How to keep improving your English when you finish your course
Suggestions for speaking
If you stay in the UK, you will have plenty of opportunities to practise your English, these
are just some suggestions:

Get involved in activities in the University or in your local area. Check the vacation
programme from the University of Sheffield:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/vacation

You can also have a look at the following website to find other interesting activities
that take place in Sheffield:
Sheffield Community Information: http://www.sheffieldhelpyourself.org.uk/

Keep an eye on notice boards that announce possible activities in your local area.
If you go back to your country:

Try to keep in touch with the international friends that you have made here.

Meet other international people in your country. Expatriates in your country would
love to meet local people, so don’t hesitate to join in their activities.
A good website that is used by international people to meet is www.internations.org.
Check if your local area is included on this website or just set up a group yourself!
Whether you stay here or go back to your country, you can also keep a verbal diary, where
you record your feelings and what you did during the day. You could listen to it again later
and reflect on your speaking speed, hesitations, pronunciation, etc.
Suggestions for Listening

BBC Learning English is a great website to find general listening, reading and
vocabulary practice:
www.bbclearningenglish.com

http://www.youtube.com/
Type in « UCL mini lectures ». You can watch very short
lectures- 4 to 10 minutes long. Start with one on your own subject area, then try
other topics.

You can also watch any interesting talks with subtitles (or without!) on www.ted.com

http://www.englishcentral.com
You can watch short videos, check vocabulary you
don’t know and then practise your pronunciation by recording your voice. You have
to register, but it’s free.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/levels/zc9d7ty BBC Class Clips. You can watch short
videos on a huge number of different topics. These are designed for use in secondary
schools, and so the English is easier than on YouTube. To watch a video, select the
year (for example 3rd level) and click on the subject you are interested in. For example,
the “people in society, economy and business”; the “people place and environment”
and the “social studies” subjects contain a lot of videos that can be relevant to many
of the topics usually found in language exams.

If you like listening to songs, don’t hesitate to have a look at www.lyricstraining.com
Suggestions for reading

If still at the University of Sheffield, you can borrow graded reader books from
Western Bank Library, where they are shelved at 428.28, arranged in magazine boxes
by level.

While you are in the UK, why not buy a magazine in something you are interested in?
(e.g. computer games, travelling, history, etc)

Why not try reading and listening to an article at the same time? Try this website with
American English: http://learningenglish.voanews.com/. You can even comment on the
news on this website and talk to people from different parts of the world!
Suggestions for writing

Why not keep a diary where you write not only what you did during the day but also
new expressions you learnt in English, things you saw, feelings from the day, etc?

You can also try to keep a blog or use websites to write your comments in English.

How about sending postcards to your international classmates about amazing places
from your own country or places you have visited?
Keep improving your vocabulary

Carry a small notebook with you and make notes of any interesting / useful
vocabulary that you notice and that you would like to remember.

Think of expressions in your own language that you would like to learn in English.
Check them in a dictionary and then see how they are used in context (use Google for
example to check this).

An excellent place to learn more words: www.bbclearningenglish.com

For those of you who would like to learn some general vocabulary to better
understand the news (BBCLearning English section “Words in the News” )

For those of you who would like to learn more about idiomatic expressions in English
(The English we Speak from BBC Learning English)

And don’t forget the exercises from your online workbook. They’re excellent practice
and revision of the work you have done in class and you can check your own answers!
Finally, have a look at the following websites www.coursera.org or www.futurelearn.com
where you can find hundreds of online courses for free!