How To Learn English By Myself?

In my over 15 years of English language instruction, I’ve met a total of three people who had very proficient speaking and listening abilities without a single minute spent in a classroom or paying for online learning/tutoring. I was curious as to what their secret was in going from a complete beginner to become an independent-to-proficient user in English.

What motivated them? How did they sustain the energy to keep pushing forward in their learning? What was their strategy and plan for achieving their personal goals in the language?

Their responses were all different, and provided no one-size-fits all solution. However, there was ONE thing they all had in common. They each found some way to enjoy learning the language and sought out their own resources and help throughout different stages of their learning path.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to find out each person’s motivation aligned with their personalized interests, learning style or life goals. Customization is something we’ve emphasized at Vine Education since the beginning.

All three of those people I met had incredible passion and were driven to achieve. But how about the rest of us, who aren’t always so inclined? Not all of us get struck by inspiration, and not all of us have the endurance to keep it going for years.

There’s no big secret. Much like any new habit, it takes some time to develop until it becomes part of your daily routine. I’d like to share my take on how to develop one of those little routines that may help you on your language journey.

In my opinion, self-learning can really only help two areas of language: Listening & Reading. If you’re looking to improve Speaking or Writing, these skills I believe you’ll need the help of others. Whether it be a colleague, teacher, coach, friend, study group, etc., you need the feedback and correction to really make any real progress in those skills. But for now, I want to share how to self-improve your listening abilities.

For anyone who’s taken English lessons, be it in a classroom with a group of others or
1-on-1 with a private tutor, this may sound familiar:

• The teacher introduces an article/video/audio clip. They ask you to listen to it without much background, context given, or preparation.

• They stop occasionally after a few minutes of the audio to ask some comprehension questions, expecting you to know the answer after one listen.

• If you didn’t understand or know the answer, the teacher would explain, describe, give examples, or translate a word for you.

• You get it, and then move on to the next part of the video/audio. This continues until the end.

• You finished the entire video/audio, you generally understand the main points or ideas in it, and you probably feel pretty good about yourself.

• Now, ask yourself. Do you remember any of the new language you learned using that video/audio 2 weeks or more later? Most likely, it’s long been forgotten.

• While you understood it at the moment, you can’t remember it weeks later, and you definitely wouldn’t be able to use it when speaking to someone.

In my opinion, it is a mistake when teachers practice listening with their students by playing a video or audio, and explaining new language as they go along. What should be done first is having the new language introduced and practiced often, consistently, with a variety of activities, and in different contexts before students even begin hearing a single thing from the audio. However, I understand that is hard to do without having your own private tutor/teacher who can interact with you.

So here is my 5 step process of improving listening, but retaining new language, all on your own:

1) Listen to the audio/video/clip one way through. Afterwards, rate your comprehension from 0%-to-100%. How much of it did you understand? Most likely, it’ll be in the 25-40% range. If you feel it was more 0-5%, then you probably chose something too difficult or too long. I’d recommend starting with something 3 minutes or less to start with, and gradually increase the time of your video/audio/clips the higher your comprehension gets.

2) Go through the Transcript of the video/audio. It’s important to find resources that provide a transcript (a word-for-word of the audio in written form) and print it out. I suggest sites like npr.org or ted.com. Both resources provide transcribed versions of their audio news stories. As you’re reading, highlight any new words, phrases, or sentences you don’t understand and put it into a list. Then check the online dictionary, thesaurus, Google, or ask someone to find out what they mean. Obviously, this part will take more time. You’re not reading the transcript yet, but rather skimming it and picking out new language you don’t know.

3) Read the transcript out loud. Now that you understand the meaning of the words based on your own research and checking, focus on your pronunciation, reading flow, intonation.

4) Play the audio/video while following the transcript. Listen with your ears, read and follow each word with your eyes.

5) Play the audio/video one more time, but with no transcript. Just like the first time, give it a listen without any of the references. Rate yourself again (0-100%) on how much you understand it. It should be higher based purely on repetition. By now, you’ve gone through the Listening video/audio at least 5 times. But each time, you did something slightly different with the topic/material.

Steps 3 & 4 are interchangeable and you could switch them if you want. It’s important to understand the meaning of the words and how they could be applied in the context of the actual story/article, but also in your life. The repetition, increased comprehension of the topic and associated new language will hopefully help you increase confidence in listening. Confidence is important in feeling you’re making progress, which will help push you to keep pursuing more challenging and difficult content, material, and language.

Give this 5-step process a try and let me know how it goes. For some, I know this may seem tedious. But I’ve introduced this process to many of my regular students as homework to do on their own. They’ve all experienced fast development in their English listening. They’ve slowly built this into daily and weekly routines, and are picking topics they enjoy, which makes learning the language a lot more fun and sustainable in the long-term.