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<title> Introduction </title>
The content of this essay is the evaluation of my English, done by me. It was a difficult task to do an evaluation on myself, but I went to it. The result can be read on the following sides. The essay deals with four areas: Speaking, Reading, Listening and Writing. 

Speaking
When it comes to me speaking English, I think I'm not bad at it. I have good pronunciation, at least that's what my schoolteacher in upper school told me. I think that she's believable. This positive side must unfortunately be weighed against my shyness of talking in front of people. This conflict has the result that I'm speaking quite well when I'm relaxed. But, when I'm not relaxed I get stressed and loose words that I would remember usually. My pronunciation also looses when I get nervous. Because I try to get it over and done with as soon as possible by raising the speed. This gives the result that I want the words to get out faster than they can.

Reading
Reading books are one of my favourite things to do in my spare time. Of course I have to strain myself more to understand everything that is said in the book, when it's written in English. But I haven't got anything against reading in English. Though I have to confess, I don't often go to the library and loan a literary book written in English. Most of the times I've read an English book have been in school, forced by the English teacher.
I'm a fast reader when it comes to books written in Swedish. So I guess that I can be said to be an above average reader in Swedish. When reading books written in English, it doesn't go that quickly. I don't read slowly, but I don't read fast either. So, I guess you can say that I'm an average reader in English. I think that some of the speed is due to unknown words that I sometimes need to look up to make sense of a sentence. 

Listening
I think I have to say that of the four areas I'm evaluating, I'm best at listening. Perhaps that is because I'm very into watching TV-programs in English and movies. And when I watch Ally McBeal or Romeo and Juliet (1968), I don't read the translation, just listen to what they say. Because, if you just read the translation, you'll miss many things that aren't translated. Also when it comes to watching Romeo and Juliet, I actually find the meaning of the dialogue much easier to understand when listening to it, rather than reading the translation. 
The disadvantage with listening is that if you're not observant you might be learning a grammatical error. Such as "You and me" instead of "You and I". Though I heard in one of the grammar lectures that "You and me" might be slowly changing into being a correct use.
Since I went in seventh grade I have watched MTV. At first I couldn't keep up with the famous MTV-pace. It was just too much unknown words that were thrown at me at the same time. But then I started to watch the same program day after day. And I started to recognize words that were used every day in the same sort of context. Though I sometimes didn't know exactly what the Swedish word was off-hand, I knew how to use the English word in a sentence. This has developed during the years. So now I understand people when they are speaking English most of the times. 
Although, I wouldn't say that I have one of the most advanced English vocabularies. So the most fancy and difficult words do escape me. But then again I don't think that I'm in a bad company. Because when I used to watch Oprah, her audience looked as baffled as I sometimes, when some college graduate used some fancy word he had been longing to use in a sentence. Then of course the graduate usually had to translate his fancy word into layman terms, so the rest of the audience also knew what he was talking about. And that audience came from the same country as the graduate and English are their native language.

Writing
Spelling has never been a problem for me. Not in Swedish and not in English. The only problem has been sometimes to connect a word's spelling to how it sounds. I mean that sometimes, as I mentioned in Listening, I might have heard a word and know what it means but not how to spell it. This means that when I see the word in writing I can't connect it immediately to how it sounds. I have to sound it out, and then it will hit me that I actually recognize that word. 
When it comes to writing essays I don't think I have any problems in expressing myself with words. But then again I haven't got that much training in writing essays in English. 
I would say that grammar is my biggest problem when it comes to writing. Spelling the words isn't often a problem. The problem is having them fall in the right order and in the correct conjugation on the paper.

Conclusion
So, to what conclusion have I come to?
Well, I think I'm quite good at understanding spoken English if there isn't too many difficult words in one sentence. I'm not that bad at talking as long as the audience isn't too big. Writing I haven't got much experience of doing in English so I don't know yet. Reading books in English I haven't yet found a problem. Grammar though is an area I would need to freshen up and look into more. So I think this course will be good for me. Because I will study grammar and talk in front of people. Good training.
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