Today I will be discussing top tips and advice on how you can practise English at home without a tutor. There can be many benefits to learning English independently, such as building self-esteem, learning at your own pace and being flexible with your timings; study when you want and how you want. If you follow these tips below it is possible to make significant progress.
Top tips for success
Set Clear Learning Goals
In order to make the best start to any journey is to set a goal, what do you want to achieve? These goals can help keep you focused and motivated to continue learning in the hard moments. It is better to set a minimum of two targets, one long term and one short term. Examples of long term goals might be; improve speaking, expand vocabulary, master grammar, increase language level, etc. Examples of short term goals might be; speak to one native speaker each week, learn 3 new words each week, learn 1 grammar point per week. If your goals is to improve communication skills, you might do a mixture of these short term goals so each week is different. This can also keep your focus and motivation high.
Make sure your goals are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound). Make sure you have enough time to complete your goals each week and don't give yourself too much to do, this will have the opposite effect and learning English will become a chore and too much hard work to keep going. It is way more effective to do little and often than too much inconsistently. It is important if you are practising English without a tutor that you are able to keep yourself accountable and you show up to do your learning.
Create a Study Schedule
Creating a study schedule is important to ensure consistency in your learning. It is better to do regular practise than long infrequent sessions. Spending just 15minutes everyday practising can be enough to see progress in a couple of months. Another benefit to doing regular sessions is you will remember more, and before you know it you will be able to speak in short sentences, ask questions and listen for key words when communicating. This will therefore boost your confidence and keep your motivation high to continue with your learning schedule.
In order to become a master at communicating in English, it is important to divide and balance your time between the four skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking). Devoting time to each skill will ensure you are making progress to your overall communication skills rather than being dominant in one or two skills. I suggest that you divide your time daily between the four skills and keep the same topic. For example, the topic might be shopping. Throughout the week, use each day to practise learning new shopping vocabulary, listen to audios from shops or markets, read about deals in the local supermarket, ask someone for help at the shop or write a list for your next shop. Lots of materials can be found, especially online to read and listen to as well as common questions to ask in the shop. Focusing on one topic a week, and combining all four skills will help you to consolidate and remember more information.
Immerse Yourself in English
The best way to become familiar with any language is to immerse yourself within it. This can be done even if you are not living in an English-speaking country. Ensure you make English a part of your daily life, read English news articles, watch the news in English (if available), talk to yourself in English or change your language preferences on your phone or computer to English. Making these little changes can ensure you are surrounding yourself with English for a little part of your day without having to 'sit down and study'. Watching tv shows, films or YouTube videos can also help while you are relaxing, and using subtitles can help with reading and listening skills. Podcasts and audiobooks have become popular and common to do while commuting to and from work, or while cleaning the house or doing any kind of activity. Listening in English or listening to learn English podcasts specifically can help with listening skills and learning new words. Practising in this way can be beneficial and a fun way to engage with the language.
Use Language Learning Apps
Using apps such as Duolingo, Rosetta Stone or Babbel to learn English can be beneficial as you can study at your own pace, in your own time without a tutor being needed. Most apps nowadays are designed to be interactive, easily accessible, track progress and are specific to independent learners. There are also other apps designed for specific skills such as Quizlet which helps you to build your own repertoire of words and practise them at a time to suit you. Language apps can be fun to do with friends, competing against each other in quests or weekly challenges such as Duolingo.
Practice Speaking Regularly
In order to improve fluency, speaking regularly is essential. You can practise speaking by yourself, using a recording device or just at random times throughout the day. You could use some AI technology such as google assistant or Alexa who will talk back to you and have a conversation about your chosen topic choice. Another option is to connect with other people on apps such as HelloTalk where you can meet native people to further your language skills.
Improve Writing Skills
Participating in different writing activities daily can help improve English writing skills. Writing a daily journal in English can help to practise expression, you can write about anything and challenge yourself to write something more complex. Sites like Grammarly are designed to check your writing for any mistakes including grammar, spelling and punctuation. This can be very helpful to give your corrections or reassurance that your writing is correct. Another option is to participate in online forums, to encourage writing, in groups such as Reddit or social media platforms.
Expand Your Vocabulary
A way to expand your vocabulary is to read, read and read some more! Read everything like fiction, non-fiction, newspapers (online new articles), magazines etc. There are so many benefits to reading like learning grammar points, spelling, speaking skills and develop pronunciation, but you can learn a vast amount of vocabulary from reading. If you don't know a word, write it down in a notebook, then look it up or translate it, then write a meaning and a sentence next to the word. Try to aim to learn around 10 new words a week and practise them daily. Review your words regularly so you don't forget them, Quizlet is great for this. Other ideas include using word games such as scrabble, Words with Friends or crosswords. These can help you to increase your range of words and practise words you already know.
Practice Listening Skills
There are many ways you can practise listening skills without the use of a tutor. The best way is to immerse yourself into English content via podcasts, YouTube, news or films. Listening to these types of materials can help you to become familiar with context, vocabulary, grammar, use of more natural language and also different accents. When listening/watching films, use subtitles to begin with and gradually transition to no subtitles the more you become familiar and confident. Subtitles are a fantastic way to understand pronunciation, grammar and learn new vocabulary. If you need to, you can rewind and repeatedly watch a scene to understand it more. If you are a beginner, try watching short videos or parts of films first and gradually increase the timing, this will help to not overwhelm you and give you a better chance at understanding the context and gradually improve your skills. Another way to practise listening is to use a dictation method. Listen to a short piece of audio and then try writing down what you hear. Try to use audio where there is a transcript, or choose a short section of a podcast which you can read or show the subtitles afterwards. This is great practise for your comprehension skills.
Test Yourself Regularly
To make sure you are making progress, increasing confidence and keeping motivation high testing yourself through different methods can be a good tool to use. You can use online placement tests which test your different skills under the language levels, this is a good way to monitor your overall language progress. Using online quizzes such as FluentU or BBC Learning English can also give a good idea to your progress. You can also monitor your progress through conversations and how you feel during it compared to the last time you spoke, for example, do you feel more confident, do you hesitate less, can you keep the flow of the conversation better than last time, can you feel yourself producing sentences quicker? These can be good indicators to the amount of your progression also. Another idea is to track the progress of your individual skills, we all have stronger and weaker skills and keeping track of them individually can be a good tool in order to understand the areas where you can improve. This can relate to the skills you find easier to learn or to the amount you use that particular skill, for example, you may have more conversations than your need to write, so naturally your speaking skills may be a little stronger than writing skills. Tracking your improvements this way can be ideal if you would like all skills to be as string as each other for an all-round good level of language. Although, it is a good idea to test yourself regularly, testing too much can not show any progress at all, you want to aim to test yourself every 3-5 months as this will give you a better indicator of your improvements than if you test yourself each week.
Stay Motivated and Consistent
Staying motivated and consistent when doing something by yourself can be a challenge. Learning English without a tutor to keep you accountable and on track with your progression can be tricky sometimes so it is important to reward any progress and celebrate the small victories. Set yourself small targets to achieve weekly or bi-weekly and then reward yourself with something small when you can tick it off. This can help keep your motivation high to continue learning more. Set yourself weekly or monthly challenges, such as, learn a new word everyday or speak for 5 minutes in English. If you are able to pass this challenge, reward yourself. You can also join online communities, you can share your journey with others and fellow learners can offer their support and advice and vice versa. This can be a way of meeting new people and using your new language to communicate with others. Fellow learners can keep you accountable, motivated and consistent on your learning journey.
To conclude, it is possible to learn a new language by yourself if you are dedicated and consistent. As mentioned above there are a variety of ways to learn a language with the use of free resources and materials found online. However, there are also many benefits to having a tutor by your side to guide you in the right direction and give more specific advice and more natural content for you that is unavailable online. Whichever way you choose to learn a language, the skills you learn and improve on your journey will give you more opportunities either in your career or personal life. Good luck!
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