Ined
Member
- Joined
- May 5, 2019
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Croatian
- Home Country
- Croatia
- Current Location
- Croatia
Hi,
I stumbled upon this amazing forum, while browsing the internet, looking for a community where I can improve my English grammar.
In advance, I would like to apologize for all grammar errors made in this post.
A little bit of info about myself. I've been using English language for about 20+ years and I am completely aware that my grammar is awful. I lost my job recently, and while I'm looking for employment, I would like to improve my English. I think now's the time, well, I have all the time, and I don't want to waste it.
I would have love to pay for instructions, unfortunately my current financial situation is not good at the moment, I simply can't. So, I was wondering if teachers could share tips on self-studying and how would you go about it if you have to teach yourself from scratch.
So, my questions are:
How would you teach yourself all Parts of Speech?
Which ones to start with first?
Would you go one by one or with multiple classes? If multiple, which ones?
How would you practice?
Where is my problem?
I have always been a visual guy, as you can see, I can write, also I can easily remember words and their pronunciation. However, when it comes to rules, well, I simply just ... I don't know. I don't consider myself stupid, but I just can't grasp them. Perhaps, it has something to do with how I was taught in school about 20 years ago. I simply didn't have a good teacher, she was awful and old.
For instance, about 5 days ago I have watched a video on YouTube where the teacher demonstrates tenses using timelines. It blew my mind! Since I'm a visual guy, it just made sense for me. Afterwards, I've found diagrams about aspects and all made sense for me. If only my teacher used them when I was in school. I've started making diagrams for everything; nouns, pronouns etc. Reading and looking at them multiple times a day.
Anyways, I've been watching lessons on Khan's Academy and lovely lessons by Ganesh over at Learn English Lab. Ganesh is really a great teacher. I've watched nouns, pronouns and verbs for now. I think this is enough, even now I'm afraid it's a lot of information to absorb in a week. As I already mentioned my visual capabilities, I'm afraid that online tests where I have to choose between words or fill the blanks is not working for me much. Each and every test I took I had a very high percentage of correctness. I've been using English wrongly for 2 decades so I guess it's a memory thing. What I want is to understand WHY certain PoS are used. For example, to understand tense used in a sentence, to identify nouns, pronouns, adjectives etc...
I don't know if I can link YT videos after reading the rules. However, I found a simple video on how to practice tenses. Not sure if I understood it correctly, but I think it is a good way to practice. So, the teacher drew the timeline on a piece of paper, then he created actions/states and he placed them somewhere on the timeline. I think this is brilliant approach for learning. I am definitely going to use timelines for learning tenses. If there are similar ways for learning other Parts of Speech, please share them, it would be much appreciated from my part.
Hope this was not long and painful to read. Hopefully I will find a good soul who's willing to help and share knowledge and experience.
Cheers,
Ined
I stumbled upon this amazing forum, while browsing the internet, looking for a community where I can improve my English grammar.
In advance, I would like to apologize for all grammar errors made in this post.
A little bit of info about myself. I've been using English language for about 20+ years and I am completely aware that my grammar is awful. I lost my job recently, and while I'm looking for employment, I would like to improve my English. I think now's the time, well, I have all the time, and I don't want to waste it.
I would have love to pay for instructions, unfortunately my current financial situation is not good at the moment, I simply can't. So, I was wondering if teachers could share tips on self-studying and how would you go about it if you have to teach yourself from scratch.
So, my questions are:
How would you teach yourself all Parts of Speech?
Which ones to start with first?
Would you go one by one or with multiple classes? If multiple, which ones?
How would you practice?
Where is my problem?
I have always been a visual guy, as you can see, I can write, also I can easily remember words and their pronunciation. However, when it comes to rules, well, I simply just ... I don't know. I don't consider myself stupid, but I just can't grasp them. Perhaps, it has something to do with how I was taught in school about 20 years ago. I simply didn't have a good teacher, she was awful and old.
For instance, about 5 days ago I have watched a video on YouTube where the teacher demonstrates tenses using timelines. It blew my mind! Since I'm a visual guy, it just made sense for me. Afterwards, I've found diagrams about aspects and all made sense for me. If only my teacher used them when I was in school. I've started making diagrams for everything; nouns, pronouns etc. Reading and looking at them multiple times a day.
Anyways, I've been watching lessons on Khan's Academy and lovely lessons by Ganesh over at Learn English Lab. Ganesh is really a great teacher. I've watched nouns, pronouns and verbs for now. I think this is enough, even now I'm afraid it's a lot of information to absorb in a week. As I already mentioned my visual capabilities, I'm afraid that online tests where I have to choose between words or fill the blanks is not working for me much. Each and every test I took I had a very high percentage of correctness. I've been using English wrongly for 2 decades so I guess it's a memory thing. What I want is to understand WHY certain PoS are used. For example, to understand tense used in a sentence, to identify nouns, pronouns, adjectives etc...
I don't know if I can link YT videos after reading the rules. However, I found a simple video on how to practice tenses. Not sure if I understood it correctly, but I think it is a good way to practice. So, the teacher drew the timeline on a piece of paper, then he created actions/states and he placed them somewhere on the timeline. I think this is brilliant approach for learning. I am definitely going to use timelines for learning tenses. If there are similar ways for learning other Parts of Speech, please share them, it would be much appreciated from my part.
Hope this was not long and painful to read. Hopefully I will find a good soul who's willing to help and share knowledge and experience.
Cheers,
Ined