Every English language learner has heard these words at least once (or more!) in their learning journey, “Practice, practice & more practice!”.
But what does it really mean? And more importantly, what should you include in your practice?
Practice can be divided into 2 big categories:
Now, let’s look at both categories in more detail.
When we learn something new, we need to review it and understand it in more detail. Let’s say for example you learnt Present Perfect today in the class.
Now, you need to explore this concept in more detail by researching more about it, doing some exercises to test your understanding and looking at various possibilities to use this concept.
This is one kind of practice that you can do to reinforce something you already learnt in the classroom. If you don’t do it, there is a strong possibility that you might forget about it.
This is an important one. Imagine reading a book about flying an airplane. You can know everything about flying an airplane by taking classes (theoretically speaking) from an experienced pilot teacher.
You can even do everything mentioned in the previous category. Revise/review what you learnt in the classroom to reinforce your knowledge about flying an airplane.
Now, are you confident that you are able to fly an actual airplane? I think we know the answer to that question. It is - NO!
The only way to be confident in a skill (English in this case) is by consistently APPLYING the concepts you are learning in real life situations.
I can already hear you asking the next question. Teacher, what are real life situations? This means finding opportunities to speak with others in meetups, voice chats, discussion clubs, etc. This means finding time to talk to other students on our Telegram groups (writing practice). This means Tweeting about something in English. And lastly, giving and receiving feedback in our English community by participating in Platzi English Forums.
So remember, whenever you are “practicing”, you need to be consciously applying everything that you are learning in classroom and during your revision after class.
This will give you enough confidence to take your skills to the next level. By doing this, you will also be using your time more effectively.
So now, you know exactly what it means by - “Practice, practice and more practice!”.
Never stop Learning.
Nunca pares de aprender.
Ravee.
I’m totally agree but sometimes is very difficult to find real life situations in which apply the new knowledge. I my experience, is very useful to establish imaginary situations and to think the better way to answer in english, something like an imaginary puzle that prepare me for the real life situations.
Yup, sometimes I create a monologue to practice some situations
Excellent point! Check out the links in the blog to practice with other students in our amazing community. (meetups/voicechats).
Un tip extra para aplicar el segundo consejo, es rodearte de personas que estén aprendiendo lo mismo que tu, o que ya tengan experiencia y quieran ayudarte, eso es un plus para poder aplicarlo con más entusiasmo
My tip is to try to incorporate new words in your usual conversations in order to expand your vocabulary.
other one:
Find a funny MMORPG, enter into an English guild and have fun.
That is so helpful
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thanks…one app what i´ve been using is tandem and is a nice way to talk with natives
I usually practice speaking with my cat, it helps, but I’d like to have a feedback.
Thanks for these tips, great examples for every language speakers
Thanks for your encouragement and advice, never stop learning, it isn’t only the Platzi . com slogan but it gave me a new opportunity to learn technology and delve into topics that I didn’t think about !!
Excellent. I think real situations help us to be more confident and also, to improve our vocabulary. When you are in real situations, you can put in practice all the thing you know and also, I could note you know more than you believe it.