Practice English Outside Lessons

If you’re taking TOEFL or IELTS lessons with a teacher, then you'll know that you're making a big financial  commitment as well as investing a lot of your time. This is good. It means you're serious about achieving your goals!

However, if you want to succeed, then you MUST practice English outside lessons. There is only so much that a language tutor can cover with you in 60 minutes (or even 45 minutes - some tutors opt for shorter lessons) and your teacher will expect you to be doing extra practice on your own.

However busy you are, you can’t expect to do a few 1 hour lessons, do nothing else, then achieve your goals. Becoming fluent in any language doesn’t work like that. 

When I say “practice outside lessons”, I don’t mean just do your homework or a few practice questions. I mean practice the language skills that your teacher will have focused on in preparing your lesson for you. 

And then do something extra. Immerse yourself in English for a short time each day, because that’s how you’re going to succeed.

Here are some ideas:

🔵 Review the recording of your lesson. Reviewing is incredibly important for learning as it helps you to reinforce the concepts from your lesson. So always do this first.

🔵 Practice some of the concepts that you covered in your lesson. Repeat them many times. Look up anything that you didn't quite understand.

🔵 Repeat the practice questions from your lesson - if you did any. Remember, repetition leads to reinforcement.

🔵 Then follow your teacher’s instructions for homework very carefully. There will be a reason why they’ve recommended certain skills to practice.

🔵 Then do your own self-study. This will depend on what you’re focusing on with your teacher but it could involve: 

➡️ reading about anything you're interested in
➡️ listening to podcasts, interviews or TED Talks
➡️ watching movies or short videos
➡️ speaking out loud more in your everyday life
➡️ repeating old practice questions and doing them better

This extra practice will help you to build your fluency much more quickly than just turning up for lessons. And then you'll be successful in your exams sooner.