How to practice English by yourself
This title seems counter-intuitive considering that I am an English teacher, however if you have had lessons with me then you would know that I highly encourage self studying as one of the best ways to improve your fluency and memory skills. This leads to questions from my students such "How can I study alone when I can't practice speaking with anyone?" or "Where can I study?" or even "Where do I start?".
Get into routine
I personally believe in sticking to a routine and having a certain hour of the day dedicated to learning, this is a great way to stay on track. You can dedicate every day to a specific area. For example at 3 o'clock you can schedule in your calendar an hour to studying English, and every day you can focus on a different area.
Have your go-to resources
It's a great idea to find resources that you enjoy and learn a lot from and refer back to those resources always so that you are familiar with the style and way of teaching. This will help you learn more quickly and make you more confident. I have compiled in the table below a range of different resources that you can check out.
Day of the week | Area of focus | Resources |
Monday | Reading and Writing | |
Tuesday | Pronunciation | |
Wednesday | ​Vocabulary | |
Thursday | Grammar | |
Friday | Listening |
Revise what you learn
It has been scientifically proven that you need to learn something more than once (and across a spaced period of time) in order to retain it in long term memory. For this reason, I always advise revising material that you learn because the chances of it staying in long term memory is close to nothing if you don't look over it and practice using it (that's why phrasal verbs are hard to learn)!
Focus on the bigger picture
Remember why you are learning this language and how it will enrich your life. Whenever I'm feeling a little unmotivated, I try to remeber why I even started on this journey of learning and how my life will improve because of it. I think about the rewards I will gain in the future from the hard work I put in now.
Practice makes perfect
And lastly, you need to apply what you learn by practicing it and using it in your conversations, meetings, emails or even when journaling so that you become familiar with the words, the grammar rules or how you pronounce a certain word.
