… But this is why it seems difficult!
If you’re listening to the Thinking in English podcast, you’re serious about improving your English. You’ve probably heard stories of other people (maybe members of this community) making quick progress and want the same results. But why does it seem so difficult for you?
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If you’re listening to the Thinking in English podcast, you’re serious about improving your English. You’ve probably heard stories of other people (maybe members of this community) making quick progress and want the same results.
But why does it seem so difficult for you?
The truth is, improving your English is easy—but it feels difficult because you need to be very organised. Without the right guidance, it’s easy to waste time on less effective methods.
In this blog post, I’ll share 5 tips to help you improve your English fast. I’ll also explain why these tips might seem challenging without the right support.
After reading, you might feel ready to create your own study plan, But if you’d rather focus on studying and leave the planning to a professional teacher, our Level Boost Courses are designed to help you improve as fast as possible… and make it easy!
You can book your place now at thinkinginenglish.link. There’s a 10% discount for all Thinking In English Listeners and an extra 10% off for all Thinking in English Patreon subscribers.
Go to thinkinginenglish.link to find out more and book before Monday 16th September!
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1. Building Your Speaking Confidence
Why It’s Important:
To improve your English quickly, you need to build confidence in speaking. This is sometimes even more important than expanding your vocabulary or mastering grammar.
Regular speaking practice gives you a unique skill, you learn how to use the language you already know to express yourself. This will improve your fluency at any level.
Why It Seems Hard:
For independent learners, building speaking confidence can be challenging. During real conversations people often find that their nerves cause them to forget what they know and conversations can be frustrating and unproductive.
I used to say “I can have a conversation in my target language, the only problem is it’s not a lot of fun for the person I’m talking to!”
It’s difficult to find patient, understanding conversation partners on your own, especially if you don’t live in an English-speaking country. And practising with the wrong people can lead to discouragement and slower progress.
Our Solutions:
Thinking in English offers several ways to help!
- Patreon members can join five conversation clubs each week, making conversation part of your routine.
- The Level Boost Courses always focus on speaking so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to speak in all the weekly classes.
A combination of practising with other learners at a similar level and experienced teachers creates a supportive environment with less pressure where you can build your speaking confidence.
2. Learning New Material
Why It’s Important:
To make fast progress in English, you’ve got to regularly learn new material. To become more fluent you’ve got to keep challenging yourself with new vocabulary and grammar.
Native speakers use advanced language to express complex ideas, so to have meaningful conversations and engage in interesting topics, you need to go beyond intermediate-level language.
Why It Seems Hard:
For independent learners, finding new material is tricky. It requires significant effort and research to discover aspects of the language that you don’t know yet.
Often, you may not even realise what you’re missing, have you ever noticed that it’s only after you learn something new that you suddenly realise how often it is used?!
If you don’t study new language regularly this can lead to stagnation and limit your ability to participate in more engaging conversations.
Our Solutions:
Thinking in English can help overcome this challenge.
The podcasts and conversation clubs introduce new vocabulary each week.
Additionally, our Level Boost Courses cover new language material (including vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation) every week. And of course, it’s tailored to your level. Our structure ensures you’re always learning relevant and challenging content.
3. Remembering What You Learn
Why It’s Important:
Learning new material is pointless if you can’t remember it!
Retaining new vocabulary and grammar is essential for making real progress in English. After hearing a word for the first time, you normally forget it within minutes. A bit like the way I always fail to remember people’s names at a party!
Why It Seems Hard:
This too is tough for independent learners. You need to be highly organised to keep track of new words, phrases, and grammar rules.
Not only should you record them, but you also need to revise and repeat them regularly. Without a structured system, it’s easy to forget what you’ve learned. I remember when I was first living in Italy, I probably heard 20-30 new words every day… The problem, I only ever remembered 1 or 2 of them!!
Our Solutions:
In our Level Boost Courses, we ensure that all new material is reviewed weekly through both speaking and writing activities, and revisited at the end of the course.
We also provide an awesome vocabulary glossary where you can track all the words from the course and add any new ones you come across on your own.
Additionally, our conversation clubs are an excellent way to reinforce vocabulary. Each week, we discuss topics related to recent podcast episodes, allowing you to practise using the language you heard in the podcast.
4. Identifying Your Errors
Why It’s Important:
One of the main ways we improve is by minimising our errors. Unfortunately, if we do not regularly notice and try to correct our errors, they can very easily become habits.
Identifying and understanding your mistakes helps expand your knowledge and refine your skills. When you notice an error, it often highlights gaps in your understanding. This can lead to a conversation with your teacher who will explain it personally for you.
In my experience as a teacher, these are often the most valuable learning experiences.
Why It Seems Hard:
It’s hard to spot and correct your own errors without a teacher, you need to find someone else to help you.
Without regular feedback, it’s easy to overlook your own mistakes. Even frequent conversations with native speakers don’t offer the same detailed correction, as it’s impractical for them to point out every small error.
Additionally, native speakers will probably often avoid correcting you to be polite, leaving you without crucial feedback.
Our Solutions:
Our Level Boost Courses are designed to be personal and supportive. We provide individual feedback on speaking mistakes in every class and give precise corrections and suggestions for improvement on your weekly written work.
The amazing thing about Thinking in English Classes is that we are still a relatively small and personal community and we have individual relationships with all our students.
5. Consistency
Why It’s Important:
Consistency is the most important factor for improving your English quickly.
To make fast progress, you need to practise regularly. Learning a language takes time, and practising a little bit every day is far more effective than studying for long periods just occasionally.
Over time you will always accumulate more study time this way anyway! What’s more frequent, short practice sessions help you remember what you learn better.
Why It Seems Hard:
Maintaining consistency is a challenge for everyone. Without a set routine, you might only study when you feel motivated, which means you’ll practise less often.
Of course, some independent learners do an excellent job of staying consistent, but it requires being extremely organised and disciplined. Without proper planning and support, it’s easy to fall off track.
If organisation and self discipline requires a lot of energy for you, joining a course will probably make a big difference!
Our Solutions:
Thinking in English, makes it easier to stay consistent.
Our conversation clubs meet five times a week, every week! Being part of these clubs helps you stay motivated, as you interact with other learners and build a sense of community. Many of our members have become friends and some have even met in real life!
Our Level Boost Courses offer a detailed weekly routine, it’s not just one lesson per week!
You get self-study materials to use before and after each class. Every week we encourage you to study new material and complete reading grammar and vocabulary exercises before the class and then, after the lesson, practise writing about the topic we have discussed.
Our small (2-6 students) classes encourage a supportive environment where classmates get to know each other because they chat together every week.
This sense of community makes studying more enjoyable because students motivate each other and share their learning experiences.
Conclusion
So, it’s not hard to improve quickly!
But you have to do a little bit of planning because you will need to do a few things at the same time. If you’re going to be CONSISTENT, it’s necessary to have a very good study routine!
If you’re up to the challenge, this article contains everything you need to start making an amazing plan to improve your English fast, even if you don’t want to pay for English lessons.
Good luck and I wish you all the best, and feel free to send me an email if you have any questions!
Joining our Patreon and our conversation clubs will be a fantastic way to add to your learning routine!
If you think you’d rather do less planning and save your energy for the studying, you might consider joining one of our courses.
We think our Level Boost Courses are the best (and easiest!) way to improve your English fast. We will ensure that you follow all 5 of these tips every week!
Go to thinkinginenglish.link to find out more and book before Monday 16th September!
Enter coupon code at checkout:
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Extended Vocabulary List
Progress – Improvement or development in a certain area.
Stagnation – A state of no progress or movement.
Reinforce – To strengthen or support something.
To Retain – To remember or keep information.
Engage – To participate or become involved in something.
Feedback – Information about reactions to a product, a person’s performance, etc.
Consistency – The quality of always behaving in the same way or of having the same standards.
Routine – A regular way of doing things.
Supportive – Providing encouragement or emotional help.
Effective – Successful in producing a desired or intended result.
Vocabulary Games and Activities!
Learn and practice vocabulary from this Thinking in English episode. Practice using 5 different study games and activities – including writing, listening, and memorisation techniques!
Flashcards
Matching Game
Learning Game
Test Yourself
Listening and Spelling
