Great IELTS Prep Apps

 

Great IELTS Prep Apps

***********************

If you're searching around some useful applications to help you prepare for your IELTS exam, I'd like to recommend some very good apps down below. 

 

British Council IELTS Prep App

Click on the link below to download the app.

iOS - https://apps.apple.com/.../ielts-prep-app.../id1207210399

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details...

 

British Council IELTS Word Power

Click on the link below to download the app.

iOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ielts-word-power/id1025760872

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ubl.ielts

 

Magoosh IELTS Exam Preparation: Lessons & Study Guide

Click on the link below to download the app.

iOS - https://apps.apple.com/.../ielts-exam.../id1199169155

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details...

 

Magoosh IELTS Vocabulary Flashcards

Click on the link below to download the app.

iOS ://apps.apple.com/us/app/vocabulary-flashcards-ielts/id1125546528

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details...

 

Magoosh Vocabulary Builder

Click on the link below to download the app.

iOS - https://apps.apple.com/.../vocabulary-builder.../id890252250

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details...

 

Magoosh English Grammar Lessons for TOEFL & IELTS

Click on the link below to download the app.

iOS - https://apps.apple.com/.../magoosh-english.../id599745198

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details...

 

Resources at your Fingertips!

Sharing is  Caring...

Kyal Sin Phu

7 Oct 2020

Are you Nitpicking?

 လူအမျိုးမျိုး စိတ်အဖုံဖုံဆိုတဲ့ အတိုင်း တချို့သူတွေက အကောင်းမြင်ကြတယ်၊ 

တချို့ကကျတော့ အရေးမပါတာကို ရေးကြီးခွင်ကျယ်လုပ်ပြီး အပြစ်မရှိ အပြစ်ရှာတာမျိုးလည်းရှိတယ်။ 

အဲ့လိုမျိုး အရေးမပါတာတွေကို ရေးကြီးခွင်ကျယ်လုပ်ပြီး လိုက်ပြောနေတာမျိုးကို 

အင်္ဂလိပ်စာမှာ Nitpick လို့ခေါ်ပါတယ်။ 

Meaning ~ to find faults in details that are not important 

Nitpick ကတော့ verb ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ သူရဲ့ noun တွေကတော့ Nitpicking နဲ့ Nitpicker တို့ပဲဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

Nitpick  ~ ရေးကြီးခွင်ကျယ်လုပ်ပြီး အပြစ်မရှိ အပြစ်ရှာခြင်း 

Nitcicker ~ ရေးကြီးခွင်ကျယ်လုပ်ပြီး အပြစ်မရှိ အပြစ်ရှာသူ 

ပိုပြီး နားလည်သွားအောင် အောက်မှာ example sentence လေးတွေနဲ့ လေ့လာကြည့်ပါမယ်။ 

• You're always nitpicking - it's so annoying!

နင်က အမြဲဆိုသလို အရေးမပါတာကို အပြစ်မရှိ အပြစ်ရှာနေတော့တာပဲ။ အဲ့လိုမျိုးကို သိပ်စိတ်ပျက်တာပဲ။  

• He was getting impatient with his daughter's constant nitpicking.

သူကတော့ သူ့သမီးတောက်လျှောက်အပြစ်မရှိအပြစ်ရှာပြောနေတာကို စိတ်မရှည်ဖြစ်နေပြီ။ 

• If you spent less time nitpicking, you'd get more work done.

မရေးမပါတာတွေကို အပြစ်ရှာပြောနေတာကို လျှော့မှ အလုပ်တွင်လိမ့်မယ်။ 

• Nitpicking is not welcome in this office.

ဒီရုံးမှာတော့ အပြစ်မရှိအပြစ်ရှာ လိုက်ပြောနေတာမျိုးကို အားမပေးဘူး။ 

Ref: www.cambridge.org / sentencedict.com

Have you known what CEFR & A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 mean?

 သင့်ရဲ့ အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ Level ဘယ်လောက်ရှိသလဲ သိပြီးပြီလား။

အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ စာအုပ်တွေမှာ ရေးထားလေ့ရှိတဲ့ A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 ဆိုတာတွေကရော 

ဘာတွေလဲ ဆိုတာ သိပြီးပြီလား။ 

အင်္ဂလိပ်စာနဲ့ ပတ်သတ်ပြီး သူများတွေ ပြောပြောနေကြတဲ့ CEFR ဆိုတာကိုရော သိပြီးပြီလား။ 

မသိသေးဘူးဆိုရင်တော့ ဒီ post လေးမှာ ဖတ်ရှုလေ့လာနိုင်ပါတယ်။ 

အရင်ဆုံး CERF ဆိုတာကို စပြောပြပါမယ်။ 

CEFR ဆိုတာကတော့ Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ရဲ့

 Initialism (ရှေ့ဆုံး စာလုံးတွေကိုပဲ ယူထားတဲ့ အတိုကောက်) ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

CEFR ဟာ ဘာသာစကားကျွမ်းကျင်မှုစွမ်းရည်ကို ဖော်ပြတဲ့ နိုင်ငံတကာ စံသတ်မှတ်ချက်တစ်ခုပဲ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

CEFR ဟာ ဘာသာစကားကျွမ်းကျင်မှုစွမ်းရည်ကို အဆင့် (၆) ဆင့်နဲ့ ဖော်ပြပါတယ်။ 

အဲ့ဒိ အဆင့် (၆)ဆင့်ကတော့ 

(1)A1  

(2)A2 

(3) B1 

(4) B2 

(5) C1 

(6) C2  တို့ပဲ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

 

ပုံမှာတွေ့ရတဲ့အတိုင်း 

• A1 & A2 ကတော့ Basic User ပဲ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

Cambridge English Qualifications Exam အရ A1 Level ဟာ Starters နဲ့ Movers Exams တွေကို 

ဝင်ရောက်ဖြေဆိုရမှာဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

A2 Level ဆိုရင်တော့ Flyers နဲ့ KET (KEY English Test) စာမေးပွဲတွေကို ဖြေဆိုရမှာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

• B1 & B2 ကိုတော့ Independent User လို့ သတ်မှတ်ပါတယ်။ 

B1 Level အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ ကျွမ်းကျင်မှုဟာ IELTS အမှတ်နဲ့ ပြောရမယ်ဆိုရင် 4.0 - 5.0 လောက်ရှိပါတယ်။ 

B1 Level အတွက် Cambridge English Qualifications Exam ကို ဝင်ရောက်ဖြေဆိုမယ်ဆိုရင်တော့ 

PET (Preliminary English Test) စာမေးပွဲကို လေ့လာဖြေဆိုရမှာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။  

 

B2 Level အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ ကျွမ်းကျင်မှုက IELTS အမှတ်နဲ့ ပြောရမယ်ဆိုရင် 5.5 - 6.5 လောက်ရှိပါတယ်။ 

B2 Level အတွက် Cambridge English Qualifications Exam ကို ဝင်ရောက်ဖြေဆိုမယ်ဆိုရင်တော့ 

FCE (First Certificate in English) စာမေးပွဲကို လေ့လာဖြေဆိုရမှာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

 

• C1 & C2 Level ကိုတော့ Proficient User လို့ သတ်မှတ်ပါတယ်။ 

C1 Level အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ ကျွမ်းကျင်မှုဟာ IELTS အမှတ်နဲ့ ပြောရမယ်ဆိုရင် 7.0 - 7.5 လောက်ရှိပါတယ်။

 C1 Level အတွက် Cambridge English Qualifications Exam ကို ဝင်ရောက်ဖြေဆိုမယ်ဆိုရင်တော့

 CAE (Certificate in Advanced English) စာမေးပွဲကို လေ့လာဖြေဆိုရမှာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

C2 Level အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ ကျွမ်းကျင်မှုက IELTS အမှတ်နဲ့ ပြောရမယ်ဆိုရင် 8.0 - 8.5 လောက်အထိရှိပါတယ်။ 

C2 Level အတွက် Cambridge English Qualifications Exam ကို ဝင်ရောက်ဖြေဆိုမယ်ဆိုရင်တော့ 

CPE (Certificate of Proficiency in English) စာမေးပွဲကို လေ့လာဖြေဆိုရမှာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

အခုဆိုရင် CERF နဲ့ သူရဲ့ အဆင့် (၆)ဆင့်ဖြစ်တဲ့ A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 ဆိုတာ

 ဘာတွေလဲ သိသွားပြီလို့ မျှော်လင့်ပါတယ်။ 

အဲ့တော့ ကိုယ်ကရော ဘယ် အဆင့်မှာပါလဲ သိဖို့အတွက် Cambridge University ရဲ့ official website မှာ 

အောက်ပါ link ကနေ Online Level Test ကို အခမဲ့ ဝင်ရောက်ဖြေဆိုလို့ရပါတယ်နော်။ 

ဖြေပြီးပြီးချင်း ကိုယ့် Level ကို ချက်ချင်းသိရမှာဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/test-your-english/general-english/

Cambridge English Qualifications Exam တွေဖြစ်တဲ့ Starters, Movers, Flyers, KET, PET, FCE, 

CAE, CPEတို့ကို ဖြေဆိုချင်ရင်တော့ British Council မှာ register လုပ် စာမေးပွဲကြေးသွင်းပြီး ဖြေဆိုရမှာဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

Ref: www.cambridgeenglish.org 

Michelle Obama’s Journey: Humble Beginnings to Significant Breakthroughs

Do you think it would be possible for someone from a disadvantaged background and an underrepresented community to make significant breakthroughs, and become influential worldwide? It is definitely possible regardless of your social status, gender, race, or skin colour. There were a number of people throughout history who had proved the notion that anyone from any background can reach their fullest potential and achieve their goals - Oprah Winfrey, J.K. Rowling, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen King, to name but a few. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, one of the world’s powerful women, is also a solid example of becoming an inspiring woman icon despite being born as an underprivileged little girl.  

Humble Beginnings to Significant Breakthroughs 

 Michelle’s journey started with humble beginnings: she was born and raised by her working-class parents, Fraser Robinson III (a pump operator for the Chicago Water Department) and Marian Shields (a stay-at-home mom) - who are not college graduates. The Robinsons lived in a brick bungalow on the South Side of Chicago. Michelle went to Chicago public schools. She had to take out student loans to fund her education. Obviously, she was a first-generation college student who had to go through a great deal of struggles to pursue her education. However, being brought up in such an underprivileged community could not hamper Michelle from making significant breakthroughs happen. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Princeton University in 1985 and a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1988. She became the executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, an AmeriCorps program that prepares young people for public service, in 1993. In 1996, she joined the University of Chicago as associate dean of student services, where she developed the university’s first community service program. In 2005, she became the vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She was the first African-American First Lady of the United States (2009 - 2017). As a first lady, Michelle initiated “Let’s Move!” in 2010 - a public health campaign dedicated to solving the problem of childhood obesity within a generation. Furthermore, she initiated the “Reach Higher” campaign in 2014, inspiring every student in America to take charge of their future by completing their education . Later in 2015, Michelle - together with former President Barack Obama - launched “Let Girls Learn”, a U.S. government initiative committed to helping young girls receive the education they deserve worldwide. Michelle has been admired worldwide for her intelligence and dedication to public services: in 2019, she was also named the “most admired woman” in the world in a major new US survey.  

What it takes Michelle to become who she is today? 

Firstly, it can be said that who she is today is the result of her growth mindset and positive attitude towards challenges. Taking account of her words "You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it's important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages," which she said during her 2016 City College of New York commencement speech and "Instead of letting your hardships and failures discourage or exhaust you, let them inspire you. Let them make you even hungrier to succeed.” said during the King College Prep High School commencement speech in 2015, it is obvious that Michelle - unfazed by the hurdles life threw at her and seeing the bright side of seemingly unpleasant things - embraced obstacles as a stepping stone to reach her fullest potential. 

 Secondly, Michelle’s pursuit of education has a role to play in getting her where she is now. Michelle, as a student back then, was ambitious, industrious, and committed to excellence. “I worked hard to get the best grades I could in all of my classes. I stayed up late, got up early, and worked on my essays and personal statements. I finally got into Princeton which was the proudest day of my life” Michelle recounted in her speech on the power of education. Undeniably, her hard work and perseverance paid off in the end - in spite of the fact that her teachers told her she was setting her sights too high, and was never going to school like Princeton, the Ivy League University. Michelle also claimed in the speech, “Education was truly everything for me. I was willing to do whatever it took for me to go to college. Getting my degree changed the course of my life.” 

 Thirdly, it would not be complete to miss out the good upbringing she had received from her parents: love and unwavering support, faith in her, as well as encouragement to speak out - which shapes her to become who she is now. In her memoir “Becoming”, Michelle penned how her parents talked to her and her brother Craig like they were adults and never grew tired of asking them questions and provoking conversations on all kinds of topics. “As parents, they are not raising babies but raising adults”. said Michelle in an interview about her memoir “Becoming”, explaining how the real value she felt for her voice in the family inspired her to become such a powerful woman with a powerful voice today. 

The fourth factor which attributed to Michelle’s becoming an influential leader while being a mom (she called herself “Mom-in-chief”) is having a mentor (role model) - which Michelle stressed as a relationship that can make all the difference . "We are living, breathing role models, not just in what we say, but what we do." said Michelle Obama on her podcast called “The Michelle Obama Podcast”. For Michelle, Valerie Jarrett, her former boss, who worked as the head of planning and economic development at the Chicago Mayor's office, had a profound impact on her. Michelle also revealed in the podcast that Valerie helped her realize the kind of leader and mother she wanted to be in the workplace. Michelle, upon witnessing Valeria stopped a meeting to take a call from her daughter, said “She was like the head of economic development one second and Laura's mommy the next”. Michelle also remarked "That made us all more productive and feel like not just our work had value, but our lives had value."  

Leaving a Legacy behind 

 Michelle’s steadfast commitments to shaping a more healthier and educated nation sets her legacy as a distinguished First Lady, whose life story and strong-willed persona inspire individuals from all walks of life across the globe. The way she pushed the boundaries and created her own identity in the face of a myriad of struggles makes Michelle an iconic role model for women of all ages, young girls in particular.

Photo Source: www.forbes.com

Kyal Sin Phu

11 September, 2020 

 

English for Emails

 Email တွေဟာ လုပ်ငန်းခွင်အတွက် တကယ်ကို အရေးပါတဲ့ အသုံးဝင်တဲ့ ဆက်သွယ်မှုတစ်ခုပဲဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ဒါကြောင့် professional ဆန်တဲ့ email တစ်စောင်ကို အင်္ဂလိပ်လို ဘယ်လိုမျိုးရေးရမလဲ ၊ ဘယ်လို ဝေါဟာရတွေ၊ အသုံးအနှုန်းတွေကို သုံးရမလဲဆိုတာနဲ့ အင်္ဂလိပ်လို Email ပို့တာနဲ့ ပတ်သတ်ပြီး အခြားသိသင့်သိထိုက်တဲ့ အချက်တွေကို လေ့လာလို့ရမယ့် resource လေးတွေကို ပြောပြပါမယ်။

အဲ့ဒါကတော့ Learn English British Council website က English for Emails ဆိုတဲ့ section ပဲဖြစ်ပါတယ်။

📌Email Address တွေကို မှန်မှန်ကန်ကန်နဲ့ အင်္ဂလိပ်လို ဘယ်လိုအသံထွက်ရမလဲ ။ Email addresss တွေနဲ့ ပတ်သတ်ပြီး သိသင့်သိထိုက်တာတွေကို အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာနိုင်ပါတယ်။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-1-email-addresses

📌Email တစ်စောင်မှာ ပါဝင်တဲ့ အပိုင်းတွေကို အင်္ဂလိပ်လို ဘယ်လို သုံးနှုန်းပြောဆိုရမလဲ ဆိုတာကို အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-2-sending-and-receiving-emails

📌ကိုယ့်ဆီကို ဝင်လာတဲ့ Emails တွေကို သူ့နေရာနဲ့သူ သေသေသပ်သပ်ဖြစ်အောင် Email မှာပါတဲ့ category အမျိုးမျိုးကို သုံးပြီး ဘယ်လိုမျိုးလုပ်ရမလဲဆိုတာကို အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-3-organising-your-emails

📌အင်္ဂလိပ်လို email တစ်စောင်ကိုရေးတဲ့အခါ ဘယ်လိုမျိုး အစချီပြီး ဘယ်လိုမျိုး အဆုံးသတ်ရသလဲ ဆိုတာကို အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-4-starting-and-finishing-emails

📌ကိုယ်က email ပို့ပြီး arrangement လုပ်တဲ့အခါ သုံးရမယိ့ common phrase တွေကို အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-5-making-arrangements

📌Email ကနေ ကိုယ်ကတစ်ခုခုမေးမြန်းချင်တဲ့အခါဖြစ်စေ၊ ကိုယ့်ကို တစ်ယောက်ယောက်က တစ်ခုခုမေးလာတဲ့အခါမှာ ဖြစ်စေ အင်္ဂလိပ်လို မှန်မှန်ကန်ကန် စနစ်တကျ မေးတတ်ဖြေတတ်ချင်ရင် အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-6-enquiries

📌ရှင်းလင်းပြီး ဖတ်ရလွယ်ကူတဲ့ သေသပ်တဲ့ Email တစ်စောင်ကို ဘယ်လိုရေးရမလဲ၊ ဘယ်အချက်တွေကို ထည့်ရေးရမလဲဆိုတာ သိချင်ရင် အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-7-organising-your-writing

📌Email ရေးရာမှာ ဖြစ်တတ်တဲ့ common mistakes တွေက ဘာတွေလဲ အဲ့လိုမျိုး error တွေမရှိအောင်ဝဘယ်လိုလုပ်ရမလဲ သိချင်ရင် အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-8-proofreading

📌Professional ဆန်တဲ့ Email တစ်စောင်ရေးဖို့အတွက် သိထားသင့်တဲ့ dos & don'ts တွေ ၊ etiquette တွေအကြောင်းကို အောက်ပါ linkမှာ လေ့လာနိုင်ပါတယ်။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-9-email-etiquette

🔸Resources are at your fingertips!
🔷Stay Passionate & Keep Learning!

Phrasal Verbs with "Take"

 📌Take over

Meaning : to take control of something (တာဝန်လွှဲပြောင်းမှု ရယူ)

e.g. David has taken over as the new manager of the football team.

📌Take up

Meaning: to begin a sport, hobby or a challenge (တစ်ခုခုကို စတင်လုပ်ဆောင်)

e.g. He took up karate at a young age and is now an expert.

📌Take on

Meaning: to hire/employ staff (ဝန်ထမ်းခန့်ထား)

e.g. The department store took on more staff over the busy Christmas period.

📌Take off

Meaning (1): leave the ground and fly (လေယာဉ်စတင်ပျံသန်း)

e.g. The plane was able to take off once the runway was clear.

Meaning (2): become popular or successful (လူသိများ အောင်မြင်)

e.g. Exile by Taylor Swift has really taken off in the charts.

📌Take (something) in

Meaning: to observe something (လေ့လာဆန်းစစ်)

e.g. They took in every detail to tell their friends about it later.

📌Take after (somebody)

Meaning: resemble somebody else, usually a family member (မိသားစုဝင်/ တစ်စုံတစ်ယောက်နဲ့ တူ)

Mark is very hard-working. He takes after his father.

📌Take apart

Meaning: to disassemble something (ကိရိယာ တန်ဆာများကိုဖြုတ်သည်)

e.g. He took his laptop apart to see if he could fix its problem.

Ref: www.vocabulary.cl.com

 

10 Useful Idioms about Health

 

📌Clean bill of health

Definition: A report or certificate declaring that someone is healthy. (ကျန်းမာရေးကောင်းမွန်ကြောင်း ထောက်ခံချက်လက်မှတ်)

e.g. If you wish to apply for this job you must produce a clean bill of health.

e.g. The doctor’s given me a clean bill of health.

📌 as fit as a fiddle

Definition: to be in the excellent state of health (ဒေါင်ဒေါင်မြည် ကျန်းမာ)

e.g. My grandmother is in her eighties but she’s as fit as a fiddle.

e.g. You may feel unwell now but after a few days of rest and medication, you’ll be as fit as a fiddle.

📌Be the picture of (good) health

Definition: To look very healthy. (ကျန်းမာရေး အရမ်းကောင်းပုံပေါ်)

e.g. My grandpa exercises every day without fail. He is the picture of health.

e.g. The doctor says Linda is the picture of health.

📌In the pink of health

Definition: In very good health (ကျန်းမာရေး အရမ်းကောင်း)

e.g. It took a month of bed rest followed by physiotherapy, but I’m in the pink of health now.

e.g. It’s so good to see you in the pink of health!

📌Under the weather

Definition: Slightly unwell or in low spirits. (နေထိုင်မကောင်းဖြစ်၊ ဖျားနာ)

e.g. I’m sorry I can’t make it. I’m feeling a bit under the weather today.

e.g. The sandwich I ate for breakfast is making me feel under the weather.

📌Look like death warmed up

Definition: To look or feel very sick. (အရမ်းနေမကောင်းဖြစ်/ဖျားနာ)

e.g. Oh dear! You look like death warmed up, I think you should see a doctor!

e.g.She shouldn’t be working all night when she’s so ill, she looks like death warmed up.

📌Frog in one’s throat

Definition: Difficulty in speaking because of a cough or sore throat (ချောင်းဆိုး/လည်ချောင်းနာပြီး စကားပြောရခက်ခဲ)

e.g. I’m tired of feeling like I’ve a frog in my throat. I can barely talk.

e.g. Conducting today’s workshop was so difficult. I had a frog in my throat all day.

📌Go under the knife

Definition: To have a surgery; it could also mean cosmetic surgery. (ခွဲစိတ်ကုသမှုခံယူ)

e.g. My mum’s not worried about the operation. She’s been under the knife several times.

e.g. Stacy went under the knife last week.

📌On one’s last legs

Definition: To be very tired or near to death (အရမ်းမောပန်း / အသည်းအသန်ဖျားနာပြီး အသက်အန္တရာယ်နဲ့နီး)

e.g. He was always the picture of heath, it’s shocking to see him on his last legs.

e.g. We’d been out shopping all day and I was on my last legs when we reached home.

📌As right as rain

Definition: To be in excellent health (ကျန်းမာရေး အလွန်ကောင်းမွန်နေ)

e.g. Nancy isn’t ill anymore. I saw her this morning and she’s as right as rain.

e.g. If I keep a proper diet and exercise regularly, the doctor says I’ll be as right as rain.

Ref: www.englishonyourmind.com

 

 

How Improving English Language Skills can contribute to Socio-Economic Development of Myanmar?

 

Before Myanmar’s independence in 1948 was gained, a significant number of records indicate that almost all Myanmar’s university students used to speak English fluently having taught in English as the medium of instruction during the British colonial era, and the quality of Myanmar’s education was ranked one of the tops in Asia.

However, as of today, the vast majority of the Burmese people still lack adequate English language skills despite the fact that they had studied English as a compulsory subject for eleven years in basic education. Some students are taking English language classes even after getting a degree. It is noticeable that the number of youth who speak English in the country is relatively low compared to other Asia Pacific countries since it was labelled “Very Low Proficiency” on 2018 Global English Proficiency Index. EF English Proficiency Index also reported in 2019 that the country took a significantly lower position of 86 out of 100 countries in terms of English language proficiency.

Source: EF EPI Asia Rankings 2019

Driving Forces behind low level of English Language Proficiency in Myanmar

There are a number of conditions that hamper the students from becoming confident speakers of English language. Firstly, a high proportion of English teachers employed in the government’s schools in Myanmar – where massive population of students are educated – are not competent users of English. A report of Australian Journal of Teacher Education on the language competency of English teachers in Myanmar, who participated in EfECT (English for Education College Trainers) teacher training program of the British Council Myanmar, stated that the teachers were weak and had low levels of English. They could not speak fluently in conversational situation, and their English was limited to simple vocabulary – this, in the report, is pointed out as the reason why the teachers use the native Burmese language both inside and outside of classrooms.

Secondly, since English teachers, themselves, lack an efficient level of language proficiency, they are not capable of conducting their classes in English and using English as a medium of instruction – indicated by Gary V. Ireland and Robert Van Benthuyse in their research paper entitled as Contemporary Issues in EFL Education in Myanmar. “Our official language is not English, so we often do not use it. Even in our own classrooms, we do not deliver our lessons in English because we are not confident to use it, and we are more comfortable using our own language”, said a participating teacher of EfECT program, which is also mentioned in Australian Journal of Teacher Education. As a result, the students are not exposed to English-speaking classroom environment and, this, in turn, costs them losing opportunities to speak English.
 

Thirdly, teachers with a low level of English language proficiency are more likely to employ a conventional teacher-centred pedagogy, which results passive learning and a limited interaction between students and teachers in classrooms, - according to a research on “Teacher Training in Myanmar: Teachers’ Perceptions and Implications” issued by International Journal of Instruction. Accordingly, the English language classrooms in Myanmar’s state schools are not dynamic or vibrant enough to conduce effective language learning.

Fourth, English language teaching pedagogy used in government high schools in Myanmar is found to be exam-oriented, training the students for a mere purpose of achieving good grades in exams through memorization of textbook contents – rather than facilitating the actual development of language skills – as stated in a research on “An Analytical Study of English Teaching Skills of Teachers in Government High Schools in Myanmar” by Ven.Suriya.

In the case of private providers of English language courses, the academic credentials of instructors working at language schools are not properly set up in Myanmar unlike Singapore and Malaysia, where teachers are required to hold a recognized TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) qualification, in addition to a bachelor’s degree to ensure that the quality of teaching is standardized. “There are many teachers in Myanmar whose English may be defined as lower than ‘competent user’ (IELTS Band Score 6), but are offering both online and in-person classes nationwide”, said an experienced English teacher who prefers his name kept anonymous.

Source: Harvard Business Review

Why Learning English has become more important to the people in Myanmar?

Since English has been a lingua franca used in a wide range of contexts: education, research, business dealings, science, technology and so forth, “being able to communicate in English is perceived as a valuable asset for the academic and professional development of individuals and the nation’s socio-economic growth as a whole” - stated by Dr. Daniel Brooker, Senior International Education Manager from Cambridge Assessment English, in his research. This is particularly relevant to developing countries because English can provide people with access to various sources of information, knowledge and skills needed to conduct knowledge-based economic activities and produce value-added products and services.

Source: Harvard Business Review

As Myanmar is one of the developing countries, where FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) plays an important role as part of economic reforms, it is crucial to have a skilled and English-proficient workforce that can drive sustainable development of the country. However, an enormous number of the Burmese population, having grown up in an aforementioned unfavorable environment for English language acquisition, has not unfortunately achieved a sufficient level of English Language proficiency to thrive in this age of globalization and fast-paced world - risking repercussions on academic growth, employment opportunities, and career advancement. Thus, it is recommended to provide feasible approaches to effective English Language learning for the socio-economic development of Myanmar.

Comparison between 2018 and 2019 Index

Source: EF EOU Scores Compared to 2018

EF EPI (2019) has reported that Myanmar experienced almost 2 % soar in the English language proficiency while many Asia countries witnessed a downward trend, compared to the year of 2018. It is somehow the good side of the coin despite low ranking, and we are confident that the ranking will probably improve in the following years if the following recommended strategies are systematically applied to language learning.

What are Effective Strategies for Learning English?
 

The following strategies can be deemed effective for a successful acquisition of English language proficiency. These learning approaches apply to not only the Burmese students but also wider Burmese population, particularly those who have spent decades on studying English, but still do not reach sufficient level.

1. Expose yourself to the language on a regular basic

According to International TEFL and TESOL training, the more you are exposed to the language, the more learning opportunities you have to get a good grasp of the language and sound natural. Even though you are neither raised in an English-speaking country nor surrounded by either native or non-native English speakers in your environment, you can still make it possible to get exposure to the language: taking advantage of the Internet and technology, you can have access to a variety of free resources designed for learning English, and thus read and listen to as much English language as possible.

Moreover, you can join English speaking clubs in your area, and actively participate in speaking activities whenever opportunity is given. Furthermore, you can write English essays for your school’s or university’s monthly magazine or chat online in English. It would be more effective if you can dedicate to practicing all four skills of the language on a daily basis.

2. Find interesting things in English to watch, read and listen to

British Council recommends learning English through things that interest and excite you in order to succeed in learning. It is true that having an enjoyable learning experience can help you get regular exposure to the language. Watching TV shows or movies, listening to songs and podcasts, and reading books and magazines in English, for example, can be engaging and gripping enough to motivate you to get into the habit of learning English on a regular basis - in such a way that is entertaining.

In addition, as vlogging has become a trend, following English speaking vloggers on Youtube and other social media platforms, would also be an ideal way to level-up your language skills while natural English with different accents can be exposed to. Learning English through these resources can provide you with enormous opportunities to learn real-life language input - authentic and varied language, which can hardly be learned in your classroom, reinforcing natural flow as you produce the language.

3. Enhance Productive Skills through improving Receptive Skills

Reading and listening are referred to as receptive skills, which is also known as passive skills, since the learners receive information (language input) whereas speaking and writing are labelled as productive skills or active skills as it requires learners to produce the language. Although it is true that you need to speak and write in English frequently in order to improve your oral and written communication, it is also crucial to have acquired sufficient language input through reading and listening so that you can gain more fluency and confidence, and sound natural when writing and speaking.

Starting with reading and writing, these two skills are inseparable in learning English: the more one reads, the better they write - having learnt a better vocabulary and recognized the nuances of the language. Because, it is very unlikely to produce a good written work of your own without experience of reading quality pieces.

Likewise, there is no exception to listening and speaking in this case. Practicing listening skills can have a significant impact on your speaking skill. Through listening to various native speakers of English, you can understand what they say in different contexts and how they say it using appropriate vocabulary, and you can, at the same time, learn pronunciation and intonation.

4. Be Active and Take Control of Your Own Learning

British council also highlights the importance of learners’ autonomy in effective language learning. In essence, you should choose to take more responsibility for your own learning - setting your own goals, doing self-study, and seeking opportunities to practice outside the classroom to upgrade your language skills; rather than being completely reliant on teachers for your progress. Since motivation is one of the most fundamental elements for a successful language acquisition, you should always be motivated to devote yourself to learning English and enhance your language proficiency through various ways.

5. Persevere and Stay Passionate

Throughout your learning journey, you need to bear in mind “Rome was not built in a day”- meaning it is very unlikely to develop a very high level of language competencies overnight. It requires you to exert relentless efforts, and maintain perseverance for a considerable period of time to become a fluent language user. You may not therefore reach your targeted level of proficiency unless you are not passionate and committed enough to learning the language for a certain period of time.

** This article was originally published in Diinsider's Change Magazine on September 8, 2020. Click on the link to read the original piece.