3 Powerful And Effective Skills To Write, Speak And Communicate With Impact

Now that we have hopefully put things into perspective, let’s put them into practice. I have compiled a fresh list of ideas that ideally will inject new life into your English learning.

Keep your ears perked

While I believe that books in their written form are timeless artefacts, they are not the be-all-end-all of language improvement. This is especially so if you are not a learner that thrives on written linguistic stimuli. 

  • Want to read more but prefer auditory input? Try audiobooks! There are many such sites (audiobooks.com ; audible.com) and mobile applications (e.g. Google Play Books) that allow you to access an extensive variety of titles whenever you like.


  • Want to make the most of your commute? If you have earphones, podcasts (or audiobooks, as previously mentioned and informative videos are great for enjoying on the go! TEDTalks or How Stuff Works, which are available both as podcasts or as videos, are tried-and-tested channels that cover an immense number of topics. Feel free to find any channel that you like and will continue enjoying; consistency is after all, key to improvement.

Build your reading stamina 

If your purpose is to excel in school comprehensions and essay writing, I still do suggest that you ensure you have the stamina to understand or write an entire short text. If need be, you can slowly build up your ability to concentrate on texts:

  • Short attention span? Try reading shorter books, like novellas, short story compilations, or poetry collections! They still help you concretise your command of the language, and as a plus – you gain exposure to a more diverse range of writing styles.

  • Read when no one’s looking! Next time you come across an event brochure, advertisement, or any sort of non-conventional media material – pay attention to how its written or laid out, try asking yourself questions about its purpose, and challenge yourself to structure your thoughts into full sentences. This is of course good practice for VTC, but much more importantly – it’s good practice for life! Who knows, maybe you’ll end up wanting to go for the event!

Related post: Valuable Tips To Improving English

Make conscious effort

Will Smith famously once said, “if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready”, and it’s a good motto to prepare for exams by. Once you make conscious effort at the beginning of your learning process, it becomes much easier to keep it a habit. 

  • Make a list. I have been guilty of wondering what a word or phrase means, looking it up once, and then having this entire situation repeat itself the next time I see that particular word or phrase. To combat this endlessly cyclical phenomenon, try keeping a word log of words you don’t know. Collect words from all the compres you’ve had, books you’ve read, and people you’ve met. Look them up, so you’ve a working idea of what the dictionary defines them as. Then…

  • USE THE WORDS! Challenge yourself to write any sentence using those words, or even better – use them in your everyday life. I promise you that they become much harder to forget once they become part of your everyday vocabulary!
  • Connect the dots. After a while, you’ll begin to recognise some patterns between words. A particularly good example of this are word affixes that most people have an intuitive understanding of. Let me give an example:

      dis-: has the sense of negation, like in ‘disbelief’ (not-belief) or ‘dissimilar’ (not similar)


      junction: a common enough word, like in ‘road junction’. We know that it’s “a point where two or more things are joined” (Oxford English Dictionary).


      Hence, if we see the word ‘disjunction’, we can safely assume that it means something ‘not-joined’, which is similar to its dictionary definition: “a lack of correspondence or consistency”.

    dis-: has the sense of negation, like in ‘disbelief’ (not-belief) or ‘dissimilar’ (not similar)

    junction: a common enough word, like in ‘road junction’. We know that it’s “a point where two or more things are joined” (Oxford English Dictionary).

    Hence, if we see the word ‘disjunction’, we can safely assume that it means something ‘not-joined’, which is similar to its dictionary definition: “a lack of correspondence or consistency”.

That’s all we have for today. Enjoy the process!

Additional links:

List of audiobooks, available online

List of podcasts suitable for teenagers

More about words