Answering exam questions:

hello today I will show you diferent ways to answer  exam questions  and have the best mark you can.

Read the instructions carefully – Before looking at the actual questions, read the rubric (instructions). Are there compulsory questions? Marks are often lost by nervous or over-confident students who overlook instructions to "Answer 1 question from Section A, and 2 from Section B" or tackle too few questions.

Work out the timing – Divide your time according to the number of questions to be answered. Allow some time for planning. Allow checking time for statistics or calculations.

Read the questions carefully. Read through the paper once and then re-read each question. You might think a topic you've revised hasn't come up, when it is there but the wording is unusual. Alternatively you have revised the topic, but the question is obtuse and you do not fully understand it.

Choose your best questions - Mark any questions you might answer, and then check that you fully understand it. Do you have some relevant knowledge, ideas and evidence for the ones you choose to answer? Do not answer a question that you do not understand.

Decide on question order. Some people like to start with the topic they know best to give them a good start. Others prefer to do their best question second, because with one question completed, they can relax and expand on their best ideas and gain extra marks.

Writing Strategies:  
Hello readers ! here are som steps that you should follow when writing in a foreign language, you 

a.      DON'T write in English and then translate.  You will make your task much more tedious and time-consuming than necessary, and the language will be very far from accurate, making what you write very difficult for anyone to understand.

b.      DO:  Brainstorm ideas and words you will need.  Think of how to say things with words you already know in the target language.  Keep it simple.  Look up two or three words if you think you must.

c.       Write down ideas and make lists as you think of them, even if you have some notes partly in English. 

d.      Identify your audience:  who are you writing to? 

e.      Identify your purpose:  why are you writing?  What do you want to accomplish? 

f.      Read over your text and add ideas; re-arrange ideas.  Think about information that would make it more interesting or more precise and add it.

g.      Read it over again, to see if you are covering all of the points necessary to achieve your purpose.  Put yourself in the place of the intended audience:  does it achieve your purpose?  How does it affect you?  Is it convincing?  What are the omissions or weakness in the arguments or ideas?  Make revisions.

h.    Read it again, this time looking at the verbs.  Check the tenses and make sure the verbs agree with their subjects.  Make corrections.

i.     Read it again, this time looking at adjectives.  Adding adjectives can make your text more interesting and vivid.  After adding adjectives, check them all for endings that agree with their nouns.

j.      Read your text again and correct the punctuation, spelling and diacritical marks.

What I do to learn :

Hey everyone here you have some  things that you can do for make your study hours better and effective

Spending long hours studying is not necessarily productive. It is possible to gain better marks by studying more effectively rather than for longer. Most of this resource looks at ways of studying in more effective ways. To study effectively, you can:

Identify what is really needed

Work out exactly what is required for assignments. This saves time in re-writing assignments later.

Work strategically

Set yourself clear goals and work towards these.

Make the material meaningful

Work with the material, looking at how it fits together and applies to different circumstances

Look for links

Look for links between what you are learning and the wider world. This helps to develop understanding and memory.

Work with others

Work with other students so that you share ideas and gain mutual support. You may be able to share some research tasks and clarify your lecture notes. Studying with others makes study more interesting, as you gain a different set of perspectives.

Look for shortcuts

Look for reasonable short-cuts that do not compromise your studies. For example:

• Avoid unnecessary tasks such as writing notes out neatly
• Use abbreviations in your notes
• Write assignments onto a computer if possible rather than writing them out by hand and then typing them up
• Focus your notes around themes and questions rather than making long notes that you do not really need.

Take care of yourself

Take rests when you are tired. Study takes longer and the brain is less effective when you are tired or stressed. Plan your time so that you get breaks. A change of scene stimulates the brain and helps creative thinking.

speaking and interacting  strategies :

Hi there! Today i'm going to talk about speaking skills. I hope you enjoy!!

Oral Communication is the ability to talk with others to give and exchange information & ideas, such as: ask questions, give directions, coordinate work tasks, explain & persuade.

Practise where you can, when you can. Any practice is good – whether you speak to someone who is a native English speaker or not.

It's important to build your confidence. If possible, use simple English sentence structure that you know is correct, so that you can concentrate on getting your message across.

Try to experiment with the English you know. Use words and phrases you know in new situations. Native English speakers are more likely to correct you if you use the wrong word than if you use the wrong grammar. Experimenting with vocabulary is a really good way of getting feedback.

Try to respond to what people say to you. You can often get clues to what people think by looking at their body language. Respond to them in a natural way.

Try NOT to translate into and from your own language. This takes too much time and will make you more hesitant.

If you forget a word, do what native English speakers do all the time, and say things that 'fill' the conversation. This is better than keeping completely silent. Try using um, or er, if you forget the word.

Don't speak too fast! It's important to use a natural rhythm when speaking English, but if you speak too fast it will be difficult for people to understand you.

Try to relax when you speak – you'll find your mouth does most of the pronunciation work for you. When you speak English at normal speed, you'll discover that many of the pronunciation skills, such as linking between words, will happen automatically.

READING STRATEGIES: 

Hello everyone! In today's post I'm going to give you advice on reading strategies!

Strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively include

• Skimming and scanning: using a quick survey of the text to get the main idea, identify text structure, confirm or question predictions
• Guessing from context: using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as clues to the meanings of unknown words, instead of stopping to look them up
• Paraphrasing: stopping at the end of a section to check comprehension by restating the information and ideas in the text

When reading to learn, students need to follow four basic steps:

1.       Figure out the purpose for reading.

2.      Attend to the parts of the text that are relevant to the identified purpose and ignore the rest.

3.      Select strategies that are appropriate to the reading task and use them flexibly and interactively

4.      Check comprehension while reading and when the reading task is completed.

  

Listening strategies:

Listening strategies:

Hi guys! In today's post I'm going to explain you some of the most efficient strategies that hat may help you with you're listening skills.

Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by how the listener processes the input.

 Some of the strategies that you can use are : 

• listening for the main idea
• predicting
• drawing inferences
• summarizing
• listening for specific details
• recognizing cognates
• recognizing word-order patterns

This site gives us tips in order to help our listening skills: 

http://www.learning-english-online.net/skills/listening-comprehension/listening-strategies/

Before you listen

·   Think about the topic of the text you are going to listen to. What do you already know about          it? What could possibly be the content of the text? Which words come to mind that you                  already know? Which words would you want to look up?

·   If you have to do a task on the listening text, check whether you have understood the task          correctly.

·   Think about what type of text you are going to listen to. What do you know about this type of     text?

While you are listening

·   It is not necessary to understand every single word. Try to ignore those words that you think     are less important anyway.

·  If there are words or issues that you don't understand, use your general knowledge as well as     the context to find out the meaning.

·   If you still don't understand something, use a dictionary to look up the words.

·   Try to think ahead. What might happen next? What might the speakers say, which words might they use?

After listening

·    Think about the text again. Have you understood the main points?

·    Remember the speculations you made before you listened. Did they come true?

·   Review your notes.

·   Have you had any problems while listening? Do you have any problems now to complete             your task? Identify your problems and ask someone for help.

Memory and learning strategies:

Hello welcome to my blog! In today's entry I will give you some piece of advice on how to have a better memory in order to learn faster. 

“The true art of memory is the art of attention” by Samuel Johnson

The most important thing when it comes to learn and memorize concepts is to be conscious during the initial learning that means that it is important to pay attention and listen.

Once you have all the material that you need to study it is a good idea to repeat, write down or even sing the concept. To create a visual image of the association is also a grate tip that may help you.

You can also associate the new learning with something that you already know, or link it to something that sounds familiar to you, another thing that you can do is to make and acronym or even to make a list of the capital letter of each concept that you have to learn by hard. 

Something like this:  OPFTSE

·         occipital bone                    

·         parietal bones 

·         frontal bone

·         temporal bones

·         sphenoid bone

·         ethmoid bone

This Web page give us a list of activities that can help us to improve the effectiveness of learning and memory. https://www.tc3.edu/docs/study/improving_memory.pdf

Selectivity - The process of identifying the most important main points and details.

Association - The process of linking together new information to something familiar.

Visualization - The process of making mental pictures.

Elaboration - The process of actively thinking about and personalizing new information.

Concentration - The process of keeping attention focused on the task.

Recitation/Writing - The process of saying aloud or writing out what you are learning.

Intention - The process of creating a learning goal and desired outcomes.

Big/Little Picture - The process of looking for general ideas and the supporting information.

Feedback - The process of verifying what has been learned by through self-quizzing.

Organization - The process of logically arranging information you are learning.

Time on Task - The process of arranging and spending sufficient time on the task.