All of you know the importance of English.

It is
the language of knowledge, international
communication and trade. I know that most of
you want to improve your English but are not
sure how to go about it. I am going to tell you
how to do it. I know the methods work because
they have worked for me.
The very first thing you have to do is to read
more. Read newspapers, books and magazines.
There is no other way that is more effective than
reading. There are no short-cuts to mastering the
English Language. You have to read more and
you have to do it for some time before you can
see the results.
You can also attend English tuition classes. The
more time you spend studying the language, the
better you will be. At such classes, you will be
taught grammar, sentence construction, common
errors and so on. All this will improve your
understanding of English.
Studying how to write English is not enough. You
have to learn how to speak it. In fact, when you
go for job interviews or start working, the ability
to speak English is very important. If you cannot
converse with the interviews in English, you will
probably not be given the job. You will likely have
to speak to your boss in English or you may have
to conduct meetings in English. You may also
have to speak to potential clients or customers in
English. If you cannot speak English well, it will
be a very big disadvantage. When you first start
to speak English, you will surely make mistakes.
Never mind, carry on doing it and one day you
will find that you can speak English very fluently.
As the saying goes, Practice makes perfect.
Another way to improve your English is to
correspond with English pen-pals. If you
correspond with people who are not native
speakers of the language, you may learn wrong
English from them. So, the best way to avoid
learning bad English is to learn it from the native
speakers themselves.
An interesting way to learn English is to go and
see English films. From the films you can learn
how the language is spoken, the ways English
words are pronounced and the situations in which
certain words, phrases or sentences are used. At
the same time, you would be enjoying the films.
Listening to English programmes over the radio is
also a very effective way of learning English. As
the English on our local stations may be suspect,
tune in to the BBC (British Broadcasting
Corporation) which has impeccable English. In
fact, one very famous Oscar-winning American
actor learnt his English in the same way. At first,
he spoke English like an uneducated man but
after months of listening to the BBC, he spoke
like a graduate from one of the top British
universities.
The next method is like going to the cinema to
see English films. However, instead of going to
the cinema, you do it at home. You can watch
English films on television. Try not to look at the
subtitles at all. Try to catch what the actors and
actresses are saying. It will be difficult at first but
you will be able to do it with more practice.
A very bold but guide effective way of learning
English is to act in English plays. Join the school
drama society or an amateur acting club. When
you act in a play, you have to memorise your
lines and give life to them. I cannot think of a
more effective way of learning English than this
because the English you have memorised will
stay with you forever.
You can also take part in elocution contests.
Writing the speech you have to deliver,
memorising it and then delivering it will really
improve your English. You will learn not only how
to write English but also how to speak it.
Taking part in debates is also a very good method
of improving your English but your English must
already be quite good before you can do it. This
is very different from taking part in dramas or
elocution contests where you just have to
memorise what you have to say. In debates, you
have to attack or rebut the points put forward by
your opponents. There is no way you can prepare
beforehand what you want to say. You have to do
everything on the spur of the moment. That
takes quite a good command of the language. So,
take part in debates only when your English is up
to standard.
One very important thing you must do if you
want to be very good at English is always to
check the meanings of words that you do not
know in a good dictionary. Many students are too
lazy to do this. They only try to guess the
meanings of the words. This will not do for almost
a hundred times out of a hundred, they will guess
the meaning wrongly. The dictionary will give you
the exact meanings. In the beginning, you may
have to check the meanings of almost every
word. However, when your vocabulary improves,
you will have to check the meanings of fewer and
fewer words.
Another very important thing is you have to
correct the pronunciation of many of your words.
You have heard many words pronounced wrongly
by many people and you are pronouncing them
the same way they do. You may think that just
because many people pronounce the words that
way, the pronunciation must be correct. This is
not true. Many words are wrongly pronounced. A
few examples are 'deposit', divorce', 'hostel',
development' and preservative'. The de' in
'deposit' is pronounced as 'di' and not dep'. The
di' in divorce' is pronounced as di and not dai.
The tel' in 'hostel' is pronounced as 'ti' and not
'tell'. The correct pronunciation for the de in
development is 'di' and not 'dare'. The 'pre' in
preservative is actually pronounced as pri and
not prare.
The most commonly mispronounced letter is 'O'.
It is seldom pronounced oh but rather eh'. The
dictionary will show you how to pronounce the
letter O. For example, 'police' is not pronounced
'polis' but rather pelis. 'Consider' is not
pronounced 'konside' but rather 'kenside'. The
word monopoly is frequently mispronounced. It
is not monopoli but rather menopeli. 'Coconut'
is not 'kokonat' but rather 'kokenat'. Remember
that if a word has only one 'O', it is seldom
pronounced as 'oh', and no matter how many
'O's' a word has in its middle part, only one of
them is pronounced as oh. However, if the
letterO is at the beginning of a word such as
'oppose' and object, it is usually pronounced as
oh.
Get someone to teach you the pronunciation
symbols or learn them yourself. After that check
the pronunciation of every word before you use it
in your speech.
I have given you a few ways in which you can
improve your English. You may know other ways.
Use them to improve your English. It is for your
own good and the good of the country.
Before I step down from the rostrum, I would like
to say, LONG LIVE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!
Thank you very much.