A routine for learning English

Do you sometimes find it difficult to motivate yourself to sit down and study English? If you’re anything like me, you probably have days when you don’t feel like it or you might even get out of the habit altogether. I know how you feel and you are not alone!​

I want to learn French and Spanish but I often struggle with motivation. Sometimes I do a little every day and then I forget and suddenly I realise haven’t done any for weeks. In fact, I have the same problem in other areas of my life too, like going to the supermarket, doing the ironing or cleaning the house!

The number one thing I’ve found that works for me is routine. I used to always put the shopping and cleaning off and say “I’ll do it tomorrow”. My Mum often says to me, “Tomorrow never comes!” She’s absolutely right! I now do the shopping every Wednesday and clean the house every Saturday. This way, I get it done and it’s no longer an enormous effort to force myself to do it! I no longer think, “Do I really need to go to the supermarket today? Could it wait until tomorrow?” I think, “I’m going shopping because it’s Wednesday,” and I just go!

The same thing works for language learning. If you can get into the routine of studying or practising English on a regular basis, it then becomes a habit that’s easier to continue. You don’t have to force yourself to do it anymore and you don’t get to the end of the day and realise you’ve forgotten to do it again.
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Here are a few things to try to help you create a routine that works:

• Start small. Even if you just do ten minutes of English a day, that’s better than nothing.
• Pick a suitable time and sit down to do some English at the same time every day. Then it becomes a habit.
• Join a class or find a private teacher. It might be easier to keep the habit going if there are other people involved and deadlines to meet.
• Make it fun. If you enjoy it, it’s easier to stick to the routine. So try reading a story or watching a video sometimes. Do your homework while you’re enjoying your coffee.

So, if you are aware that you are not spending as much time on your English as you want or need to, try to make it part of your daily routine and see if that helps.

​You might also like this post on motivation.

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