Make the habit of learning English

Your 30 minutes of English

Are you consistent and intentional about your English?

Perhaps right now you are thinking about these excuses; "I´m too busy to study," "I don´t have time to do it now". I totally understand, it has happened to me many times, and not just with English. These days there are countless distractions, commitments, hobbies, jobs, time spent with our loved ones, and so many other things that take up our valuable time.

And don´t get me wrong, time is one of the most precious things we´ve got in life, we´re not taking it back, so we´d better use it wisely, right?

That´s why I believe it´s essential to manage our time and energy effectively. We all have 24 hours a day, but how to spend those hours depends only on you.

There are quite a lot of techniques you can use (the one I love is the Pomodoro technique that combines short period of times of efficient work and breaks), but that would be a whole new world to discuss here, so let´s stick to the point…. I want you to understand the importance of having a plan that allows you to be consistent and to move forward in your learning strategy.

I always tell my students that they should spend at least 30 minutes a day on their English to really make a difference (if your diary is too tight, I would say 15 minutes). I know it´s easy to think doing some exercises once or twice a week for 4 hours will make you improve exponentially, but what about the days in between?

That way, you´re not training your brain for success. Indeed, you only remember what you practise and there is no use in spending a lot of hours here and there if there is not going to be any implementation that retains the new information. The way knowledge works is by building up, it´s like a the compound effect; every little piece of information adds up when you repeat it, and repeat it, and repeat it until it becomes automatic.

I´m sure you´ve been in the situation where speaking English becomes a challenge after a long holidays. Or perhaps you have a friend who tells you "I´m forgetting my English!" Well, practice makes the master and when you don´t repeat and exercise, that knowledge that you built up starts falling apart.

Be intentional about your learning process and make time every day for a bit of English; if it gets too busy, you can try to learn while doing other things like listening to podcasts or the radio while going to work or doing your washing-up.

Try to be intentional about doing more things in English, read the newspaper, watch a series or change the settings to English in your devices.

Above all, remember to stay focused while studying, if you are too distracted, nothing will change much.

It may sound harsh, but if you are really serious about improving your English, you will certainly find few minutes a day for intentional practice.

As always, the change starts with you, you have the answer so start maximising your time now!