1 Become aware of your preferred learning style!
You are either a visual learner, a kinaesthetic learner, an auditory learner or a physical learner.
You need to try to learn English in the way that you prefer to learn. For instance, if you are an auditory learner, you may consider buying an audiobook from Audible. co. uk, or from anywhere else online. I quite prefer buying it from there because it is simple and the book arrives almost instantly on my Iphone. You can try listening to podcasts, to YouTube videos, to lectures. If you are a visual learner, you need to try to watch and visualize as much as possible. For instance, you could watch videos, visualize the words you are learning using the various memory methods I am going to mention in future blog posts, such as visualizing the letters of the new words jumping off the page and talking to each other. You can write on flashcards and create learning maps by using color, and your creativity. You can write symbols for each word that you need to memorize. If you are a physical learner, you may prefer to move around while you are studying, perform each word as if you were an actor or an actress, with the voice of a mouse or of a sultry woman.
As a kinaesthetic learner, you could touch the words you need to learn by either imagining the words you are touching as walking on the table; you could also play Scrabble by creating the words with the Scrabble letters.
2 Practice As Much As Possible!
If you want to learn English quickly, you must practice as much as possible. Go to language swap groups, go to an English school, talk to people in pubs, meet new people at meetup. com;
3 Read Every Day
Reading a little bit every day is essential to your learning. You may not understand everything you read, so try to get easy books from the library for free or otherwise Foyles book store has a great collection of easy books by level of understanding. Every little bit of reading helps, be it only 5 minutes a day!
4 Use All Your Senses When You Study
If you wish to accelerate your learning, you need to use multisensory techniques to enhance the way you learn. for instance, if you want to learn a new word, you could write it, read it aloud a few times at an interval of around 8 seconds, say it in a funny accent, create the word with Scrabble letters, tell it to your friends, move while you study.
5 Use Repetition
I remember that when I was learning French, I used a particular strategy: I was repeating the words every 8 seconds, while listening to classical music. I managed to learn at least four times what I used to be able to learn without this technique. Classical music improves your concentration and retention of new material.
6 Have Fun With The Language
Create fun associations between words. For instance I like to learn new words by creating a vivid picture of something very strange or funny. Or let's say you want to learn the word rabbit - I would generally chunk it into rab -bit -and then take every opportunity to imagine the word in my head. You could also imagine a rabbit drawing the letters for rabbit on the whiteboard. (strange, but it works!)
7 Have a System For Learning
I always find that when you want to learn, you need to know where you are and where you want to go. I generally put really high goals for myself. For instance if you want to learn the basics of any language, you need to know approximately 100 words to get by, and 3000 to be able to use the most commonly used words. Knowing that, you can divide the number of words by the number of days - say 30 days, that makes 100 words a day. That seems difficult but it is in fact very easy. You can also choose to only learn 25 words per day, but that means you will learn in 4 months, not one. Once you decide, you need to know how are you going to do it.
I use several strategies, such as the use of classical music to calm my mind, then I use spaced repetition. And then I write and say several sentences. For instance there is a phrase in English that I think is very funny - "It rains cats and dogs. " I imagine that the cats and dogs are falling from the sky and landing in balloons or that they smash their face against the sidewalk like Tom and Jerry.
8 Use Memory Techniques
I think learning should always involve using memory techniques, since what you may have problems with is the recall of information. I love using Tony Buzan's memory techniques, since they are highly effective and you can learn anything you want to learn easily and in the same order. For instance you could use the story technique, where you create a link between all the words you wish to remember by using the principle of association, exaggeration and humour.
9 Use Learning Maps
Learning maps have been invented by Tony Buzan and they are an extraordinary useful tool for brainstorming and organizing any information.
I love learning with it since it allows me to come up with a lot more ideas than I initially thought I had.
10 Enjoy Yourself When You Study!
I think it is important to feel good and enjoy yourself when you are learning. Create an environment where you feel most comfortable; laugh, take time to know what boxes you need to tick so that you don't feel stressed when you study. You need to feel at ease, and believe that you can learn anything you want to learn as long as you have faith in yourself, you follow a system and you use accelerated learning techniques.
No comments:
Post a Comment