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<title> English, my English! </title>
English is a language that I'm rather good at. In this essay I'm going to describe my strengths and weaknesses in these four areas: listening, reading, speaking and writing. I'll do my best to bring up both strengths and weaknesses in all four areas in order to give a full view of my skills in English.
Listening is my strongest skill. I have little problems understanding most levels of formality. I'm able to identify how formal a situation is partly from the language used. I feel that I have a good comprehension that allows me to focus on the content instead of focusing on the words and how they would be translated into Swedish. Something I'm not very good at is focusing on the content and the language used, at the same time. As I'm studying to be a teacher I know thats's one thing I need to work hard on. I've never before been in a position where I've had to do that. After having tried it once I know that it's difficult to do. This is one aspect of my listening skills that I expect will improve. The same goes for my vocabulary that can sometimes cause problems. Especially when the words are scientific or dialectal.
	 One of my weaknesses from the listening area also applies to my reading. I'm referring to words that are difficult to understand. Almost everything I've read in English, besides from a few novels, I've read at school. My reading skills have so far been strong enough and I feel that I can make the most of a text in English as far as the language is concerned. If I have problems with a text I believe that it will more likely concern the content or the vocabulary than the grammar. Of course vocabulary is a part of the language but a dictionary easily solves that problem. A strength in this area is that I've always loved reading both for the language and the content which makes it less difficult.
	 Another skill that I haven't practiced much is speaking English. I've never used English on a daily basis. In spite of that my pronounciation is quite good, as is my intonation. Of course they can both improve, especially the intonation, but I expect that I will speak more accurately by the end of my studies. A strong side is my fluency. I can express myself fluently and well enough to bring my message trough to other people. My communicative competence is quite strong while the accuracy part is a bit weaker. One aspect of the latter is grammar, but the mistakes that I make are more due to lack of concentration or the speed of the conversation than incompetence. One weakness is that I sometimes find myself not knowing a specific word. Most of the times I'm able to use another word or rephrase the whole sentence.
	 The last skill, writing, has some similarities with the other skills. My sometimes weak vocabulary cause problems in this area too. There are registers that I have big difficulties with. The main problem is that I have to create my own contexts. When I read or listen I can use the context to get an image of what the word might mean. Another problem is that I have to achieve the right level of formality on my own which sometimes is very difficult. Since I haven't written much on my own I feel insecure. I find it difficult to vary the way I construct sentences. Luckily I do have strengths in this area too. My spelling is rather good. I also consider my will to learn as a strength. I'm willing to put in much effort to improve my writing.
As revealed in the text above my skills vary rather much from each other, my listening skill being my strongest and my writing skill the weakest. I don't feel that any of my skills is so weak that I need to be concerned. There are also areas to improve in all skills. As long as I'm aware of that and put a lot of effort into my English training I'm confident that I will improve as time goes by.
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