Fourth semester (Spring 2024)

To improve my reading skills, I will read all of the school assignments. That should go without saying as they are compulsory. On top of that, I will read anything interesting that comes my way, preferring British authors.

My listening goal is to watch British TV series and films. Furthermore, as I’m planning on going to England by plane, I would love to be able to understand the pilot when he addresses the people in the cabin. So far, I’ve been able to decipher around 10% of the communication, which is very poor.

To enhance my writing performance, I will of course do without assistance all of the written assignments, except when specifically asked to use other tools. Although, I allow myself to use online dictionary and spell check of the software programme I’m currently using. Moreover, I will contribute to forums of my choice, depending on the workload.

My priority for this term remains the same, participate in as many speaking activities as possible. For example, I signed up for language and methodology course in Barnstaple. Furthermore, I plan on taking up the English online course again, which means connecting for 4 zoom sessions and several speaking sessions of my choice. Let’s see if other opportunities come along, I would participate in those as well.

Third semester (2023)

My goal for reading is simple – to keep reading. At the moment I am in process of reading several books, so I should finish those. Also, I would like to read all the books we have been assigned in literature course, not only extracts.

Lately I have stopped listening to podcasts because I don’t have the capacity to absorb the information. I watch tv though, so I have plenty opportunity to practice listening.

To improve my writing skills, I plan on writing more in forums in the course English online. It is given that I will keep doing my schoolwork, for methodology, literature, practical language, …

My speaking goal remains the same, to participate in as many activities as possible. Try to speak up during seminars, sign up for speaking sessions and the ZOOM seminar group in the English online course. Outside school I will speak English in my practice training at our local school as an assistant to the teacher. Lastly, I tutor a fifteen-year-old boy via Skype, which not only helps with my speaking skills but also gives me my first opportunity to teach. To improve my pronunciation, more specifically the way I pronounce “th”, I will read out loud for a few minutes every day.

Second semester (2023)

Recently, I realised that because of my tendency to read the same books more than once, I might be missing out on a lot of important literary works. My goal is to change that and start reading more books by English authors, recent or not.

To overall improve my listening skills, I will continue listening to podcasts and tv shows. Because I want to master the General British accent, I will focus on British speakers and British tv shows.

As I already mentioned, apart from overall improvement of my writing, I would like to improve spelling, interpunction and the cohesion of my writing. This means for example checking the spelling of certain words while reading or writing. Also, I get to work on my writing skills in the course of Základy psaní. There we practice writing while getting useful tips such on different aspects of writing.

This semester I would like to become more confident in my speaking skills and work on my General British accent. I will participate in as many speaking activities as possible. I’ve signed up for courses English on-line and English on-line speaking. In the course English on-line I participated in 3 Speaking sessions and a ZOOM forum. In English on-line speaking we will make 4 videos throughout the semester. Furthermore, I even talked my husband into having sometimes conversation in English.