English as a Second Language

-


It seems that the desire to learn English is at an all-time high among nonnative speakers and it makes sense-- English is a global language with over 375 million speakers. Regardless of where you go in the world, chances are, knowing English will allow you to navigate through the culture to some degree. This is especially true if you live or plan on living in a culture that uses English as a primary language such as the United States of America. In such cultures, having developed proficiency is ideal. In fact, if you plan on immigrating to a country where English is the primary language you may be required to have basic-intermediate proficiency.

 English is also the most popular language on the internet. As of 2010, there are at least 5.5 billion websites that are written in English. That's billion with a B, This means that if you are able to write and read in English, you will be able to access a lot of potentially relevant information. In other words, not only will you be able to navigate through many actual cultures, but you will be able to access an additional wealth of information on the internet. By having proficiency in English, your options are virtually limitless.

 While English is perhaps one of the most challenging languages to master, it is also one of the most profitable languages to attain proficiency in. Learning and, more importantly, understanding the fundamentals of the English language will open a pretty large door for you; that is to say, by knowing how to speak and write English, you will have more personal and professional opportunities. 

 These opportunities include:

  • Meeting new and potentially interesting people
  • Being able to communicate with different types of people 
  • Getting many different types of jobs such as teaching, journalism, government work, and basically anything that requires you to communicate with the public.

While learning and developing proficiency in English may seem like a daunting task, a lot of English Language Learners (ELL) have similar issues including problems with grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Therefore, if you are having particular issues learning English, it is very likely that there are others out there who are struggling with the same thing. Don't be afraid to reach out. 

 The goal of this blog is to provide quick tips and advice that may help you in your process to improve your proficiency in English. Although learning a language can seem like an isolated process, it rarely ever is. On the contrary, learning or improving your linguistic skills is a social process. 

 As stated above, English is perhaps one of the most difficult languages to learn. However, even so, it is probably one of the most beneficial languages to attain mastery in. English is a versatile language that is used to some degree by roughly 25 percent of the world's population. Isn't it time you joined them? 

Ryan M. Shea, English Proficiency Specialist 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Setting Goals and Self-Reflection

-
Setting Goals Taking Proficiency Step By Step As you all might be aware, I, R.M, am an international student with a fervent desire to study English. In addition, I have agreed to write for Level-Up Proficiency as I believe that they have the right mindset to understand that gaining proficiency in a language is a hard and intricate process. In order to succeed, there has to be an immense amount of dedication on the part of the learner and the instructor.  That being said, I was not as fortunate to have an instructor or mentor of sorts to help me out in tough times. That being said, this is my experience of setting goals to make up for the fact that I have had no outside help. This can be hard! This requires you to keep your motivation levels at a constant! So, I hope that this helps to not only keep your larger goals of proficiency in mind, but also help you to pace yourself so that you can reach the finish line as quickly as possible! Understanding Where You Are At… ...
Read more

Do You Revise Your Work?

-
As I'm sure you've seen by now, we have officially launched our website. While we will continue to add new features and tools to it over the next several months, we felt it was important to publish something with the basic information about our brand. So what am I getting at?  The site was actually finished an entire week before it was published, and I'm glad that we took the extra time to look over and revise it. Here's why: Unbeknownst to me was the fact that a website's interface on the computer typically needs to be slightly altered for the mobile interface. While I was looking over the site myself, I had several close friends and relatives take a look at it and give me feedback. The only concern most people had was they said that in the services section on the homepage it was hard to read the text because the picture was behind it. Now, I knew that wasn't the case on the computer, so initially I was a bit confused by what they meant. Then I realized...
Read more

Looking Beyond The Language

-
In previous entries, we have discussed the reasons why you should continue to improve your proficiency. You probably know from personal experience why you should: maybe you want to be taken more seriously at work, maybe you want to improve your grades, or maybe you want to be able to lead your team more efficiently. There are many different reasons why you should and, in some cases, why you might even need to.  But here's the thing and I'm sure you'll agree: learning a language can be both exhausting and repetitive which can eventually lead to you losing interest in it. A few summers ago, I tried to teach myself French. At first it was exciting. I was also reading French literature and the idea of potentially being able to understand the parts in French without having to consult the endnotes kept me motivated. However, after a few months of very little progress, I decided to take an indefinite break from learning French. And you want to know why? Because I ha...
Read more