I am an English teacher to foreign students and have a few at your level of fluency. With these students I usually do custom classes using content from literature, poetry and current affairs, mainly to get them using advanced vocabulary and grammar, and then applying it to their own lives so that they can discuss topics in detail in a variety of ways. Making sure to know when to use colourful language, when not to, the perfect phrasal verb or idiom and so on.
One of the other comments in this thread also mentions good fiction (Conrad). I'd second that, as well as adding variety with more modern writers as well as those of the classics. For example, a book like Satchmo (story of Louis Armstrong's life written in his own vernacular - it's brilliant) is as useful to your advancement of English fluency as is Conrad, Wharton, Louis Stevenson. The thing to note with the classics is to find one or two you really enjoy (I don't particularly enjoy Austin but I love others).
Additionally to literature you could read scientific material, listen to and interpret hip hop and explain it to someone else, try to write poetry, speak with young native speakers, speak with older native speakers and so on.
If you'd like to do a class any time you can also contact me if you'd like. My vety basic website is teacherross dot com.
What are some ways you get people to use more complex structures and phrasing? I'm a native English speaker learning Spanish and I struggle to get beyond small talk when talking to native Spanish speakers
Some ideas would be to listen for, or create your own, long sentences with multiple clauses (even if shorter sentences would be easier. Also by speaking to different age groups, for example older generations tend to have many colourful expressions that are not commonly used anymore. Apart from that, if you wanted to get very complex you could ask someone to explain a difficult subject matter to you, something they might have expertise in, e.g. something scientific, their heritage, their thoughts on politics etc. Anything that forces multiple clauses and deep consideration and revision of ideas.
In a very basic way, with my less fluent students I continually ask then to explain their thinking behind an opinion... Why, why, why
And of course including more advanced material than their level dictates, to push them harder and learn faster.
Comments
Hi Mantanrubin,
I am an English teacher to foreign students and have a few at your level of fluency. With these students I usually do custom classes using content from literature, poetry and current affairs, mainly to get them using advanced vocabulary and grammar, and then applying it to their own lives so that they can discuss topics in detail in a variety of ways. Making sure to know when to use colourful language, when not to, the perfect phrasal verb or idiom and so on.
One of the other comments in this thread also mentions good fiction (Conrad). I'd second that, as well as adding variety with more modern writers as well as those of the classics. For example, a book like Satchmo (story of Louis Armstrong's life written in his own vernacular - it's brilliant) is as useful to your advancement of English fluency as is Conrad, Wharton, Louis Stevenson. The thing to note with the classics is to find one or two you really enjoy (I don't particularly enjoy Austin but I love others).
Additionally to literature you could read scientific material, listen to and interpret hip hop and explain it to someone else, try to write poetry, speak with young native speakers, speak with older native speakers and so on.
If you'd like to do a class any time you can also contact me if you'd like. My vety basic website is teacherross dot com.
Good luck and keep going.
Ross.
What are some ways you get people to use more complex structures and phrasing? I'm a native English speaker learning Spanish and I struggle to get beyond small talk when talking to native Spanish speakers
Some ideas would be to listen for, or create your own, long sentences with multiple clauses (even if shorter sentences would be easier. Also by speaking to different age groups, for example older generations tend to have many colourful expressions that are not commonly used anymore. Apart from that, if you wanted to get very complex you could ask someone to explain a difficult subject matter to you, something they might have expertise in, e.g. something scientific, their heritage, their thoughts on politics etc. Anything that forces multiple clauses and deep consideration and revision of ideas.
In a very basic way, with my less fluent students I continually ask then to explain their thinking behind an opinion... Why, why, why
And of course including more advanced material than their level dictates, to push them harder and learn faster.
Hope that helps somewhat!