1. Motivation: Become a person who likes
to learn English
.
2. Dictionary: Get a good English
dictionary.
3. No mistakes: Avoid mistakes. Try to use
correct English from the beginning.
4. Pronunciation: Learn to pronounce
English sounds. Learn to understand phonetic transcription and the phonetic
alphabet.
5. Input: Get English into your head by
reading and listening to lots of English sentences.
• Reading
• Movies
• Adventure games
6. SuperMemo is a computer program that
you can use to learn English. We have used it for 8 years and it has helped us
a lot.
MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING
ENGLISH
What is necessary to
learn English well? You have to change your life a little — do crazy things
like talking to yourself in English or spending your evening reading a
dictionary. In order to do these things, and do them regularly, you have to
enjoy doing them. If you are like most learners and don't feel like doing these
things, you will have to work on your motivation.
Improving your
motivation for learning English: We share our psychological tricks that helped
us enjoy learning English and that you can use to boost your motivation and
make a difference in your English.
WHAT IS NECESSARY TO
LEARN ENGLISH WELL?
Learning English
requires action. You may know all the learning tips, but if you don't start
doing things, you will achieve nothing. The fact is, if you want to learn to
speak English well, you must change your life. Here are some examples of things
you will have to do:
• read a book in English for an hour
every day, analyzing the grammar in sentences and looking up words in an
English dictionary
• listen to an audiobook or other
recording in English, stopping it frequently, trying to understand what is
being said, and trying to imitate the speaker's pronunciation
• spend your afternoon practicing the
pronunciation of the English "r" sound
• carefully write an e-mail message in
English, using a dictionary or a Web search every 20 seconds to make sure every
word is correct, and taking 5 minutes to write one sentence
• think about an English sentence
you've read, wondering if it could say "a" instead of "the"
in the sentence, and trying to find similar sentences on the Web to find out
the answer
• walk down the street and build simple
English sentences in your head (talking to yourself in English about the things
you see around you)
What kind of person
would do all these crazy things? Only one kind. The kind of person who enjoys
doing them. If you want to learn to speak English well, you're going to have to
become that person. You cannot hate doing these things. Have you ever heard of
a person who became successful by doing something he hated?
The problem with
learning and teaching English as a foreign language is that all English
learners want to speak English well; however, most learners don't want to spend
time on learning English on their own. (Which is probably why they sign up for
English classes and hope their teacher will force knowledge into their heads.)
This lack of
motivation means that learners basically don't spend their own time on learning
English, and if they do, they don't do it regularly. For example, a typical
learner might study English phrasal verbs for 12 hours before an English exam.
However, he will not read a book in English for 30 minutes every day. He just
doesn't feel that learning English is pleasant enough, so he will only do it if
he has to. The problem is that a huge one-time effort gives you nothing, while
small, everyday activities will give you a lot.
If you are one of
those learners and don't feel like practicing the pronunciation of the
"r" sound or thinking about English sentences every day, we have news
for you: You're going to have to make yourself want to do these things. In
other words, you'll have to work on your motivation. Fortunately, there are
proven techniques to help you with that.
TYPICAL LEARNER VS.
MOTIVATED LEARNER
Paula is a typical
learner of English with a generally low level of motivation. She has occasional
moments of high motivation — like the day before her English test or that time
when she couldn't communicate with a foreign customer who called her at work.
These kind of situations make her think "I've got to do something about my
English!". However, they happen very rarely — less than once a month. So
even if she studies quite intensively (e.g. for two whole days before an exam),
the results are poor, because she forgets 90% of the things she learned within
a month. This is no surprise: The way human memory works, you need to review
things all the time; otherwise you just forget them.
Now let's look at a
different English learner: Judy. Judy reads a special novel for English
learners (written in simplified English) almost every day for 30 minutes. She
bought an English-English dictionary and uses it to look up English words
whenever she doesn't understand a sentence in her book. It was hard to study
regularly at the beginning: Reading books and using a dictionary were not
"normal activities" for her. And every English sentence was a
challenge.
But now, after only
two weeks, she can read much faster. While reading, she often sees words that
she has learned in the past two weeks. When she recognizes such a word, she
doesn't have to look it up in a dictionary and she knows she has made good
progress. Judy feels she has learned a lot of English recently, and she is
eager to learn more. Every day, she looks forward to reading her book. The book
gives her the chance to use what she has learned (enjoy her progress) and to
learn even more. Because she reads regularly, she forgets little and her
vocabulary keeps growing.
Judy is on the right
track. She will soon be able to read English-language newspapers and other
resources written for native speakers.
Enjoyment leads to
better memory
If you enjoy learning
English, you will spend more time on it, and you will do it regularly. A high
level of motivation will also give you another advantage. It will be easier for
you to memorize new words and grammar structures. The reason is that the brain
easily remembers information on a subject that you like. (For example, some
people like history and know everything about World War II. If you told a
"normal person" to memorize all these facts, they could never do it.)
So enjoyment of learning gives you double benefits.
IMPROVING YOUR
MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING ENGLISH
In this article, we
share our techniques for improving your motivation for learning English as a
foreign language. We used them all the time when we were learning English and
we still use them when we need to boost our motivation in areas other than
English.
Imagine yourself in the future
Imagine you can talk
to native speakers just like you talk in your first language. Imagine other
people wanting to speak English as well as you do. Imagine the possibility of
writing e-mail to people from all over the world.
It is helpful to read
an article about the advantages of knowing English well. There are two such
articles on Antimoon: Why learn English and English makes you feel good.
You should know that
it is possible to learn English really well. Just look at other people who have
done it.
Remember
that you are already good
You already know some
English (you're reading an article in English right now). That's a big success!
Now it's time for more successes. Time to start using powerful methods of
effective learning. Time to gain an impressive knowledge of English.
Remember
there is a lot that you don't know
You are good, but
your English probably isn't perfect. You probably can't understand
English-language TV, read books in English, talk to native speakers easily,
write letters without mistakes, etc.
You should never
think your English is perfect. Even if you are the best student in your class,
always try to find your weak areas and work on them. When you've learned to
speak English well, your problems will be quite small: punctuation, rarely used
grammar structures, rare words, understanding "street language".
Right now, your problems are probably more basic: mistakes in pronunciation,
small vocabulary, grammar problems with the present perfect tense and
conditional structures.
Use your
English whenever you can
This is very, very
important. The more you use English, the more you will want to learn it.
Because English is so
popular, you can use it everywhere. You can use Google to find English-language
websites with interesting information, you can watch American cartoons, you can
play adventure games on your computer, you can read interesting books in
English, or you can do other things that we write about.
If you do these
things, you will not only have fun and learn English. If you see that a new
English word lets you understand your favorite TV show (or communicate with
people, or beat a computer game), you will want to learn more words. So you
will learn English more, use it more, learn it more, use it more... If you also
use effective learning methods, your English will grow faster than you can
imagine.
Talk to people about English
This is a very simple
method, but it is very effective. Here's how it works:
You usually talk
about things which interest you. But the opposite is true, too. If you start
talking about a boring subject, you will begin to get interested in it.
Imagine you are
studying a subject that you hate. You are bored and tired, but you have to pass
the test tomorrow. If there are people near you, you have two options: you can
tell everybody how much you are suffering or you can tell those people about
the things you've learned. If you choose the first option, you will only feel
worse.
If you choose the
second option, and start a conversation on the "boring" subject, you
will begin to look at it in a totally different way. Suddenly it will become a
subject worth talking about — therefore, an interesting subject.
How can you begin
such a conversation? If you're studying English, you can surprise another
person by talking to him/her in English. Say (in English): Hi, I'm studying
English and I hate it. Or you can say (in your first language): Hey, I've
learned 50 English words today. Do you know what's the English word for ...? If
there are no people near you, you can telephone or send an e-mail message to
your friend.
What will your
friends say? Probably they won't be very interested, but it doesn't matter! The
important thing is this: After talking about English, you will study it with
much more passion. Try it.
Find a friend who is
learning English
If you can find a
friend who is learning English and is on a similar level of skill, you will be
in an excellent situation:
• you will have someone to talk about
English with. These conversations will increase your interest in English, as
explained in the previous section.
• learning English will be easier,
because you will be able to discuss your problems with your friend.
• you will study English more, because
you will want to be better than your friend. :-)
You should meet your
friend regularly. Ideally, he/she should live near you, or go to the same
school as you. If you absolutely can't find anybody willing to learn English
with you, you can try to find somebody by e-mail. This is a worse solution:
your conversations will probably be less frequent, and it is difficult to
compete with someone who you don't know well.
Spend some money on
learning English
If you spend your
money on something, you will want to use it. For example, if you buy an
expensive tennis racket, you will probably go out and play tennis every day.
This rule is also true
for learning English. If you want to increase your desire to learn English, buy
a new dictionary, an interesting English-language book, English-language cable
TV, etc. The idea is simple: You paid for it, so you will want to use it, and
you will improve your English.
There is a problem
with this method. It only works for a short time. You usually lose your desire
to learn English after a few days. To keep learning, you would have to buy
something every week!
However, this method
is helpful, because it gives you an impulse to start learning. For example, if
you buy a dictionary of phrasal verbs, you will probably learn some words from
it. Then you should try to use them. For example, write an e-mail message with
these words. This will increase your motivation (as explained before), and you
will learn more.
Read Unlimited Power
by Anthony Robbins
Anthony Robbins' book
Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement gives excellent advice
on how to achieve any kind of goal. This book has changed the lives of many
people, so you might want to take a look at it.
Remember that learning English requires
action
We have said this
many times. One small action is more powerful than reading hundreds of
articles. Yes, we know it is very hard to do things, even if they are good for
us. We humans are lazy creatures. That is why not many people speak English
well.
Still, we hope you
can do the things we talk about in our English learning method — not only read
about them. You will be successful only if you change something about your
life.
Don't put it off. Begin now.
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