Reading, listening and writing helps to improve one's English

My students always ask me how to improve their English and my answers are invariably the same.

Reading, listening and writing in English are a must if one wants to improve in English.

For reading, the most easily accessible printed matter is the newspapers. Take about ten to 15 minutes a day reading English newspapers. Through reading one will pick up new words, get used to English structures and especially the correct usage of prepositions and phrasal verbs.

Listening helps to reinforce our pronunciation and train our mind to visualise things spoken in English.

Writing, is to me, very important because 'practice makes perfect'. If a student is very hardworking and writes an essay a day and ask his teacher to mark it, he is sure to improve in his essays tremendously. I have personally marked the 'karangan' (essay written in Malay) for a collegemate very often and she finally obtained a distinction in the MCE (now SPM) exam.