Describing a Picture will Help You to Speak English

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How Good Is Your Business English?

Become a Master of Business English

Useful phrases used on a business meeting

Hi

There is nothing exceptionally new or unusual in the English language that business executives use to communicate with their business partners.

English is still English whatever topic or subject of the talk you may speak about.

Granted, there exist some communicative formulas that business executives use on their meetings and if you want to become a successful English-speaking businessman, you should practice these formulas too.

          With this article I am starting the list of expressions that I have heard on a big number of business meetings, negotiations, presentations.

           Armed with a solid arsenal of business communication tools, you will in no time become
an outstanding English-speaking business executive.

 George Rusky

Part One. Chairing a Business Meeting.

Starting a meeting.

• Shall be start?
• Shall we begin?
• Let’s get down to business
• Let’s get started.

Opening a Meeting

• Thank you for coming
• Welcome to…
• It’s nice to have you here
• Today we will discuss
• As you can see on your agenda…

Agreeing

• I agree with you
• I think it’s true
• I think you are right
• I think we can accept it

Disagreeing

• I can’t agree with that, I am afraid
• I have to disagree with you
• I am not sure it could be the best solution for us
• I am afraid it is not exactly for we can accept

Giving opinions

• In my opinion
• As far as I can see it
• From my point of view

Interrupting

• Excuse me but…
• Could I have something?
• I’d like to add something
• Hold on a moment…

Preventing an interruption

• Could I just finish?
• Let me finish
• Could you wait one minute?

Suggesting

• I suggest that …
• What about …
• Why don’t we try this?
• Let’s do it …
• Wouldn’t it be better to…

Returning to a previous statement

• As I have said earlier
• That brings us back to…
• I wonder if I can repeat what I have said…

Asking for repeating/not understanding  

• Could you repeat that?
• Could you say tat again?
• What are you trying to say?
• I didn’t quite follow you.
• I am not sure what you mean

Reassuring

• I can assure you
• You needn’t worry
• Let me assure you

Giving reasons

• It’s because
• It’s due to
• The reason is that

Summarizing

• To sum it up…
• Before we finish, let me recap…
• I ‘d like to summarize

Ending the Meeting

• I think that’s all for now
• Let’s wrap it up
• Thank you for coming
• I’ll see you next time

Good luck with your business English!

George Rusky

georgerusky.net

Would you like to Discover the Secrets Of Learning English Grammar Tenses?

Dear Friends

                                                                                           

               After teaching English for more than two decades, I have decided to write a Manual called Discover the Secrets Of Learning English Grammar Tenses where I tried to analyze the most effective and simple ways to learn all twelve English grammar tenses.

              As a result of this work, I am absolutely sure that anyone who starts learning English with    a knowledgeable teacher, correct methods and appropriate learning materials  can speak              good English in a very short time. My experience proves that in one year of regular lessons even a total beginner becomes a good speaker of English.

               Who is this Manual for?

• Anyone, who has been learning the language for several years but hasn’t achieved any significant results. This Manual is a must for you.

• Business people who spend long hours at work and occasional lessons are the only chance to develop their English skills. Follow the Manual’s instructions and in a year from now, you will speak to your foreign business partners without an interpreter

• Those of you who have tried to learn English a good number of times but haven’t achieved any positive results. ”Everlasting beginners” as you may say.

            Here’s the chance for you too!

             Dear friends,

As English occupies now a significant position in communication among people in all areas of modern life worldwide, only with solid knowledge of English along with your professional skills you will be able to build secure personal and business life.

Without further delay, get down to work and improve your English with

                         Discover the Secrets Of Learning English Grammar Tenses!

Wishing you the best of success!

To receive the Manual 

 Discover the Secrets Of Learning English Grammar Tenses

Email me: georgerus@volny.cz

George Rusky

Georgrusky.net

Writing and Us. What holds us back from Blog writing?

 Writing and Us. 
What holds us back from Blog writing? 
      About writing has been written said and spoken so often and that it is really hard to find anything new or anything that had never been mentioned before.
Here's a trick, however: anything that has ever been engraved of writing has been learned by ones and never heard by others. One thing most of us can agree upon and that is : writing is the hardest part of human communication.
Why? What is so difficult in writing?
First.
The process of describing various events for keeping  them handy for next generations, had always been a serious and responsible process that demanded a chronically precise narration of the events with historically correct comments and details.
A Russian proverb says:"What is written by a pen can't be cut down by an axe"
So, I guess we can say that intuitively most of us recognize writing as something that needs a high level of seriousness and responsibility. What is written is kept in someone's archives and can be used against the writer. World history is full of such examples.
Second.
Writing more than is anything else shows an intellectual level of an author, her character, her inner world, in short her nature. Earlier it was even easier for a smart reader to learn a lot about a person after seeing her handwriting. Unfortunately, computers eliminated this very useful tool :-) But even computers cannot hide the culture of a writer. What can be said about an author of the message where:

There's no salutation, or it is not directed to a person, or the name starts with a small letter;
Spelling, punctuation mistakes in the text;
Ending of the message has no names, no final remarks, etc.
Third.
A very common among my clients 'philosophy' states:              
"If you have no talent for writing, you cannot, should not and even must not write!"                             Nonsense.
Everyone has the right to write, whether with or without a so called 'talent'. As any other skill, writing can be learned-practiced and as the result of training constant training, significantly improved.
Surely, not all writing people will ever reach the level of giants of world literature, but anyone can learn the elements of style and produce correct readable sentences.
Fourth. 
Writing is a painful process. Those of us who do not take writing lightly, try to create nice, logically developed, reader-friendly blocks of information always read and reread and edit and even send copies to professional proofreaders and editors. Naturally enough, not too many volunteers 'apply' for writing endeavors .

Fifth. Writing is a time-consuming business. A good number of my clients asked about writing, they would they had no time for it.

Sixth. Writing is often a problem of finding the subject, the topic. What to write about???
"Am I good enough to write about sport?" "No, I'm not a world champion."
"Do I have valuable experience in taking care of children?""Hardly so: I have just one kid"
"Am I, have I, do I, can I...?" " No, no, and again 'no" You see, I am not qualified, period!"
And here is the question of questions: "Do you wish to be qualified?!"

Blogging = Writing
As we have now identified six main obstacles on the way to writing,  are there any chances to overcome these barriers? 
Yes, there are.
I guess, you will agree with me that as in any human activity, before we start doing anything at all, we answer two main questions:
"Do I need it?" or
"Do I love it?"
The same holds true with writing. If there is no need and no love, hardly anyone will ever start writing.
But, if you love writing then... 
Just get down to it and start with blogging. Blog writing is more communication, reaction on the information that for blogging is Blog is the best place for practicing the skill of writing. Share your thoughts, concerns, ideas, comment on other bloggers' stories.
Try to avoid sending short about nothing messages just to show that you've been here.
Dare to dream. Trust yourself.
If you religiously believe that you can become a writer, if you learn and practice writing every day,
   You will become a Blog WRITER!
Then who knows where this great start will leads you!
You may one day become a best selling writer of all times! 

Resume
Dare to dream. Include writing into the list of your dreams.
Do you best to make your dreams come true, contemplate over all that comes into your life, make resolutions, follow your plans and goals and do everything with faith.
Believe and you...
You will become a WRITER!


Wishing you the best of blogging
George Rusky
a Blog writer
 Georgerusky.net

“Why to blog?” Ten Points in Favor of Blogging

As many times before, I ask myself a question that perhaps has also worried you for some time: “Why to blog?”, “What’s in it for a blogger?”                                          
 “Is this necessary, important, vital or what?!”

Dear Friends,

I believe that blogging is not too much different from any other channels of human communication, just a modernized way of sharing with others your thoughts, opinions…

After some time spent with contemplating about the subject, I have finally come with a few points in favor of blogging.

Here are my ten brief notes with short comments. Blogging is recommended…

First. To discipline your day: your blog messages should be posted daily. Every evening when you go to bed, scroll thru all day’s activities and check whether you performed all you’d planned. Blog posts are the best way to feel fine with your daily performance.

Second. Blogging is writing, perhaps our biggest worst problem of today’s communication. I do not mean the communication on the level of short SMS, phone calls or replicas we exchange with people around us, but writing as the process of producing blocks of information on various topics.

Third. To share with others your interests and knowledge and to get feedback from your readers who may enjoy the same topics.

Fourth. To develop new relations with your readers. I have a very good experience of making friends in one international photo community.

Fifth. To promote your ideas, ask for advice, exchange human wisdom and use life experience of your readers for your life too.

Sixth. To establish yourself as an expert in your area. Again, answering questions of your readers is a pleasure and a privilege of any knowledgeable person.

Seventh. To offer your services, products, consultancy in the areas where you know something worth sharing with others: they may use your advice for their professional and private life.

Eight., To have fun. Even though a good number of correspondents may react on your messages not entirely in a positive way, the number of fine comments is always bigger. Receiving lovely posts with positive opinions and ideas is very pleasant.

Ninth. To educate yourself. Very often among your co-bloggers few folks have pretty good experience with running blogs: their help may change your level of performance not only in blogging but in other areas of life.

Tenth. To become closer to the people of the whole world. As a massage therapist at a big hotel, I work with people around the world who not only share with me their health concerns but ask for help with other things in various sides of life. When I talk to them, I feel that we live with very similar, if not the same problems and concerns in different corners of the planet. That makes me feel a part of the world community!

"Have I forgotten anything here?"

Please, feel free to share with me your thoughts, ideas, opinions.

Sincerely, George Rusky

georgerusky.net

7 Practical Steps to Become a Speaker of Correct English

            The internet today offers us a vast variety of approaches and methods of learning English online.

What worries me, however, the modern trend that has appeared in the attitude to learning English grammar, which gains a lot of followers, especially among young learners who, I guess have a lot of grammar at school.

             Everything is fine with the combination of grammar at school and communication online, with just one exception: I can’t accept the statement of forgetting the grammar that you learn at school:

 “You do not need much grammar," some online educators say, "Listen and speak as much as you can and you’ll be all right!”...

            Dear friends, 

in this article I would like to say a few words of what I think about this method of learning English.

First, let me ask how you feel about following any life regulations and rules, instructions and commands, in general?

Do you ever break the rules that the society has set up for us to obey?

Well, yes and no, that depends.

          If so, why to ignore sets of rules of the language? The language we use is also a part of the rules the society has accepted for the territory where people who speak this language live.

The grammar is the Constitution of the language which all of us have to take very seriously. Almost all states in various historical periods had to make a decision which language to accept as the state language and which  language to teach as a foreign in state educational institutions.

Do you know, for example, that the only foreign language taught on the territory of Czechoslovakia before the velvet revolution in 1989 was Russian?

After the revolution, this language, as the main foreign language taught, was removed from all educational institutions in Czechoslovakia and substituted for English. 

        Now, back to English grammar. I would like to ask you, dear readers, to revise your attitude towards the English grammar and take it with utmost respect.

Please, remember: whatever is said or written is made according to the English grammar rules and it is your choice as learners of English to create your sentences grammatically correctly or just as you wish.

Now here are concrete ways that may be helpful for you to develop your speech:

• listen to well-educated speakers of English ( their language is equipped with correct grammar structures )and listen actively, repeat as many times as it is necessary so that to say something similar in your own speeches;
• read modern writers, mostly authors of newspapers and magazines, the carriers of modern English, the language that is used ( and checked carefully by highly-skilled editors ) today, not a century ago;
• find possibilities to practice your talk with language specialists and require their comments, not explanations. Ask them constantly: “Is that correct?” “Have I said that grammatically correct?”
• if you can, avoid learning English in groups, especially where a tutor encourages the students to speak and rarely corrects their mistakes: you will never know what had been said with mistakes;
• hire a language coach who will help you use the language for life, fast and effectively and surely correctly, who will listen more than speak. You must speak at least 80% of your lesson’s time;
• arrange learning sessions as often as you can: the oftener you practice the faster you become an owner of a solid arsenal of correct command of English.
• write regularly your thoughts in a journal, monitor your progress: it'll motivate and encourage you

          Dear Friends,
These are a few thoughts about learning grammar that I have gathered thru years of teaching people to speak English, but surely, you may have your own ways to grow a winning speaker.

If any of the above methods you may find helpful, I’ll be very glad.

That’s all for now and if you are interested in more tips and tricks to become a great English speaker, 

click the link below.

George Rusky

Georgerusky.net 

How to choose a book for reading?

How do you choose a book for reading? Do you use any special methods for reading?”  

Let’s start with the cover of a book.

I believe, it reflects the author’s attitude towards his work.
Even today when the modern books are enveloped in covers that can hardly survive two or three readers, there are still some works of the writers who believe that their novels will be read by more than one generation of booklovers.

On the contrary, the look of a tattered book will please the next library shelves’ explorer who may think:"Oh, that one’s been read by lots of folks. I should read it too"

The first impression may be deceptive!

Here are some suggestions for selecting the reading you look for.

1. Before you come to a library ( not a book-store):

a) Carefully identify the area of your interest. What exactly you want to read.

b) Know your purpose of reading: pleasure, research, etc.

c) Have a list of the authors who wrote or write about your subject. What aspects of the problem they are dealt with in their works. Spend time for the research.

d) Get a general orientation of the authors and/or their works you think may suit your interest.

e) Choose a day and hours when there are fewer visitors in the library.

f) Prepare some change for Xerox-copying.

2. In the library:

a) Find a librarian who works in the section where you suppose to find the materials you need.

b) In details explain to her what you need. Show her the list you have prepared (see 1c above)

c) Let her know how important these materials are for you.

d) Get all you are advised plus anything you may find on the shelves.

e) Sit at a quiet place, get ready to work. (Don’t forget to switch off a mobile phone :-)

3. How to work with the book/books you have on a library table.

a) Place a book in front of you. Feel it, touch it, guess what the book is about.

b) Read the title, think if the title matches your subject.

c) Open it and read all the information on the first page esp. where and when it was published/republished.

d) Read the back cover of the book where there’s information about the writer and the resume.

e) Go through the dedications and acknowledgements: you will know how the writer himself values his labor. (The same and deeper information you may get from a foreword) Try not to skip it.

f) Read the contents and make a general impression of the manual.

4. How to read the book.

Reading is a very serious process. Depending on the type of literature, you must vary the approach and attitude to the whole process of reading.

Some general observations before we get to the a, b, c points.

A book, any book, is an act of an individual or group men’s creative activity that may be compared to, say, delivering a baby, building a house, tailoring a suit or anything else that a human being may produce.

It’s an act of passion, hard labor, doubts, long chain of successes and failures, physical and mental efforts, sleepless nights, nerves breakdowns and so on and so forth.

It’s, after all, an act of a high responsibility of the writer before the readers of today and the readers of tomorrow.
Nearly all authors rewrite their sentences, paragraphs, even whole chapters several times, before their final versions are ready to meet the first readers.

After these comments, you may look at a book with more respect.

So, back to the reading.

a) Start with what directly related to your topic: go to the topic that is the closest to your theme.

b) Always read with a pensile in your hand and tick the phrases, thoughts, ideas that attract your attention, shed the light on the subject from another POV and so on.

c) On the sheet of paper fix accurately your thoughts that come into your head while you are reading.

d) Pay a special attention to the author’s ideas you may use in your work. Put them in brackets and write down a page on your sheet with notes: you will easily find them later.

e) Compare your own thoughts with the writer’s. Place exclamation/question marks next to the writer’s text. You’ll come back to them later.

Happy reading

George

georgerusky.net

How You Can Become a Good Listener

How to Become a Good Listener. 
One.

Before you begin a good listener, you should become a good Reader!
Another paradox? Come on George!
I feel you are getting angry with me and, the way the report is made makes
you nervous.
But, listen to this!
Trust me, I am serious.
In order to listen to a person worth listening, you have to READ as much as
you can about this person!
Agree?
        Listening is also the process of investing your precious time and surely
you must know that you invest your time wisely and effectively. So, go to the
website and read all you can about the one who offers you to listen to him.
       Being a good listener does not mean only having ears and mind open
toward the information, but know exactly that what you are looking for and
forward you will read in testimonials  of other customers.
Actually, I have built my list of who I listen to regularly.
       If you want to know the giants of Public Speaking industry, send me a
message and I will send you my list, it’s not that long.
       By the way, how often do you hear these questions?“How can you listen to this rubbish?”
“I don’t want to hear this BS”
“All I have heard was a complete waste of time…”
          And here goes the resume: Collect information about who you want to
listen to if you really want to be a good listener. A good listener listens to
wise people and valuable information.
NB: don’t listen to your closest who recommends you to listen to someone.
Try to read about the candidate and make your own opinion about this
concrete person.

How to Become a Good Listener. Two.
          Now let’s define concrete steps of getting a better speaker thru
listening to what others wish to hear from you.

Rule number One. Don’t expect anyone to tell you what they want to
hear from you.
I have noticed in some situations people don’t really know what they want!
Help them: ask questions. Be the master of asking questions.
And never say you are asking because you are curious as the majority of my
conversationalists do.
Ask questions because you want to find out what your potential client wishes
to hear.
       Develop your art of asking good, well formed questions that will lead
you in the direction you want and at the same time, help people to express
themselves.
The best questions are the ones I call ‘wh’ questions: what, why, when,
where, who…”
In short the questions that need more than just:’ yes-no’ answers.
So, become a master of asking questions.

Rule number Two. ‘Don’t interrupt’
How often we hear this:” Don’t interrupt, let me finish…”
It’s impolite in everyday, casual talks, it’s a ‘must not’ in business talks.
Do not interrupt a potential client, let her dominate the talk!
Go on with the conversationalist with nodding, showing your interest in any
ways you can think of trying occasionally direct smoothly the talk to the
destination you plan.

Rule number Three. Define the key points of the story you hear.While listening, define what the biggest concern of your conversationalist and
re-ask her what she has said, but say that in your own words. It’s a very
powerful tool of listening that shows better than anything else that you are
interested in what you hear.
Use the following short questions:
1. ” If I understood you correctly, you…?”
2. “Let me check whether I understood well what you have said…?”
3. “Do you mean to say that…?”
4. Or, the favorite question of Brian Tracy:  “How do you mean it?”
When you repeat the information correctly, the other person will be pleased
with her ability to explain and your skill of understanding all in the way that
it had been said.

Rule number Four. Hold on!
Whenever you feel like adding something or trying to encourage your fellow
speakers, resist the temptation to do so. I have noticed that very often
instead of helping them to move on in the direction we want, they ‘jump’ into
another topic or just endlessly try to explain their point differently and fail to
find the right words and examples for it.
Be careful with providing this kind of support
.
 Rule number Five. Practice the three above described rules.
Yes, exactly so: “Take action!”
It’s never enough to be familiar with what should be done and how it must
be done. The crucial element of any activity is DOING.
Armed with the best possible knowledge of any existing subject, a man will
never become wealthy if he only enjoys his profound knowledge.
He must sell his knowledge, exchange his knowledge for another product.
So, take action!
George Rusky
www.georgerusky.net

Who are my clients?

Who are my clients?

In fact, everyone who desires to speak better English can become my student.

Most of my clients fall into three basic categories.

One.

Managers who had worked with their domestic business partners, till the moment they realized it was necessary to expand their spheres of business abroad.

They are loyal students, stay with me for a long time.

Two. Adult learners, who never studied English at school.

These people both men and women need English for getting better job.

They are the most diligent learners who work very hard  to become skillful communicators of English.

Three. University graduates who are looking for their first employment and need to go successfully thru a series of interviews.

These learners stay with me till the moment they find a reasonable job and then continue their language education at work.

Dear friends, if you want to become my client, go to the Coaching page to learn the general rules and regulations of our cooperation.

George Rusky

Georgerusky.net

How you can turn listening into a powerful tool to speak better English

 Listening is a powerful tool to develop your ability to speak English.
In this article I want to share with you the problems that almost all of my students come across, how we eliminate these problems and what work well for them and can work well for you too.

Dear learners of English
They say that even before the birth, a baby hears when their parents talk to her.
Then when the baby appears into the world she spends a year or more to turn her listening skills into the first shy efforts to produce sounds and short phrases.
Later, as a child grows her skills of listening and speaking grow with her.
This philosophy very often brings a lot of educators to a false, in my opinion, concept of learning English as a second or a foreign language in the way children do.
This approach finds a lot of resistance among adult students, first of all.
Why?
       Adults do not desire to play kids’ games and repeat childish sentences with which children start speaking. I tried this ‘modern’ method a few times and always failed because my university graduates with serious positions in their companies refused to learn English of ‘cats and dogs’ and always tried to say something more sophisticated, normally related to their business duties.

Now, a lot of speculations go around the best way of listening in order to boost speaking.
I believe that listening develops first of all listening.
Here what a lot of educators say: “Listen as much as you can!”
Great. What if I listen to Chinese 5 hours a day without knowing a word of the language?
Will it help me to start speaking Chinese?
In fact, after a week I will possibly be able to repeat most common words of the languages without knowing what they mean in the language I know from the moment I spoke to my parents.
That is why I stand on the position that if you want to improve your English, listening must be a very active process with a strict plan of exercises and desirably under control of an educator.

Here’s the program of listening with the description of exercises and drills that will ultimately guide both a student and an instructor to a desirable result of speaking better English.(Taken from my report: How to improve your English. Fast and easy methods.)

Listening. Element One.
A student listens to the whole text and tries to understand it without looking into the text.
In case she understands the text completely, she has to go to the element of the training on this stage.
If the student doesn’t understand the recording, she can read the text and find out the meaning of the unknown words and then to listen to the text again.
The main task of this element is to hear and understand all the words in the text.
I believe is important to hear all the words in the text, not only to catch the idea of the recording and answer true-false questions.
Why is it necessary to understand every word said?
The way native speakers in various countries pronounce the words in the same sentence may sound differently from the way our instructors pronounce them or we do.
That’s the reason we don’t understand native speakers of English when we hear how they speak. With movies it is even worse.
Yet, when we read the text of the conversation we have just heard, we understand everything.
That’s why we need to compare the written text to what speakers ‘make out’ of it when they speak, especially when we have no chances to ask a speaker to articulate, repeat the phrase or say the same phrase slowly.
I believe listening itself serves us less effectively than when we listen and repeat and check whether we understand correctly what has been said.

How to do so.
• Listen to the passage and try to understand what is said.
• Listen again, this time sentence by sentence.
• Repeat what the speaker says and try to understand the phrase completely.
• Check your understanding with the written text.
If you understand the phrases of the text in the way they are written and pronounced, well done!
If not, try again until you reach the point of complete understanding.
I know it seems like a lot of work and, not too creative and much fun…
                  But if you want to be a champion, that’s one of the ways to the top!

  As for the textbook and recordings, feel free to choose the one on your level of the language expertise.
Try to avoid too much of a challenge, as instead of even slow progress, you may get the feeling that you don’t go forward at all.

At this moment I would like to warn you of asking a language expert for help.
You may find the one who doesn’t accept my method and will try to offer her methods of teaching. In short, do it yourself, follow your intuition.
And remember. I do not promise ‘a rose garden’ to my followers as the most of teachers of English, especially native speakers of English do.
             The way how they learned to speak English does not suit us, for whom English is a second language.
Native speakers of English can educate only children who will learn the language in a similar way as they learned their mother tongue.
             For adults these methods may work only when they are in a community where only English is spoken, which is a rare case. At least for my adult students who always learn English thru their native language and always compare an English sentence to the same sentence in their language.
             Only non-native speakers, teachers of English know how to teach English, especially the ones who have not lived for years in English speaking countries.

Why?
Because the teacher usually says, that it is impossible to speak English without living abroad.(a very popular myth these days)
So, try to do all on your own. Following my instructions you will easily find what and how works for you better and you will start speaking good English even without living abroad.

            Another thing that may also happen as soon as you share your plan of studying with other teachers, they may accept your idea painfully: every teacher is fond of her ways of teaching.
Let me repeat that: I have met a good number of serious educators in various countries and of many nationalities.
Most of them had their individual concepts of teaching their students.
But, it’s not about how intelligent the teacher is, it is about how well you are able to speak after being taught by your teacher, right?
My mentor Brian Tracy often says:
“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”
In other words it is not enough to know the subject you teach, it is necessary to lead your student to the results she wants”
That’s the essence of the studying process as I understand it.


George
Georgerusky.net

7 Ways to Understand the actors in American movies

Hi

Dear learners of English, a question:

"How often have you been frustrated by your complete inability to understand American movies?

Well, I mean, understand what the actors are saying in the movies, of course :-)

I believe, to understand the whole movies not difficult: there are four parts in most of them: first a happy living of the heroes, the second-a problem, third a fight against the problem and the final part-happy ending.

But what the characters say is another pair of shoes, sorry for the cliche.

Why does it happen that learners of English do not follow script of the movies and should we be frustrated because of that.I receive this question from my students almost every Monday.

Here are my observations why it happens and seven ways to relieve you from suffering while and after watching American movies. 

• Observation #1.The genre  of the movies. If you follow the street-oriented conversations in the movies, you should learn English slang, about 25-30 words and expressions. I am afraid,teachers of English won't help you much with that: native are ashamed of their compatriots, non-native may just not know If, on the contrary, you chose the movie of learned native speakers of English, these films will bring you more pleasant moments and less head aches.
• Observation #2.Seeing/watching movies with subtitles. Helpful?   Not much, really. Translators feel free to turn English words and phrases into acceptable for the local audiences sentences. That's why bilingual speakers react very critically when they see the translations under the screen: sometimes the heard and written phrases are very different.
• Observation #3 Dubbing (when the movie actors speak in one language and the voice behind the screen translates into another language). This method is more beneficial: a student-spectator catches more from a language she learns while following the development of the plot of the movie.

Now, my recommendations to improve your understanding of what American movie actors say.

On your own:

-Chose the movies that were screened based on the novels of well-known writes of the past.The genre? Melodrama, autobiographies, and the best-documentary films.The language there pleasant for hearing, slow, solid and clear.

-Watch the films that were made in the sixties-seventies.They were more mindfully prepared and produced.

-Repeat watching DVD-versions as often as you can and in small portions. In no time you will feel more confident with the replicas of the actors and even learn by heart the phrases you liked.

With a teacher. A native speaker of English and preferably, a film fan.

-Ask her to select the movie she loves, the one she can offer you to watch.Preferably something close to your life or career orientation. In English all have their professional jargon.

-Require her to write the script of the segments of the movie and use along with the watching movie.

-Offer her to watch the movie in short sequences of no more than two phrases, stop the film and go thru all that the actors had said.

-Ask as many questions as you can to understand each and every word of what had been said.

-Repeat the phrases heard and ask for corrections.

-Imitate intonations, emotions of the actors, remember the background when and where the performers were playing: whenever you find yourself in a similar situation in life you may use the same phrases.

-Avoid watching chunks of the movie longer than 5-15min at a session of 45min. Quality here is more essential than anything else.

-Try to learn the phrases you learned and liked by heart and imagine situations in your life wherever you can possibly use them too.

OK, these are the methods that work for my students and will work for you as soon as you start using them. I wish you all to understand the modern movies much better with my ideas:-)

Sincerely

George

Georgerusky.net