Imagine that you are an actor and one day your agent says that you need to make your muscles bigger if you want to act in action films. How do you go about improving your muscle mass? There are no short cuts; you need to devote your time to exercising. But more importantly, you need to exercise regularly in short bursts not once a week for 6 hours. Your English is the same; it is about developing good habits not about short, irregular periods of study.
Study English daily!
If you really want to improve your habits for studying English, here are some tips that you can do daily in order to get those fabulous long-term results you have always wanted.
1) Watch TV actively. This means don’t just listen and watch, but imitate what you hear when you hear short phrases and listen for understanding when you are listening to lengthy stories like the news. It is useful to mute the TV after a news article and to summarize what you have just heard when listening to the news.
2) Listen actively to people in conversation. This means that when you are in an English environment, listen to people talking and watch the movements that they make with their eyes, hands and especially their mouths. If you can imitate them without looking like a crazy person, this will help you to improve your pronunciation.
3) List the words that you don’t understand. Make a list of words that you hear but you don’t understand but make sure that you write down the sentence too. If you cannot find the word in the dictionary and you have to ask your teacher, they will know the situation in which you heard it and they will explain the right meaning to you.
4) Practice reading. Every day spend some time reading in English. Choose a variety of materials such as books, newspapers, blogs, or online articles. Gradually increase the complexity of what you read.
6) Never stop speaking. Engage in daily speaking exercises. Talk to yourself, describe your surroundings, or narrate your day in English. This helps improve your fluency and confidence.
7) Use the words that you learn. If you learn a new word, try to use it often. This will give you the practice that you need to use the word correctly and you will get the feedback to tell you whether you are using it well.
Make learning English a wonderful journey
Improving your English skills on a daily basis is not just a goal; it’s a rewarding journey. Through consistent reading, listening, regular speaking and writing, very soon you’ll notice real progress. Remember, language acquisition is a process, but with consistent effort, you’ll soon find yourself communicating with fluency and confidence in English.
Developing your English skills is all about practice and the more regularly you practice and the more you integrate English into your lifestyle, the faster you will reach your goals. It takes time, so make sure you make it part of your daily routine.
As part of your daily English practice, take some English conversation lessons with a native-English teacher.
