language learning journal-3-

This week I start working in new skills which is grammar skill. The hardest skill in English language, at least for me. Even natives speakers something have problem with this skill. In this skill I'm going to be direct because it's very demanding and needs a lot of works and for me a lot of enhancement

In my case I don't have good qualifying strengths in this skill, I can solve a grammar problem and remember the rule by hearing, also change the verb to it is all forms easily. I am also good at tag question and I want to add that I understand some rule and memorize it better when I teach it to somebody else. in the contrary my area that l need to practice is some rules like present perfect present continues and if statement. I really have a hard time when I have to put science and ago and some reported speech . so first thing I planned to have grammar quiz on the net, so I got through 12 question about reported speech on http;//a4esl.org/q/h/9901/htm-reprted.html. and I solve it all correctly which gave me nice comfortable feeling that it may not be real. May be it is not that complicated but it is me making it a big deal, I did them once a week and it took me 30 minutes only. Moreover I had some practice on my essential grammar in use book by Raymond Murphy, I solved a paper with a 3 tasks I about the since and ago questions and I spent 30 minutes in it.

Finally I think that nothing impossible in grammar and the way to improvement in this skill is practicing a lot.

"language learning journal -2-"

This week I started working on my speaking skill. it is not that bad but, I'm seeking for more improvement and better fluent . These are things that help me to have some confidence when I'm speaking English ,for example:- using strong vocabulary effectively in my conversation, having many idea Iwant to integrate it in my conversation , however Ican't organize this idea ,My flouncy is not very strong and not that weak, you can say that I'm in the middle and Ican participate in a conversation easily.
I remember once when I were in the hospital ,after delivering my baby. The doctor that was responsible of him in the special care unit , tried once to speak with me in Arabic because she thought that I didn't know English so I asked her about the result of a blood test. She said that "Natiga Bacher" means that the result will be ready tomorrow . She was surprised when I told her that she can speak English . she told me that "your English seems to be better than my Arabic.". Also the nurses liked me and always telling me that I'm smart, and asked me where did I learn my English?? . So I guess I'm good at my speaking but I want to be more professional , which is very hard . but no thing is impossible. I knew that I need to develop some area in my speaking skill, like using some idioms in my conversation . I don't know any idioms that I can use. As a result of this, my English teacher recommended this website for idioms www.eslcafe.com/student , when I visited it ,I saw a list of idioms ,I wrote it on my notebook and tried to use it in my conversation ,with my family several times a day for 25 minutes. then , In the other hand I spoke to my neighbour who's name is Kathrine from England and tried to imitate her when she pronounce some word .and I noticed how different is the British accent from the American accent . so I spent 30 minutes talking to her about my college and my teacher . Moreover on Monday I wrote many dialogues from my pronunciation book and recorded my self reading them . after that I hared it and corrected my mistakes.Because I needed more practice on my pronunciation for the difficult word and the long one.
The last thing I did is that I asked my husband to do me a speaking test from my IELTS exam essential book for 40 minutes. And this exam took place on Thursday.he gave me a feedback about my speaking which is very loud voice and my accent is near to Indians accent.
"AMINA"

"language learning journal"

This journal will explain how seriously did i take the plan that i made for my learning language skills . and did i use those strategies or not. after i finished my plan i thought it will really benefit me if i apply some strategies in my learning journey, and add more to my English language skill.
in the past two days i started working on my writing skill because i felt that i need more work on it,and i can't exceed high school level . it's not like i don't have any strength in it ,on the contrary in my writing i can use high level of vocabulary effectively ,and organize the essay into "introduction,body paragraphs and conclusion",on the other hand i needed to improve my self on when i should use punctuation marks ,and how to use connections effectively .also i need extra help on my brainstorming as it is very slow and not satisfying me.

So,at the beginning i searched on the Internet about punctuation marks i learned how the symbol looked like and when i have to use them , www.rogerdarlington.co.uk/punctuation.html
then i started writing small essays with punctuation included in it. once every day for 40 minutes . also i looked for the connections on the Internet again and i found www.umanitoba.ca/student/u1/images/connections. as i can't use this word effectively in my writing so i found a list of connections and downloaded it .then i started writing 2 or more sentences and connect between them .i did that twice and it took me only 20 minutes.
And i also needed more practise on my brain storming ,when i looked it up on the Internet i found this site http://www.brainstorming.co.uk/. it taught me how to do brainstorm and collect my ideas faster , also i decided to do an extended reading on several type of topics. to increase my knowledge and my amount of idea for faster brainstorm.

finally i hope by doing this to achieve my aim to develop my learning skills.and to reach a satisfying level which qualifies me to teach in English .

"Amina"