Are you stuck in a rut and going nowhere fast with your English learning?
Have you run out of steam and can’t think of any way to get back on the right track to improve your English?
Sometimes, it’s very difficult to see any language progress, even when it is actually happening…little by little.
Well, I have a suggestion for a short cut to success!
Why don’t you make small goals that are easily achievable and also show clearly that you are making progress?
Small, achievable language learning goals
- Learn 2 new words of vocabulary every day
- Learn 1 new phrasal verb a day
- Learn 1 new idiom a day
When you make these small steps, after 1 working week, you’ll have 10 new pieces of vocab, 5 new phrasal verbs and 5 idioms.
That’s quite a lot, isn’t it?
After a month of doing that, you’ll have 40 new words, 20 new phrasal verbs and 20 idioms!!! Stupendous!
Make sure you write down everything you learn. Use a small, cheap notebook that you can put in your pocket and carry everywhere with you. Then if you find you’ve got 5 minutes in the day with nothing to do (e.g. waiting for a bus/sitting in a waiting room/waiting to meet a friend), you can have a quick revision session.
This will also be a written record, so that you can prove to yourself how much new stuff that you have learnt. Then you will know for sure that you are progressing step by step. If you link this advice with my earlier blogs on filling your spare moments in the day with quick bouts of English practice, (learn English in 5 mins/learn English when travelling/learn English through songs) then the floodgates will open!
The more you do, the more you’ll see and hear your new words and phrases in action. As you learn loads of new words, you’ll whet your appetite for more learning. I’m sure that you will be making positive, noticeable progress very quickly.
Just try it for 10 days and see how much you can improve your English level!
Just by reading this blog, you might have learnt some new idioms, which could improve your English vocabulary….
Vocabulary Explained
- To be stuck in a rut – to do the same things over and over again, so that sth is really boring (like playing scales on a musical instrument/doing hundreds of grammar questions), or to be in a situation, where it’s almost impossible to make any progress (like a low paid, low skilled job)
- To go nowhere fast – not making any progress
- to run out of steam – to lose interest in doing sth, or lose the energy required to do sth
- to be on the right track – to do something correctly well and in the correct manner that means the action is efficient, progressive and positive
- a short cut to success – normally used as ‘There is NO short cut to success’ meaning that you can’t do something correctly and be successful without hard work. I used the saying without the negative, because this article gives you tips on how to take the hard work out of learning a language – just do a little bit everyday to improve your English.
- To open the floodgates – used when a decision or action happens and that causes many, many more of the same actions to happen afterwards
- to whet sb appetite – sth interests a person and makes them want more of that thing
