This past month things have started to get busy as far as academic English support is concerned-- deadlines for papers, upcoming international conferences over the summer, etc, etc. It does appear KISOKO students are quite active abroad, traveling to Spain, or Italy, or the United States to make presentations, take part in workshops, or publishing the results of their research in overseas academic journals. All very nice and admirable! Unfortunately, English is still an obstacle that has to be overcome...
A few tips about English conversation: don't try to understand everything, but instead listen closely for the important words (which will be pronouncer more clearly and loudly than others), and then try to use your common sense or technical knowledge of the subject to guess the possible connections between those words. For example if you hear "camera" and "shoot", they are most likely talking about taking a photograph, not pointing a gun at someone.
Still, even though it is OK to build a "horizon of expectation" around the words you do understand, you must also remember to keep an open mind, because people can always be trusted to come up with the most unexpected ideas!
A few tips about writing, too: don't be afraid to use articles, the probability that either the definite or the indefinite ones are going to be needed is bigger than the probability that you could do without them in a given context. Practice makes perfect!
Also, don't forget to consider the agreement between subject and verb. I see many papers where the subject is in the singular and the verb in the plural, which is a very basic mistake, easy to be avoided, as in "the system consists of three main elements...", not "consist of...", etc. Of course, agreement can be tricky at times, like, for example, the noun "news" is plural in form, but actually takes a singular verb, i.e. "no news is good news". For lists of countable/uncountable nouns and rules about their agreement with the verb, you can check any English grammar book or website-- I'll be back with some suggestions in a couple of days!
Till then... enjoy the rainy season!
