20 Tips for Improving Communication Skills in English

• Have enough patience: First, a candidate/student/an individual should bear one thing in his/her mind that improving communication skills in English is a process and it cannot be accomplished overnight. So, one should have enough patience to gain good command over English language.
• Be positive and keep on speaking: Another very important thing to remember is never feel low of yourself if you do not possess good knowledge in English. The only thing you need to do is keeping on speaking in English with the people in your immediate circle.
• Improve your listening skills: There is a good saying in English. i.e. one cannot become a good communicator unless one is a good listener. Try to pay full attention when you listen to someone who is good at English. You can quickly learn new words and expressions by hearing them. The more you listen the more benefits you will have. You should also listen to radio news and shows being broadcast in English.
• Chatting with friends: As the technology is rapidly developed, you can effectively utilize many social messengers such as Face book, Twitter, Google plus etc. for chatting with your friends. You can also chat with them by using mobile phones and sending SMS and e-mails. In this way, you can surely improve your English communication skills quickly.
• Watch Television in English: Make it a regular habit of watching a television shows in English for at least half an hour everyday that will very quickly teach you new vocabulary, new slang, exact pronunciation and better listening skills.
• Read English newspapers daily: Reading English daily is one of the best ways for improving your English language skills. You can buy any English news paper and try to read it for a few minutes, note down the words you don’t understand and learn their meanings by referring to a dictionary. This task will boost your vocabulary and increases your understanding for the English language. Looking up too many words while you are actually reading can be discouraging.
• Practice regularly with strong determination: Start speaking English in your daily life because only practice can help in learning and communicating effectively.  Never be lazy and enough practice you can do miracles.
• Speak slowly and clearly: Keith Davis defines communication as “the transfer of information and understanding from one person to another person. It is a way of reaching others with facts, ideas, thoughts and values”. Speaking clearly and slowly is of primary importance. Whatever you communicate to others they should be able to understand what has been communicated to them. In the initial stage, if you speak clearly and slowly, you can overcome a number of mistakes. In course of time, you would surely enhance your communication skills in English.
• Take it as a challenge: When you start improving your communication skills in English, you will find more obstacles in the way. However, if you take it as a challenge and work hard with strong dedication and commitment, they you will certainly be able to augment your English communication skills.
• Start a conversation with strangers: You are advised to start a conversation with strangers who are supposed to be good at English speaking. Since you are not familiar of them, you will feel less conscious about what they would feel about you. Do not hesitate and feel ashamed of your mistakes and at any cost do not give up the habit of speaking in English.
• Find a conversation partner: This tip is considered as any important one to a candidate who really aspires to improve English communication skills as quickly as possible. Find a conversation partner who can spare some time and speak in English with you for about an hour or two daily.
• Practice speaking in English before a mirror: Practice speaking aloud before a mirror makes you to know your flaws. Look and observe your facial expressions, gestures, body movements also very carefully. This exercise would make you to improve and rectify your mistakes and also boosts up your confidence level.
• Use Podcasts: Podcasts are available on the internet. These are nothing but audio and video files and many of these podcasts can be downloaded instantly for free of cost. With the help of these you can develop an understanding of different accents of native speakers in English.
• Keep a pocket English dictionary ready: You need to keep a pocket dictionary always ready in hand so as to refer to difficult words that you come across. By doing so, you will get familiarized to many words in English in no time.
• Read a book with lots of dialogue: Instead of reading a book of descriptive parts, it is advisable to read a book with lots of dialogues. Dialogues are much easier to understand and they can be used as readymade sentences in your day-to-day conversations in English with different people.
• Write down your thoughts: Expressing your ideas in writing is another useful part of the English language learning process. Writing your thoughts in English language is not only improving your communication skills, it will also help improving your creativity and confident levels. Start writing small and simple sentences and gradually develop the writing skills to complex sentences with the proper usage of grammar.
• Improve your pronunciation: Pronunciation is also very essential for effective communication; hence you need to improve your pronunciation of various words in English. Keep continuously listening mainly to the news readers of the English news channels and try to pick the way they pronounce the words. By doing so, you will improve your pronunciation faster.
• Take care of your body language: Your non-verbal communication is equally as important as the things that you say. Positive body language is extremely important in your interactions with other people. Become confident in using your hands when speaking. Maintain eye contact as you speak; sit and stand in erect position. Always remember that your gestures say a lot about your personality as an individual.
• Story telling: You can also improve your English communication skills by telling a story in simple words to your friends and family. If you continue this practice then you will get fluency in English language.
• Do not translate your thoughts: Translating your thoughts into English in the initial stage will help you overcome your hesitation, but it is not advisable for the candidates who have gained some progress in the language. Translating sentences from your mother tongue into English language will finally lead to making mistakes in formation of sentences.