One of the best tools you can use to help yourself to faster integrate a new environment (society) and improve your communication skills is to listen to Radio Talk-Shows. Specially when you are a newcomer. There is a tremendous flow of useful information and the conversations are fun, very dynamic, alive and helpfull. I mention the Radio, not the TV, because the Radio demands more concentration, focus, attention from the listener. Consequently, the listener retains and learns more of what is being discussed. The TV is less effective because there's too many distractions. You hear the music, background sound, you see the faces of the people, how they smile, how they dress, etc.
My preferred Radio Stations in Toronto are AM 640 and CFRB 1010 which are available online as well. It's almost 24 hours of discussions. One day doesn't pass by without me listening to one of this or both. And often I find myself yelling at the Radio.
Integrate New Environment
With the Radio Talk Shows, you learn about what are the most important issues the community, or the different members of the different communities face in their day-to-day life and what worries them about the present and the future. In general the host and participants provide real situations and solutions based on their own life experiences. Many of the stories that are discussed in the air waves are picked up from the newspapers. So listening to these shows, will definitely put us in touch with the surrounding reality, and who knows, you can actually use other people's ideas and experiences and apply them or adjust them to your life.
You realize there are people out there who share the same problems as you, but who have different opinions from yours regarding the solutions for those same problems, usually due to particular circumstances, experiences or environments. And you start to understand that you are not the owner of the true.
In life, I realized that if we want to live together, in peace and progress, we all have to compromise because we are all different from each other. My freedom ends where yours starts.
Communication Skills
You learn about how people think and how people express themselves. You learn lots of new words and expressions. Your ears start to get used to how people pronounce the words and build sentences.
