It's also a good idea to make a list of any negative perceptions you have about learning English. Perhaps you assume that in order to enhance your English, you must live in another country. Perhaps you feel you need tutors to enhance your English but lack the time and resources to do so. Both of these arguments are untrue, yet they are unpleasant ideas that you may have. Include the date you took these notes as well; this will come in helpful in a later tip at the conclusion of this article.
Table Of Contents-
1. Plan your learning
2. Be realistic
3. Find good resources
4. Avoid focusing on grammar
5. Memorize Vocabulary
6. Use all four language skills
7. Find a method that works for you
8. Learn pronounciation from the start
9. Now onto you
Plan Your Learning
Learning a language is a significant undertaking. It is critical that you do not simply dive into the language and hope for the best. You must have a strategy that is unique to you. Nobody else is learning the language but you. You must devise a short-term aim. What do you hope to be able to do in the next two to six months? Every day, you should consider what actions you will take. For example, every day learning for 30, 45, or 60 minutes.
You also need to think about your schedule. Ask yourself these questions:
- When can you learn English?
- When is a good time for you?
- Do you feel too tired after work?
Setting aside 30 minutes every day is not too long, but you need to find a good time slot.
Making a plan like this will help you to guide yourself and help you to have the energy to learn.
Be Realistic
When you feel like you are doing well, you can start feeling overconfident.
If after just three months of learning you watch a movie, you may end up losing confidence.
So, how do you get there from nothing? The answer is comprehensible input.
When you watch something, you need to be able to understand 70% to 90% of what is being said for it to be useful.
When you learn words and phrases, you need to make sure that you find content that uses them.
What you already understand will help you to understand the 10% to 30% that you do not.
You learn from what you mostly understand until you can understand it all.
Once you understand all of what is being said in the audio, move on to the next thing.
You can also help yourself to move on with a few extra tools.
To begin with, when you use an audio resource, see if it has printed text or subtitles.
Other resources may also have videos that come with the audio, which will help you understand the content through context.
These things also make your learning more enjoyable, as they can act as entertainment and helps you connect words with sounds.
If you do this enough in the beginner stage, then it will help you to get to higher levels faster.
Get Free Coaching For English- Free Course
Find Good Resources
The biggest mistake that people make when learning a new language is to download lots of apps or buy lots of books.
This may feel like you are giving yourself lots of useful options, but it will have the opposite effect.
When you have too many resources to choose from, you don’t know where to start.
This happens a lot with video streaming.
We end up looking for something to watch more than actually watching something.
Pick just one resource on day one to start with, and then stick with it for a few months.
If it did not work for you, then change it.
But how do you choose a resource that is right for you? Firstly, it has to be comprehensible.
It also has to be enjoyable.
The more you enjoy learning English, the more you will want to do it.
This means that you will have more energy to focus on learning English when your planned learning time arrives.
Finally, it should be useful.
As a beginner, you do not want long literature texts, for example.
You may also check-
- How to Improve English Vocabulary For CLAT/AILET Exam
- How To Speak English Fluently : 5 Tips
- 10 Tips For Improving Your Spoken English
Avoid Focusing on Grammar
Adults like to focus on grammar.
It seems like it would be the most important thing to learn because that is how we make sentences.
But if you look at a child, they are able to speak a language before they understand any grammar.
This is because they learn through being around the language every day.
As adults, we should look at children who learn this way and try to be more like them.
Listen to dialogues and conversations of real natives.
You can still use grammar books and notes, but only use them when you need to understand things more clearly.
Do not make them the focus of your learning.
You should not spend more than 25% of your time learning grammar.
Grammar can be boring, and boring things can make us slower learners.
Memorize Vocabulary
To be able to learn grammar through the language itself, you need to have a good amount of vocabulary.
How do you build the vocabulary that you need to do this? Repetition is key.
However, always repeating vocabulary you have learned in the same way will not help you.
You need to practice dynamic repetition.
Dynamic repetition means taking a word you have learned and using it in new ways.
This could be by trying to use the word in three or four different sentences through writing or speaking.
It could be by using an application to repeat vocabulary by hearing it and then translating it, picking the meaning from multiple-choice, or just repeating it while reading the definition.
Moreover, it could even be as simple as writing it down as many times as you feel you need to and reading it over and over again.
It does not matter which way you do it, as long as you make sure to keep changing the way you do it.
Using many methods like this helps keep your brain focused as you learn in new and interesting ways.
Also, many words have multiple meanings.
The context of a sentence gives a word its meaning.
For example, the word heart could be the organ inside your body, it could mean the central part of a place “the heart of the city,” or it could mean having an emotional talk “a heart to heart.”
A better way is to only focus on the words that are important to you and your own interests.
If a word is not interesting to you, then your brain will forget it.
This happens in your native language just as much as it does in English.
For example, if you are not interested in engineering, how many engineering words will you remember after reading a text in your own language? It is better to choose a third of the words you did not understand and focus on those and ignore the ones that are not interesting or important to you.
Deconstruction also helps with understanding more vocabulary.
Learn the meanings of prefixes and suffixes that you come across.
If you keep seeing the prefix un-, learn how it changes a word.
Once you learn that it makes a word negative, you will have improved your vocabulary by more than that prefix as it attaches to many words.
Finally, practice note-taking.
Written words stay, whereas spoken words come and go in seconds.
Use all Four Language Skills
Knowing a language takes many skills.
You need to be able to practice reading, listening, speaking, and writing to learn English well.
If you only focus on one, you will have problems.
You may be able to read well, but not be able to follow conversations.
You may be able to listen and read well, but not be able to make your own sentences while speaking or writing.
This happens because listening and reading practice do not equal speaking and writing practice.
The problems that you have in one language skill show the choices that you have made while learning English. You need to improve all four of these skills by practising each of them.
This does not mean that you have to split your learning into four different parts each day, but it does mean working on them over a week, month, or even a year.
Practising all four of these skills will improve your English.
Moreover, you will be able to use these skills to try new and interesting methods when you change your learning style.
You might also like-
Find a Method that Works for You
There are lots of videos on the internet and lots of social media posts that say their method is the best.
The truth is, this cannot be true for everyone.
Language learners all learn in different ways.
The best language learners know this.
People always want the best, fastest, and cheapest way to learn a language, but this does not exist.
What is best for me may not be what is best for you.
You need to make sure that the method that you choose fits your interests, learning style, and schedule.
Your personality, tastes, and what pushes you to continue are more important than what other people think is best.
For every method out there, there is someone who loves it.
But maybe you do not.
If you do not enjoy what you are doing, you won’t learn.
You learn best from things that you find interesting.
Doing things that you enjoy means finding topics and activities that you like and using them to learn English.
If you find something boring, then do not force yourself to keep going, no matter how well other people claim it is.
If you continue with a method that you find boring, then you will find yourself stressed, tired, and not caring about English.
This will mean that you will learn less if you continue.
If you have already learned another language before, do not only focus on the method that you used for that language.
Different languages may need different methods.
To make sure that the method you are using is right for you, you need to ask yourself two questions:
- Am I enjoying this?
- Is this useful to me, and is it helping me?
You have to be able to answer yes to both of these questions for the method to be good for you. If you answer yes to one question, change your method.
If you answer no to both questions, then try a new method.
You should reflect on the method you are using once a month.
If your feelings change, don’t be afraid to change with them.
Answering these questions lets you be realistic and willing to change so that you can get more out of your learning.
Learn Pronunciation from the Start
Learning to pronounce words takes practice.
It is not just understanding the sounds of a language, but also the movement of the muscles in your mouth, jaw, the position of your tongue and throat, and more.
These physical actions take a long time to perfect.
If you pronounce words badly from the start, it will only make it harder to fix later in your learning.
You may still be pronouncing things wrongly past the beginner stage and into the intermediate and advanced stages unless you start practising them right away.
Understanding phonetics, intonation, and physical movements are all important for practising pronunciation.
Now, on to You
The main reason that people give up on their language learning is that they have no human contact.
You may feel that you cannot learn a language if you do not have the chance to speak it with people all the time.
This is not true.
Learning English is not just about learning the language, it is also the social and cultural experiences, and finding out new things about yourself.
Let these things be your rewards.
Making new relationships with people like this also helps you feel rewarded.
Rewarding feelings like this also help you to continue learning the language.
A reward that you can give yourself is with all of the notes you have been taking.
Remember the advice from the beginning of this article? You will have notes on why you are learning English, the negative thoughts you had about learning, and your plan.
On top of this, you will have a log of all the notes you have taken in date order.
Read your notes after the time period you set for your two to three simple goals.
It is easy to lose track of the progress you have made when it happens every day.
Looking back over six months and seeing how much you have achieved, how you overcame your negative thoughts, and how you are one step closer to learning English will help you to realize just how far you have come.
The rest of your notes will show you how hard you have worked to get there.
Once you have read them, set some more goals so that in six more months you can push yourself even further.
Check |
English For Government Exams 2022 : Topics, Syllabus And Tips
Watch this video if you are interested in knowing more about English skills and Job and Interview skills-
