The Marlow Language Centre has collected tips from students and teachers and compiled these into a guide that will hopefully serve as a tool for you to implement some daily habits that can help you improve your language studies, which can be long and sometimes frustrating.
Most students often get discouraged and give up. We all know that practising our languages every day is essential and beneficial to all levels of language learners. In reality, we often fall into a routine of doing the same thing every day without even thinking about improving our language abilities. We are all busy but also have gaps in our schedules.
How to improve your language learning?
Listen to podcasts
Instead of watching silly videos or scrolling on social media, listen to language learning podcasts. Listening to podcasts in and about the target language can help to improve your listening skills as well as give you a better insight into grammatical aspects. While eating breakfast or doing the dishes, allow yourself time to listen to language lessons. Podcasts are a great learning tool because they have been specifically designed to make the learning process easier for you.
– BBC Sound Podcasts
– Google Podcasts
– Apple Podcasts
Change the setting of your devices to the target language
Another approach to implementing language learning into your daily routine can be by changing the language settings on your phone, tablet or laptop to the language you are studying. In doing so, you will interact with the target language on a daily basis and be reminded of vocabulary regularly.
Write a journal
If you enjoy jotting down personal thoughts in a diary, why not try to write in the language that you are studying? Whether it is on paper or on a device, writing a short blurb about your everyday life, your emotions or past experiences can be an excellent method to practise your writing skills.
10 minutes revision
Revising what you learned in your most recent language lesson for around 10 minutes every day can be a very successful technique for boosting your language learning progress. Daily interaction will encourage you to memorise vocabulary, irregular verbs and grammar rules faster.
Do your homework
Most of our teachers will set homework to revise learned topics. This is a very beneficial tool to stay on top of your language studies. We understand that there are weeks when work commitments are taking a lot of your time up or life events don’t allow you to get out your course books. But in the weeks that you do have the time, schedule 15 to 30 minutes to complete some written exercises at home.
Follow foreign content creators
We are all guilty of aimlessly scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or other social media platforms. By following foreign content creators and influencers, you can have daily interaction with social media posts, videos and captions in the language you are learning, and the free time you spend online is actually productive because you are revising.
Vocabulary on sticky notes
Stick notes onto furniture, mirrors, walls, kitchen cabinets and other places that you constantly look at or walk past in your home so that you are repeatedly reminded of words that you find difficult to remember.
Read newspapers or books
Reading in a different language helps you to learn and reinforce vocabulary and grammatical structures. If it is the use of prepositions, tenses or other linguistic features, seeing these visually can aid your memory.
Language learners often struggle to take action and make progress during their studies. These numerous tips and small practical daily tasks listed above can improve your language learning journey and help you practise your linguistic skills effectively. Make use of the time you spend on the train and in your car when travelling to work, and during your lunch break, to study.
Enquire now if you are looking to improve your language-learning journey with a professional teacher!