your intonation and your fluency; two specific things. So, the intonation refers to the up and down movement of your voice when you are saying something or reading something. So, for example, you know, raise... In the second part I said: "Raise intonation for yes or no questions." So if you notice when you're reading that, you know, this person is asking a yes or no question, then your voice should be moving up at the end. And, you know in speaking, this also improves that.

So, for example, in this book there is... Okay, here's a yes or no question, the question is: "Did you find her?"