How to optimize learning English

It's no secret that knowledge of English at a good level is already a must-have for a modern person. In today's reality, with a frantic pace of life, hard work and an attempt to find work-life balance in order to learn a language, one often has to resort to the help of a tutor or group courses. But this is not a guarantee that the language will be learned. Scheduled English 2 or 3 times a week will not provide the required level if you do not optimize the learning process. In fact, it’s quite realistic to pull up English yourself, without the help of a specialist (but it will take more time, with a good teacher you can speed up this process).

My advice for those who study English on their own or with a teacher :

1) Choose authentic textbooks and books to read.
Having seen a huge number of textbooks in my life, I am sharing a list of the best.

• For the general course of spoken language - Speak Out 2d edition (always take the latest edition). Naturally, first you need to determine your level and choose a textbook according to the level (A1 - beginner, A2 - elementary, B1 - intermediate, B2 - upper-intermediate, C1 - advanced). Speak Out level C2 (proficient) does not exist.
• Keynote Perspectives, Ted.com. , , , , — .
• 2 — Business Result In Company.
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2) Having decided on the textbook, you must go to the choice of Internet resources .

• For the video, this is definitely Ted talks . Video materials are the most effective, since most of the time in real life we ​​spend on live communication, when we both see and hear the person (less time is devoted to texts and phone calls). Therefore, watching news and TV shows will be quite effective. My Choice for Language Benefits: Modern Family TV Series . You can also choose a celebrity who is known for her inspirational speeches. For example, Brian Tracy, Anthony Robbins, Bill Gates, Richard Branson , etc. Vloggers will also benefit.
• - — bbc 6-minute English.
• . , — Guardian, Forbes, New York Times, Huffington Post, Medium.

3) Speaking of dictionaries, the worst option is Google translate , but for some reason it is very often used. A decent alternative to Google translator is multitran or context.reverso , where you can find real texts with this word and translation in context. However, in my opinion, it is better to resort to translation as little as possible, and use the definition of the word instead in the explanatory English-English (and not English-Russian) dictionary. The best among them are Oxford , Cambridge , Merriam Webster , etc.

4) There are many different applicationsto learn a language. As practice shows, students like to download them in large quantities, but they use it extremely rarely. My advice is to find the very 1 optimal application and use only it for a while (for example, a month), and then download another if you want. The same applies to social networks - there are countless offers, and you need to choose the most suitable. Here's an example of my Instagram page eliza.business.english .



5) To tighten up spoken English, you can find someone who is also interested in learning English and practice speaking together. It will not be protected from mistakes, but it will be useful for fluency of speech and elimination of the language barrier .

6) Need to organizeclass schedule , choosing the most productive time. Someone thinks better in the morning, and someone in the evening, but only a few in the afternoon, during a siesta.

7) You can study with a teacher 1 or 2, or 3 times a week, but this does not cancel the independent initiative . The main thing is that learning is a pleasure. Then it will be possible to combine business with pleasure, and language learning will turn from education to edutainment(education + entertainment). And if you like the lesson, there is always time for it. Each person has his own hobby (if this is not the case, then it's time to get one) - that means English can be associated with your hobby. In online magazines, you can choose only those topics that you like. For example, if you like to cook or you like to keep track of sporting events, then reading articles about it will surely be pleasant and useful.

8) Language is first of all words, and then the grammar connecting them. Therefore, the expansion of vocabulary- The basis for the effective study of any foreign language. There are many ways to memorize new words, and you must choose the most effective way for you. Some students like to group words by meaning and memorize entire lists (Furniture, Fruits, Vegetables, Types of Accommodation, etc.). The most effective is to make sentences about yourself with new words and memorize them, as well as constantly return to previously learned words and use them in speech.

9) I want to emphasize the urgent problem of ALL students of English: spelling errors . This problem stems from the fact that few people now write with a pen in a notebook. Most often we print text (on the phone, on the computer) and the spellcheck programdoes everything for us. Before the advent of calculators, people strained their brains to do simple mathematical operations in their minds. In the same way, spellcheck clouds your vigilance and spelling abilities atrophy. Thus, I urge you to return to the old-fashioned method of writing by hand. The bigger, the better. Words and their spelling will be remembered better!

10) Go to distance learning. Under the current circumstances, online learning is the only way to learn something at all.

Individual lessons online have a number of advantages that should not be neglected, given the situation in the world. Among them:

• time saving
• saving money by not having to go somewhere
• learning a language in a comfort zone (from your home)
• zero risk of infection
• flexible schedule - it is much easier to reschedule the lesson or cancel classes

To summarize all of the above, it is important to emphasize that the most important thing for students is :

1) desire / aspiration / enthusiasm (doing not only homework “from now on”)
2) pleasure from the process (if we like something, we don’t notice how time flies, and as a result, it turns out that an impressive amount of time is spent on your favorite pastime, and it takes a lot of time to master the language).
3) regular practice of all aspects - reading, writing, speaking, listening (after all, our memory is selective and only what we use more or less regularly is delayed in it).

Thank you for the attention!