5 English Habits to Practice Every Day to Improve English Fluency and Communication Skills
Intro
At the upper, intermediate and advanced level of English, it's time to really make English part of your day-to-day life. Many of you have already been to Esl courses and now you're using English in the real world, with your jobs and your relationships, and in everyday life in English. But in order to really use it every day, you need to create daily habits centered around English practice. But it's gonna be fun, I promise. So today in this lesson, I am sharing five daily habits that you can add to your daily routines and your schedules. What's amazing is that they won't take more than one hour of each day. Can you believe it? You'll have fun while doing it and you will dramatically improve your English communication skills. These English habits will focus on reading, writing, listening, speaking, and comprehending what are we waiting for. Let's get started [Music] For each of the five categories of English habits that we're building, try to choose something that interests you or something that you're curious about learning. The idea is to make it fun, not a chore. And don't think of this as homework. Think of it as a way to add value to your life. What's great is that it serves a dual purpose: one improving your English language skills and two learning something new.
Okay, for the first thing. read 10 minutes in English each day.
Read 10 minutes
Choose your favorite type of reading and content to read and make it a daily practice. Some examples of this include: Reading online news, reading books, paper or digital. it's up to you.
reading recipes, reading blogs, reading articles or newsletters.
The focus here is on absorbing grammatical structures, learning spelling, and vocabulary acquisition. And my pro tip for you is to read aloud because this can help you with your pronunciation, muscles, and your speaking endurance. You'll notice that you might get tired in your mouth, in your jaw, and your throat, and that's because it's a different language and you might not be used to using all of the muscles that we use in English. And so you might feel like you need to work on that endurance. And that's what I mean by speaking endurance. Also, reading aloud will help you retain the information that you read better. All right. Number two: Write for 10 minutes each day in English.
Write 10 minutes
If you're not really sure about what to write, or if writing feels laborious to you, try to make it something that you really enjoy. So here are some examples of fun writing activities: Writing a gratitude list or a journal entry on gratitude, writing down things that you're grateful for in your life, and what you're thankful for, writing out your worries.
It's also known as worry pages or a brain dump just getting everything off your mind that's causing you to worry about something, writing in a stream of consciousness. So this is about writing anything that comes into your thought system and just writing writing writing without lifting your pen from the paper. It's fun, you should try it and then the other one is writing about your day, logging the events of the day, what happened, what you've done. You can also write an email in English to a friend, or it can be a totally fictional person such as your favorite character from a book, a movie, or a show. and this obviously won't get sent. But it's still a really fun activity to try. and it's good English writing practice. So the focus here is on vocabulary retention and thinking in English. My pro tip for this is to write aloud. Meaning, as you write or as you type, you are speaking aloud your thoughts. This is going to help you think more clearly because you actually hear what you say, and also it will help you structure your writing more effectively.
Number three: Listen 10 minutes in English each day.
Listen 10 minutes
Listening comprehension is also very important and we want to make sure that we're giving this skill some time to shine. So some ideas for listening materials are the following: Songs in English from your favorite artist or genre Podcasts in areas of interest or in your field of expertise or study Audiobooks I'm a huge fan of the Libby app which is a free library app and all you need is a library card. If you're in the Us, the radio, and if you're in a car, you might be able to turn the radio on or you can access some stations from your computer.
Focus is on connected speech, training your ear to porosity, stress patterns, and intonation, and also to learn new words and expressions. So for my pro tip, pause and imitate the pronunciation. It's a lot of fun and you might find yourself laughing afterwards, which is a good thing.
Number four: watch 10 minutes in English each day, So out of all of these, many of you might find it easiest to make time for working on this skill simply because video based learning is more and more accessible these days, right?
Watch 10 minutes
The point with watching is to increase your listening comprehension and also to improve your awareness of non-verbal communication, which is very important. that includes things like head movement, hand gestures, facial expressions, and overall body language that we use to communicate our points.
If you're watching without subtitles, you can give yourself that extra comprehension challenge if you're feeling up to it. Here are some examples of possible content: to watch Youtube videos to learn something new, or watch your favorite channel: watch a Ted talk without subtitles, watch half of an episode on your favorite streaming platform no subtitles, Watch a web course that you're following, Watch a free webinar that you've signed up for All right. So the focus with this is listed in comprehension learning, nonverbal communication like gestures, facial expressions, hand movements, and when they are used. And then my pro tip for this is to pause and imitate the non-verbals of the speaker and also to pause and do a comprehension check. So every few minutes or seconds, depending on your preference, you pause and then paraphrase or repeat in your own words, what was just discussed or the gist of the video. Whatever you're watching, try to do your own self-administered comprehension check. Number five, Speak 10 minutes in English each day.
Speak 10 minutes
Some of you might find this to be the most challenging habit to do because of nerves or because of limited access to real world communities. Well, the good news is is that the beauty of speaking practice is that you can literally practice anywhere in the world. And that's because we can tap into online communities and leverage our virtual communication platforms. Now there's no excuse because of what technology has made possible. So if you're not able to have in-person conversations that is okay, hop online and join a forum where you can have conversations in the comments or in the chat rooms. Or you can jump online for a Zoom or a Skype call, say, while doing a virtual book club meeting. The point is, you can practice your speaking skills in person or in the virtual world. All right. So some examples include making small talk with strangers at a cafe, waiting online, or at the library, chatting with a colleague from work, joining an online community. for example, if you're into fitness, let's say there are plenty of fitness communities around and you can strike up a conversation with people who also enjoy working on their fitness, joining a book club or any type of meetup based on your own interests, doing a Zoom or a Skype call with someone even a regular phone call would work, which is voice only.
There are so many options to check this one off the list, so definitely leverage both in-person communication as well as virtual communication. So the focus here is on verbal communication skills, communicative competence, and strategic competence. And my pro tip here is to use the new words that you've acquired, practicing newly acquired expressions, phrases, idioms, vocabulary, and testing out your grammar and syntax and also thinking in English. And it would also be a great opportunity to ask for corrective feedback.
Alright, there you have it. Five daily English habits to do every day. Doing these five things every day will increase your communication skills and your ability to hold conversations in English.
Now it might seem like a lot, but if you're only spending 10 minutes a day on each of the skills that I shared with you, then you're really looking at less than one hour of English practice a day, which is not really that much. Most workouts take longer than an hour, right? and most commutes to the office take more than one hour. If you want to set aside one hour and complete all the tasks in one, go roughly 50 minutes, then that's great, but if you prefer to space it out over the entire day and into the evening, that's also great. The best configuration is the one that works best for you and the one that you're going to actually do.
so. I want you to sit down with your calendar before the start of each week and take a look at your commitments, both personal and professional. Find time to squeeze in your daily English habits because it's going to make a huge difference in your personal and professional life in English, if it's a priority for you. Also, think about being as strategic as possible. For example, if you have a long commute then you might be able to get a bunch of the tasks done in transit. If you find that your afternoons are pretty slow, add some English practice to make things more lively and spice things up.
Set up a schedule and stick to it. That's the most important thing. 10 minutes for each task is not a lot, but over time practicing a little bit each day has big returns. The magic will start to unfold.
Once you're keeping consistent and actually creating these habits, hold yourself accountable and if needed, find an accountability partner. An accountability partner is someone who helps hold yourself accountable for the tasks at hand. This person can be a native speaker of English or a non-native speaker of English. It doesn't matter, the idea is for the two of you to consume the same content for 10 minutes and then discuss afterwards. And this can be done virtually or over a cup of coffee in real life. For example, let's say you found a podcast that you want to listen to and you think that they will also enjoy. Just send it along to them. Both of you will listen to it and you can discuss afterwards. So while this might take some additional time for planning and coordinating, it also might make it that extra bit of fun for you. So it's up to you. And more importantly, if you're finding it hard to hold yourself accountable and accountability Partner can really help.
Either way, Do these five things every day and I promise that you will notice a world of difference in your English speaking listening, writing, reading, and comprehension skills.
All right, Advanced English learners. Thank you so much for joining for this lesson. The full transcript of this lesson can be found on our blog, so be sure to check out Advancedenglish.com When do you plan on starting these daily English habits? How will you hold yourself accountable? Feel free to share that with us in the comments down below.
Alright, I will see you in the next one where we're going to continue advancing your English together. Until then, keep up the awesome work and I'll see you soon! [Music]
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