Hi everyone
Recently I did a test which shows I'm about B2 level in English.It warns me again that my English skill is just "able to live" but far behind "present my entire thoughts to others".Do you have any suggestion or personal experience about stepping towards C1 from B2,especially in English(other languages also help)?If so,I wish you can write some here!Or if you know some articles or resources about this,thanks for sharing too!
A Personal Thing:Currently I feel much confident to talk with people in general daily topics but whenever it comes to history,literature,politics,news,etc,those topics I'm interested in, I only feel my mind become blank(I do know much about those topics in my mother tongue,but I just not able to organize my speech when I need it in English).I'm living in an English speaking country, but it doesn't help me much since I'm falling " Don't know what to say ->don't have enough talk -> fewer topics to talk" cycle.Thank for any suggestions about this as well!
I second Irena's opinion that you need to read and to practise/rehearse things you think you'll want to say, possibly in writing first.
Remember when you were first learning English and you had to listen and repeat the basic phrases loads of times in order to remember them? Well it's similar- I used to pick a topic in Italian that I wanted to be able to discuss in depth, read newspaper or magazine articles about it, learn the key vocab using a dictionary then write and practise sentences so that I would have something in my head already when a conversation about that topic came up. use an online dictionary with audio recordings so that you know how to pronounce new words.
in my experience, native speakers won't usually correct you, if you want this, you need to take classes.
I disagree with Bing's suggestion that if you're in an English speaking country you will automatically learn- it's not a given. I teach in an English speaking country and I often have students in my classes who have lived here for up to 15 years and are only at B1/B2 level.
As well as speaking to natives you need to listen carefully and notice the phrases they use- write them down, ask about them.
listen to the news and current affairs programmes and write down key vocabulary.
Listen to youtube videos/ movie clips, or any kind of audio in your target language and repeat key phrases, imitating the pronunciation as best you can.
Another thing I found really helpful was to learn something new in Italian- in my case scuba-diving! I did the first level course in Scuba-diving and had to do a practical exam, written exam and oral exam as well as attending classes and going on trips. Having to do it in Italian really helped me focus on what I could/couldn't do with the language and I learnt loads of vocab.
I hope that helps a bit.
Good luck!
@Aisling
Well my opinion was based on my personal experience. I have some friends in my university who didn't speak Hindi(my native) but after spending some quality time with us they started speaking Hindi. At the beginning their speaking wasn't good enough. But after spending two years in my country and regular speaking with natives made them confident. And now they could speak just like us. So I think this is equally applicable in all the languages.
To be honest from my experience I could say native speakers always correct your mistakes if you want them to do so.
And if you can't get used to English, despite being present in an English speaking environment, then it would be your fault.
The bottom line is if you have an opportunity to live in a English speaking country and have some conversion with native speaker on a regular basis, then you don't need to follow any conventional study rule as the asker is already at B2 level. So making conversion and working on your mistakes would be key to reach C1 level.
