How to Achieve Your English Learning Goals
It’s that time of the year again… another year has gone by, and the beginning of a new one is getting ready to kick off. You have probably started to reflect on what you achieved last year, and are now setting goals (or resolutions). Among them, English learning goals.
And if you’re like me, you may have achieved some of last year’s goals on your list, but not others.
While contemplating how the previous year has been for me, I started to ask myself why I didn’t achieve certain goals, while I was able to accomplish others. I discovered one main reason for this…
A lack of PROCESS to accompany the goals I didn’t reach.
Create a Process to Accompany Your Goals and Increase Your Chances of Success
To achieve your goals for the new year, you need a process in place for each goal. Otherwise, by the end of the year, you could possibly end up disappointed.
Here’s an example of what a process could look like…
One of the goals that I did achieve last year was to maintain a good level of fitness, even though my baby daughter was going to be born and therefore disrupt my routine.
Instead of having 90-minute workouts, I developed a process of having shorter, but more intensive workouts, at specific times during the day. So four days a week at 16:30, I exercised for 30 minutes intensively.
This was my process. It was simple and it worked. I was able to maintain my fitness throughout the year.
In this post, I’m going to cover three common English learning goals and teach you a simple process for each of them, so that this year can be a transformational year for your English skills!
English Learning Goal 1: Increase English Vocabulary
If you want to express yourself better and improve your understanding of English whether it’s for reading or listening, the key to achieving this is to expand your vocabulary.
Vocabulary doesn’t only consist of individual words. It also includes idioms, collocations and lexical phrases.
First of all, it’s important to define what kind of vocabulary you need. Is it for business? A trip abroad? A topic of interest, like Economics?
Once you have decided, look for content about the vocabulary topic, such as articles, podcasts, and videos.
So if your topic of interest is Economics, go to the Economist website or YouTube channel, for example, and pick an article or video. This content will be your source of new vocabulary.
As you are studying the content, you should take notes and store the new vocabulary in an organized way so that you can review it. I recommend a flashcard app like Quizlet or Flashcard Deluxe for this.
Reviewing the new vocabulary is extremely important for retention. Learners normally need to see new vocabulary several times to retain it.
So your process could look like this:
- Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday Morning, take 20 minutes to study content on your defined topic.
- Then Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, spend 10 minutes reviewing the new vocabulary.
* Extra tip: to really cement new vocabulary into your memory, you should look for opportunities to use it. So this could be talking about the content with your teacher or writing a short essay about the topic while using the new vocabulary you learned.
English Learning Goal 2: Speak English with Confidence in Social and Work Situations
Many English learners suffer from a lack of confidence in speaking the language.
And what’s interesting, it isn’t because they necessarily have a low level of English…
A lot of learners often have upper intermediate to advanced levels, but just don’t feel comfortable when they need to speak English in a work meeting, giving a business presentation or having a casual conversation during a business lunch.
Most of the time, a lack of confidence speaking English is a mindset issue as opposed to a competence issue.
If you really don’t have the English level to participate in meetings, express your opinions, understand what others are saying etc, then this is a competence matter and you need to focus on improving your level.
It’s a mindset issue when you know that in a one-to-one situation with your teacher, you CAN express your opinions and communicate ideas, but in front of your colleagues you don’t do this as well, and end up getting nervous, forgetting vocabulary, getting blocks, and feeling anxious.
So how do you improve your mindset so that you feel more confident?
1: Practice. Practice. Practice.
If it’s a meeting you have to participate in, anticipate what you might talk about as well as the questions you may be asked.
I suggest writing all this down first, then practising aloud 10 times, 20 times or until you feel very comfortable.
If you have a presentation, rehearsal and repetition are absolutely crucial for non-native speakers. Your goal must be ‘overlearning’ the speech. When you feel you have done enough, do more.
2: Speak slower
Sometimes non-natives lose confidence when the listener asks them to repeat something.
Instinctively you think that there is something wrong with your English. But, in the majority of cases, you are misunderstood because 1) the listener isn’t used to your accent, and 2) you are speaking too fast. Or both.
Regarding accents, there is absolutely nothing wrong with them and you should not be ashamed of having one.
However, if you are speaking to someone who doesn’t have much exposure to your kind of accent, then naturally they could have difficulty understanding you at the beginning.
Furthermore, when we are nervous we tend to speak faster than normal which affects pronunciation, making it more difficult for listeners to understand.
Therefore, be sure to pronounce and articulate your words carefully, instead of rushing through your speech.
It’s also important to have in mind that you are not doing a performance about ‘how good you are at English’ and to be focused on what you want to say and express.
When you can see that people are understanding your message, this builds confidence.
3: Step into the uncomfortable zone
I sometimes meet learners who, because of a lack of confidence, avoid situations where they have to speak English in front of others.
I understand this because it really is uncomfortable. And our natural tendency is to run away from uncomfortable situations.
But here’s the thing… you are only going to increase your confidence by stepping into the uncomfortable zone and overcoming it.
The key is to be prepared for this moment.
So my suggestion is to confront your fear, but make sure you have done everything possible to prepare.
Here’s your process to achieve the goal of speaking English confidently:
- Practice until you feel you have done enough. Then practice more.
- Speak slower and focus on pronouncing your words correctly, so people understand you easier.
- Confront your fears of speaking English and step into the uncomfortable zone, having prepared sufficiently.
English Learning Goal 3: Improve Understanding of Native Speakers
The last English Learning goal which I’m going to talk about in this post is how to improve your ability to understand native speakers.
This is a common challenge for English learners because the English you learn from textbooks and taught in language schools is very different from the reality of how natives actually speak. Particularly, in terms of pronunciation.
There are two main reasons why it can be challenging to understand native speakers, and I’m going to explain how to deal with each one of them.
Reason #1: Connected speech
In the reality of a native speaker, words and expressions are not pronounced like they are in textbooks.
If you think about it, the listening exercises are recordings of professional voice-over artists who adjust their language for the English learner.
Words are pronounced ‘correctly’ and sentences are spoken in a way which minimizes the connectivity of words and sounds.
This connectivity of words and sounds is where natives speak differently to textbook listening.
The ‘correct’ way of speaking – pronouncing every word separately, is discarded.
Words ‘affect’ each other in different ways as we use them in phrases and sentences.
Sometimes we change sounds, add sounds or take away sounds. Also, words often join together, making two or even three words following each other sound like one.
Let me give you some examples…
‘Go out’ (Gowout)
Here, the ‘w’ sound is added between the two words.
‘Is he busy?’ (Isi busy?)
Here, ‘is’ and ‘he’ are joined together, removing the ‘h’ sound.
‘Most common’ (Moscommon)
And here, the ‘t’ is taken away.
Connected speech is a very vast topic. It is not something you are going to learn after reading just one blog post.
It is something that needs analysis and patience. But it is worth dedicating time to in 2019 because it will considerably improve your listening (and speaking) skills.
The good news is that there are lots of good materials explaining how connected speech works.
I suggest watching a YouTube explainer video twice a week and practising saying the connected speech yourself.
Here’s a great video to get started by Accent’s Way English with Hadar. She analysis the intonation, connected speech & phrasing of a Simon Sinek speech.
Reason #2: Use of ‘chunking’
One of the mistakes many learners make is focusing too much on understanding individual words when listening to a native.
And despite being able to understand most of the words native speakers say, they find it difficult to understand the overall message being said.
This is because natives use something called ‘chunking’.
Chunking means using ‘groups of words’ as opposed to individual words to make sentences.
You see, natives don’t express themselves using single words. They think in ‘chunks’. In other words, they talk with pre-built phrases consisting of individual words.
Examples of chunking phrases
‘by the way’,
Meaning: Used to give further information.
E.g. “Oh, by the way, my name’s Steven.”
‘at the end of the day’,
Meaning: Something that you say before you give the most important fact.
E.g. Of course I’ll listen to what she has to say but at the end of the day, it’s my decision.
‘I was wondering if you could…’
Meaning: Used to ask someone politely to help you.
E.g. I was wondering if I could borrow your car tomorrow?
If you focus on the individual words in these phrases, they won’t make sense. What makes sense is the phrase as a whole.
I strongly recommend focusing on chunking phrases in your English study. This will not only help you understand natives better but will also help you speak grammatically correctly and sound more like a native.
As for chunking phrases in day-to-day English, check out this video from linguamarina called 50 Common English Phrases:
Here’s your process to achieve the goal of improving your understanding of native speakers in 2019:
- Work on ‘connected speech by watching a YouTube explainer video twice a week and practice saying the connected speech yourself.
- Spend 20 minutes, three times a week learning and reviewing new chunking phrases, and when you can, use them yourself. Also, look out for natives using chunks in their speech.
Conclusion
Instead of ending 2019 disappointed that you didn’t achieve the English learning goals you had set at the beginning of the year, put a process in place to accompany your goals.
As you have read above, the process can be very simple.
In most cases, it’s just a case of taking a small action, and consistently repeating it throughout the year.
Remember, it’s the accumulation of small actions that get results.
Defining a process, and then consistently applying that process is the key to improving your English.
Doing so will ensure that the next 12 months are the most productive and transformational for your English skills.
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