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Since I have always been interested in different languages, especially English, I do not think I have ever thought of my listening skills as very weak. Further on, I believe that it is so much easier to understand by listening than it is to speak in a different language. As for myself, I know that I may not understand a certain word when it stands on its own, but given the full sentence I have no trouble understanding the meaning of it. Compared to other countries in Europe, people in Sweden and Holland have better skills in the English language. I think that this has to do with television, partly because we import a lot of American and English TV-shows and movies, but the main reason is that these productions are not dubbed but subtitled. Since I have been raised in a generation that watches a lot of television, I feel that my listening comprehension has grown more and more for every day that has past. Another thing that makes me listen a lot to English is the music, which is either imported from English spoken countries, or made abroad but in English though. This has also helped me a lot to understand a certain word in the whole context, whether I wanted it or not. I mean, I listen all the time even if it is about something I really do not find very interesting, and therefore I have automatically picked up a few words that I never thought I would learn. 
Though it is hard sometimes to read in a different language, I believe that it gives you more knowledge, not just in the language it is written in but also about real life in another part of the world. From my own experience I can say that it can be difficult to get into a book, it often takes a couple of pages and then it starts to get easier to understand the connection. A book is also often easier to read than a newspaper for example, because the newspaper is written is so many difficult words and with many technical terms. But I think that it is a very good exercise to read the newspapers if you want to improve your English reading ability, which I feel that I do. Today I think that my reading skills are quite good after all but it would not hurt to enlarge it though. An example to improve the reading skills could be to correspond with a person in English, which in fact helps improving ones writing skills as well. The weakness that comes to my mind about my own skills in reading is that I find it a bit tough having to look up a lot of words that I do not understand in the context. A strength that I possess is that I find it exciting to learn how many ways there are of expressing yourself, to explore the meaning of different words and to add them to my own vocabulary.
Speaking is more than just put the words in the right order, you have got to make it right grammatically as well. This is one of the things I find pretty difficult sometimes, because I realize it is easier to write grammatically correct since you have got more time to think it over then. When speaking I sometimes feel that I stumble over the words, and I wish I could correct them by rubbing it out as if it was printed on a paper. Maybe it has got to do with insecurity, that I do not think I have enough skills in speaking. I do need to work more on my vocabulary, I believe. Although I believe that I am not so extremely terrible in speaking English but now and then it just do not come out the way I had wanted it to from the beginning. 
Writing is a lot easier than it is to speak as I have written above. I think that it is an advantage that I enjoy writing because it gives me an opportunity to train myself in grammar and to extend my vocabulary. For me, this is a good way of focusing on the grammar part and that is something I really need for my own good. So, this course will hopefully help me to understand grammar in both English and Swedish better.
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