ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS

Reading

Kinds of reading strategies:

Which of them do you use to read newspapers?

Useful websites

http://www.uefap.com/reading/readfram.htm  advice, exercises

http://scholar.google.cz/ search engine for specialist literature


Speaking

·        Logical and precise

·        Certain degree of formality

·        Structured speaking – in presentations

Useful websites

http://www.uefap.com/speaking/spkfram.htm advice, exercises

http://www.eslfast.com/robot/ short everyday conversations

http://www.eslgold.com/speaking/speaking_situations.html phrases for different situations


Listening

·        Understanding the main idea (ignore the words and phrases you do not understand and form
your idea of the content)

·        Understanding specific information (e.g. numbers or special terms, you are not interested
in the overall idea)

Useful websites

http://elllo.org/ listening exercises

http://www.esl-lab.com/  listening exercises

http://academicearth.org/ university lectures and courses

http://www.ted.com/ presentations on different topics

Writing

·        Formal style, correct grammar

·        Well-organized, structured

Useful websites:

http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm advice, exercises

http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/ frequently used phrases


Grammar

What you need to know:

·        Tenses : simple and continuous forms of present, past and present perfect tense

·        + questions in these forms

·        + passives

·        Expressing future

·        Modals

·        Pronouns

·        Adjectives (comparisons, superlatives)

·        Adverbs

·        -ing form, infinitive form

·        Countability / uncountability, expressing quantity

·        Conjunctions, prepositions

·        If-clauses, relative clauses, expressing purpose

Useful websites

http://www.ego4u.com/

http://www.e-gramatica.com/

http://www.englishpage.com/grammar/

http://esl.about.com/


Vocabulary

·        Special terms

·        Academic vocabulary

·        Collocations

·        Avoiding phrasal verbs – these are informal

Useful websites

http://www.uefap.com/vocab/vocfram.htm theory and exercises

http://a4esl.org/a/v3.html  or   http://a4esl.org/a/v5.html exercises on general, academic,
specialist vocabulary