It is great if you are studying English, but without effective ESL studying techniques, learning and improving your English language skills might not mean much. Read on to find out how you can use effective study techniques to help you improve your English faster.

1. Study Daily

You probably already know that you need to study English every day. Even studying ESL for as little as 30 minutes a day, every day, is better only 2 hours a week. Need help making a learning schedule?

2. Study a Little of Everything

Unless you really need to focus on grammar or listening skills for the day, incorporate a little listening, grammar, vocabulary, writing, and reading into your daily ESL study plan.

3. Review

Focus on one grammar goal, for example, as you read an article or listen to a TV show in English. You can write down each example you hear where the present continuous tense is used and review these examples as you continue with your studies.

4. Take Advantage of Different Learning Methods

It isn’t wise to stick to just one way of studying English; rather take advantage of multiple intelligences studying methods that will reinforce what you are learning. For example, if you are learning new vocab, make a list, draw and describe a picture, and create a word map.

5. Choose Interesting Topics

Studying topics that you like and are passionate about can only help your overall progress. This is great for motivation.

6. Look For Some Friends

If you have some friends that are also studying English, then great. If you don’t, it is definitely time that you find some because you can do exercises together, practice your English conversational skills, and so forth. If there aren’t any people studying English near where you live, you can easily find an ESL study buddy online.

7. Do Warm-Up Activities

Before you start your exercise routine or play a game of soccer, you do some warm-up activities. Similarly, before you start your daily lesson of English, you can do some exercises to warm-up and get your brain thinking in English. For example, if you are studying vocab, use 2-3 minutes to think about the topic. If the topic is sports, think about what sport you like, what sports are popular in your country, and what you need to play some sports (i.e., a ball, gloves, helmet, etc.).

What other effective ESL studying methods help you in learning, improving, and practising English?

Want more learning tips? Visit our Learning Tips blog. Or if you’re an educator check out our Teaching Tips blog.

About the Author

Denine Walters is currently a freelance writer, editor/proofreader and ESL teacher. Previously, she taught online English lessons to students from all around the world and, before that, she lived and taught English to young lear ners in Taiwan. In her free time, she likes to read, do scrapbooking and grammar quizzes, and travel.