7 Essential Tips to Help you Improve your English

Learning a new language, or any new skill for that matter, can be overwhelming. And as we know, English practice isn’t always the activity you want to do at the end of a hard day’s work. It is also difficult to know where to start with practice and study, so here are a few tips to get you started.

Focus on Finding Content you Enjoy

Focus on finding content you enjoy. That could be a YouTube video about your favourite hobby, a podcast about something work related (on your break? If you love it, why not?!) or a translation of your favourite book. As long as you find it interesting, it doesn’t matter, practice is practice.

A little Practice Everyday

Try to carve out a few minutes a day to do a bit of English practice, as little as 5 minutes can make a difference (and if it is interesting, you may find yourself wanting to do more!). This could be as you are cooking, travelling somewhere or just a few minutes to chill with a nice cup of tea for some much needed “me” time.

Organise your Notebook

Take some time to organize your notebook (I know, I know, it’s not the most fun but trust me). This can act as a revision activity and a chance to remind yourself of what you have learned in your sessions and own private studies. It will also give you a chance to categorise your vocab lists ready for the next two tips…

Have a System for Recording New Vocabulary

Think about how you record your new vocabulary. Are you a list maker? A spider diagram aficionado? An avid colour-coder? Whatever your method, try to be consistent. Also think about how to group new words, are you going to keep all the vocab lesson-by-lesson, by word type, or your own way that makes more sense to you? Try to make sure that it is in a way for you to easily find what you are looking for when you need it

Relate New Vocabulary to You

Try to relate new vocabulary to you. Don’t just write the definition, write a sample sentence as well to help you remember. Try to relate the sample sentence to you or your interests. If it relates to your, you are more likely to remember it as your brain will file it under “necessary” rather than “potentially useful”, thus making your English practice more likely to stick!

Monitor your Progress

Monitoring progress can prove a great motivator. Write a letter to yourself, a summary of something you read or record yourself saying something. Save it somewhere and don’t look at it or listen to it for a while, maybe 2 months, maybe 6 – its up to you. You can then look back at your starting point and compare to where you are now. Could you produce something better? Would you have used more interesting vocabulary, or expressed yourself differently?

Keep a Diary

7. Keep a diary of what you have done. This will help you track what you are doing. Record whether it was reading or listening, the genre, any new words and if you would do something similar again.

Siobhan

Want more tips? The head on to this post about phrasal verbs.

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Siobhan

I am an ESL instructor with over 9 years experience helping students to reach their full language learning potential.

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