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Study Strategy

What you need

  1. Two large (letter/A4 size) notebooks

  2. Different colour pens

  3. The internet

  4. Two hours per week, ongoing

A2 - B1 Students

  1. Listening/Reading: https://www.eslfast.com/begin1/ (3-5 a week)

    • Read and listen at the same time to each chapter

    • Write down all new vocabulary with translations
       

  2. Listening: https://www.youtube.com/@peppapigsubtitled8981

    • Watch in 25-minute sessions, English subtitles on

    • Write down 10 or more new words and phrases every session
       

  3. Reading: Buy a few children’s books (on paper, not screen), for 6-10 year olds

    • Read in 25-minute sessions, underline new and interesting words and phrases

    • After 25 minutes, write down the underlined words and phrases in your notebook and add translations, always with your hand.

    • Repeat 3-4 times a week

The YouTube channel above is just an example. Peppa Pig is good because they speak slowly and clearly in normal day-to-day English, with lots of the phrasal verbs we use every day.

 

However, you can watch and listen to anything! Find a YouTube channel, or series/documentary on Netflix, Disney+, Prime, HBO, etc. Remember, turn on English subtitles. English!

B1+ Students

As you get to around B2, you will already have a good base in grammar and vocabulary. From here, it is really super important to practise with ‘real-world’ resources. Now, you can replace the children’s books with adult self-development, biographies, and autobiographies. Be careful with fiction, because the vocabulary will be very high level and not day-to-day.

 

This is why we recommend non-fiction. Buy a few books and choose a few documentaries and TV shows (movies/films tend to have less dialogue, but please feel free to watch them as well), and follow the technique below:

Technique (all students)

 

  1. For your listening;

    • English audio and English subtitles. Watch 25 minutes at a time, with focused attention, and write down 10 or more new or interesting words and phrases in your notebook, with your hand*

    • After 25 minutes, get a dictionary and write down translations next to the English words and phrases

    • Repeat 3-4 times a week
       

  2. For your reading;

    • Read for 25 minutes at a time, with focused attention, and underline 10 or more new or interesting words and phrases in your notebook, with your hand*

    • After 25 minutes, get a dictionary and write down translations next to the English words and phrases

    • Repeat 3-4 times a week
       

  3. Once a week, review your notebooks (which are now becoming your personal English dictionaries, written by you). You can take some time to write sentences with the words and phrases if you want, but the most important thing is to say out loud (or whispering) each word and phrase. This is to integrate another level of kinaesthetic learning into the process. If you are unsure of the pronunciation, use an online tool, e.g. ‘ (word) pronunciation’ in Google.

If you do the above, week after week, you will be adding 100+ words to your notebook-dictionaries every week, or about 5000 words a year, all within real-world contexts. This is how you build vocabulary and grammar whilst practising your reading, writing, and listening skills.

*Handwriting to fire up your memory

 

The kinaesthetic learning link above in (3) talks a little bit about the physical part of the VAK learning model (visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic learners). In order to learn most effectively, we need to involve all three as much as possible. We need to see, we need to hear, and we need to move. This is the most effective way of activating all of our memory capabilities.

 

In language learning, the two most effective ways of engaging your kinaesthetic memory are:

 

  1. Speaking, reading aloud (with your voice), or reading in a whisper, so that your mouth and tongue are engaged, even if your voice isn’t;

  2. Writing notes with your hand to activate muscle memory. This is much more effective than using touchscreens.

 

Study shows stronger brain activity after writing on paper than on tablet or smartphone

Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning

Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning

​

Now, on to the speaking!

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