A Better Way To Learn English Language In 2021
As January comes to a close. I cannot believe how quickly time is passing. It’s technically still the start of the year so I thought I would talk with you about your English language fluency learning plan for 2021. Starting from the beginning I want to talk you through the steps you should be taking and the English language learning habits that will make your life easier.
If your new to Adept English, welcome, if your a regular listener, welcome back! Today’s lesson is about understanding the various steps all English language learners need to take to improve their English fluency. Of course we have a system that can help you and today I will explain how the Adept English learning system it a good way for you to learn English language.
We all create some structure to our lives, and that usually means a set of routines that happen automatically, like brushing your teeth or shopping for food. We need a plan with a goal, some rules and routines to help us tackle problems efficiently, like improving your English.
Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.
⭐ Harry Day, Soldier, Author
So for us that means talking about the 7 rules of Adept English, but I’m also going to talk about some good learning habits that will help you. Learning habits that would help you in other learning activities as well. So no excuses, find your headphones and 10 minutes of dead time and listen and learn about a better way of learning to speak English.
Most Unusual Words:
Traditional
Method
Pandemic
Forum
Principles
Instinct
Most common 3 word phrases:
| Phrase | Count |
|---|---|
| The Seven Rules | 5 |
| To Listen To | 2 |
| This Free Course | 2 |
| From Adept English | 2 |
Listen To The Audio Lesson Now
The mp3 audio and pdf transcript for this lesson is now part of the Adept English back catalogue . You can still download and listen to this lesson as part of one of our podcast bundles.Transcript: 7 Rules To Learn English Language And Habits That Help
Hi I’m Hilary and welcome to this latest podcast from Adept English. I’m just thinking about the fact that it’s January and the start of the year and thinking, as ever, about your English language learning.
Let’s talk today about how you can really make a difference to your language learning in 2021. What can you do to really progress this year – and surprise yourself by how much you can improve your English?
The Seven Rules are key – and free!
So periodically in these podcasts, I say to you ‘If you haven’t yet signed up yet for our free course, The Seven Rules of Adept English, then you are missing out!’ This free course – notice that – it’s completely free, there’s no charge, you don’t have to pay! This free course is made up of seven videos, in which I explain to you the ideas, the principles behind the Adept English way of learning language.
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The ideas are distilled, put into seven simple rules, then you can remember them easily. The ideas behind the Seven Rules underpin our whole approach to language learning. And it doesn’t matter which language you’re learning. If you want to actually speak a language fluently, these principles work. Whether you use Adept English or you use some other method to learn English, these rules, these ideas, these principles of language learning are what will cause you to improve your level.
For English language beginners….
There is a phase of learning before you’re ready for the Seven Rules, before you’re ready for Adept English. If you’re just starting out, learning English, then the podcasts and the courses will be too difficult. It’s better to start using Adept English, when you’re beyond the level of being ‘a beginner’.
You need to be able to understand a reasonable number of words and simple sentences, otherwise if it’s really hard, it might just put you off – and we don’t want that! If you find this is where you are, then go and work on your English using more traditional methods just to get you started, just to get you off the ground, so that your level is a little higher than beginner.
Then come back to us and the best thing to start with from Adept English would be our Most Common 500 Words Course. If you use the principles of the Seven Rules of Adept English to work through the 500 Most Common Words Course – and you’re able to listen to every part of that course and understand it, then you will be ready to listen to more difficult, more complex material.
By the end of that course, if you can listen to and understand the whole course, you’ll already have enough understanding for most words used in average English conversations.
Listen, listen and listen again
Doing the courses and listening to the podcasts will help you. But what also matters is the way you do your listening. This is what makes such a difference! Hopefully, you’re familiar with the idea that repeat listening is really, really important.
You need to listen more than once. And in fact, if you listen to one of our podcasts, or a recording from one of our courses a few times, then you leave it, maybe listen to something else for a bit – and then later on, you return and listen again to the same material, your brain, the clever machine in your head, is more likely to remember any new words or phrases.
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A photograph of a Arab teacher teaching English writing grammar rules on blackboard indoors.
This is the ‘spaced repetition’ idea. It’s really important for your learning. It’s what happens when you learn your first language. You hear a word, you forget it. Later on, you hear that word again and you forget it again. But you keep on hearing that word – until you remember it. And once you’ve remembered it, you still keep hearing it – and eventually it becomes impossible to forget it.
Forgetting that word becomes impossible and remembering that word becomes automatic – because your brain has grown new neurons specifically to hold that information, that word and you couldn’t get rid of it if you tried!
And then move into speaking English
So if you keep listening, your English improves little by little and you find that you can listen to most of the podcasts, and understand on first listen quite a high percentage of the material. The last remaining piece of the process then is hooking up your understanding of the language with being able to speak it.
As I’ve described previously in these podcasts, that part of the process is so much easier if your understanding of English is already good. It does take effort – and you do have to practise speaking English with other people. But if you have moved way beyond the stage where you’re translating in your head – and into the stage where understanding is automatic, this step into speaking fluently is a much shorter one.
It is a step, you do need to practise – so you need to think about how you’ll do it. Where will you find other people to speak English with? In the middle of a pandemic, lots of things have stopped, lots of things aren’t happening any more. But language learning doesn’t need to be one of them. In fact, this is an ideal time to forge ahead with your language learning.
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Set your English language learning plan for 2021 – your ‘input’
So in 2021, make a different to your language learning. How fast you progress in your English language learning will depend upon how many hours a week you give to it. So have a think about your habits, your schedule. It might be different at the moment, because of the pandemic.
But if you take Rule Three of the Seven Rules of Adept English – and you learn to use your dead time, then finding time to do your language learning is much less of a problem. You’ll find that if you use this principle, we all have time to learn a language – even us ‘busy people’!
So the first thing to work out is how many hours listening can you do each week – and decide ‘When am I going to do it?’ Which activities can you do your English language learning alongside? Then, add Adept English into the mix and of course and that’s your English language learning input taken care of, your listening taken care of.
And your English language learning output – learn to speak!
And your English language learning output? That’s your speaking. Have a think about where you can do your speaking practice. Do you need to hook up with someone on an online forum – conversation exchange is always the one we recommend, of course.
Or do you sign up for an English conversation group perhaps, where you meet up online with other people to practise speaking? I’ve just started my group for 2021, on a Thursday lunchtime. I have an hour and a half of slightly chaotic, but wonderful communication between about 10 English people, all speaking French with one another.
We have a teacher, a native French speaker to give the group some direction, and we either have discussion topics in the larger group or she puts us into ‘breakout rooms’, separate rooms on Zoom, with a task like ‘Talk for five minutes to each other about your Christmas Day this year’ or ‘Discuss and describe the different rooms in your house’.
There’s a wonderful saying in English ‘to fly by the seat of your pants’. It’s generally used when you’re in a situation that feels difficult, for which you aren’t prepared – and you’re having to move along on instinct. So ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ is often what it feels like, when you start practising making conversation in a different language, when you’re practising speaking.
But what’s nice about the group – we all make mistakes, we all get the verb tense wrong, we’re all meeting some of the words for the first time – and the teacher corrects us, but in a nice way! There’s no need for embarrassment, we’re an intermediate class, we’re learning and we’re all at a similar level.
So that’s OK. And if anyone in the group was getting it all right, they’d just be moved up to a higher level language group – so then they’d be ‘flying by the seat of their pants’ in a different class! It’s enjoyable, it’s good fun – and there is quite a lot of humour going in. It brings a smile to my face, when I think of my French conversation group – it’s charming, it’s slightly chaotic, but I feel that I’m crossing that bridge between the understanding and the speaking more fluently.
One task to do and two decisions to make for your English language learning!
So, if you want to improve your English in 2021, you’ve got one task and two decisions to think about! The task is to sign up for the Seven Rules of Adept English – so that you can make sure you’re fully using these ideas, these principles to improve your English. And if you’ve done it before, why not just sign up again and look at it again?
Download The Podcast Audio & Transcript
It’s worthwhile. And the two decisions? Well first of all, when and where, alongside what activities and at which times in your week are you going to do your English listening? And decision number two? ‘How and when, and with whom am I going to do my English speaking practice?’ Answer these questions, carry it through, enjoy ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ with your speaking partners – and you’ll be well away, becoming more fluent in English in 2021.
Goodbye
All the best with it! And don’t forget to tell us how your English is improving!
Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.
