Durham School of English

Improving your speaking requires practice, and one of the best ways to do that is with a language exchange partner. A language exchange is when two people from different countries get together to practice each other’s language. So, for example, if you live in Newcastle and want to practise your English, you need to find an English person that wants to practise speaking your language. The idea is that the two of you would meet up, maybe once a week, and spend 30 minutes or so speaking English and 30 minutes speaking your language. You could get together at a coffee shop, a local library and even, when you get to know each other better, each other’s houses.  Language exchanges have a number of things going for them. The obvious one is that they are free. This means that it might be possible to meet up with you partner 3 or 4 times a week. You could even have a number of different speaking partners. (Varying your partners is a good way of broadening the range of English you hear.) You wil

Improving your English takes time.  On average, it takes a full-time English student 6 months to go from one English level to the next, from elementary to lower-intermediate, for example.  For a full-time IELTS student, it usually takes 3 months to go from one band to the next.   If you are not studying full-time at an English school you will need to find time to study by yourself.  Here are some ideas to get you going: Have a plan  Having a plan is a great way to get you studying regularly.  The more specific you can be with your plan the better.   For example, you could say which exercises you are going to do or how many pages of a book you are going to read.  As well as writing your plan, take some time to prepare all the materials in advance.  You may need to bookmark certain pages in textbooks or print out materials.  Have them ready on your desk each day. Try to create a habit   You are more likely to continue studying if you can make it a habit.  A considerable amount of researc