Hey everyone, I'm Oliver and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
Today we will be talking about habits and English language learning.
So recently i have been listening to a great book called atomic habits and it has inspired me.
So it has motivated me to make this episode of the podcast about habits, because i think there are a lot of useful points and things in this book, um to apply to learning a language, to apply to learning english.
So i would recommend to read this book atomic habits um, in your own language, or even in english, if you can um, and it will benefit you.
So in my own experience, with both just education in general and language learning, habits are the most important factor, so the most important part to learning a language.
If you don't have routine and you don't practice every day, you won't improve.
And that is a fact.
Well, it doesn't have to be every day.
It just has to be consistent.
Even if you practiced once per week, every week, you will improve your English.
But the key part is being consistent.
So continuing to do that every day or every week.
And that is what will help you improve.
I made a separate episode a while ago about motivation and language learning.
And this relates very closely to habits because routine and habits are better than motivation.
But of course, we need to build these routines and these habits And how can we do it?
So the book Atomic Habits suggests a lot of very useful techniques.
And today I'm not going to share all of the points from the book, but I'm going to give you a few examples, very specific examples, about things that you can do to build a good English habit, an English learning habit.
Let's start with reading.
So I think it's very useful to read something in English every day.
And I recommend it to all students.
And one of the best ways to do this is by applying the habit of reading in English to a habit that you already have.
So let's say, for example, you read the news every day.
So you check the news in your own native language.
So, since you do this already, make a new habit, which is before, you read the news in your own language, so in your native language you will read one article, so one news page in english and then you can continue to read in your own language.
It doesn't have to be a long um, a long news article, it doesn't have to be two pages or 17 paragraphs, it can be just a short part in english And this builds the routine of reading a little bit in English every day, and that's a great way to create this habit of reading in English.
This idea of the book is to take a new habit that you want and to attach it to a habit that you already do.
Another example could be, let me see, with writing.
So let's say every day you make a to-do list.
So now you could not only make this to-do list, so a list of things you have to do, but try to make it in English.
So you already have the habit of making the list, but now you do it in English.
The same with a shopping list, for example.
So another great, fantastic point in this book for language learning is I think he calls it the two minute rule.
So it's perfect for stopping procrastination.
So when you don't want to do something.
So set yourself small targets every day with language learning.
Don't say, for example, i want to learn a hundred new words every day.
Instead, set a very, very small, achievable goal like, for example, i want to learn one new english word per day.
And this is so easy to do you can sit and learn your one english word per day And the chances are that once you start, you will learn much more than one per day.
But having that low target or that easy to achieve goal makes it so much easier to start learning.
So to start the habit and to actually do it.
This can be the same with reading.
For example, set the target of I want to read one page in English every day.
Just one page.
And you can build that habit from starting with one page, something that's easy and quick to do.
The idea is that once you get started, you will probably do more than that small target and if you don't, it will continue to create that routine and that habit for you.
The big mistake that people do whenever they want to improve their English learning is they try to do too much at once.
I see it time and time again where a student sets a target that they want to, for example, learn a thousand new words, or they want to learn I don't know like even 50 words per day.
They want to read one book per week.
And they try to do this very big and maybe unrealistic target for their routine and their schedule.
And they fail.
They might do it for one or two days or more, but eventually it will be too much and they fail.
And then they think, oh no, I haven't achieved this target.
I'm terrible at English learning or I'm terrible at reading or learning new words.
And it demotivates them.
And that's why we need to set healthy, small habits and targets with our language learning.
Even if we improve just 1% in our language ability every month, that's 12% in a year.
And you're likely to do much, much more than that.
But it's having that continuous trend of improving upwards and doing it every day.
Another good point is that if you miss your habit, so one day you miss your habit, so learning new words or doing your reading, your one-page English reading every day don't be upset or annoyed, but recognize that you've missed it and just restart again the next day and continue.
Don't try to do two pages of reading the next day instead of the one.
Don't try to make it up.
Just continue the habit as quickly as you can.
The longer we leave gaps, so the more days we miss, and the longer it continues that habit or routine will disappear.
It will be destroyed and it will be replaced with something else.
So to summarize, try to build healthy, realistic English learning habits.
Set small achievable targets.
For example, read one page per day or learn one English word per day.
Be consistent.
If you miss a day, don't stress out, but try not to miss any more.
And try to link the habit of learning to another habit that you already have.
In doing this, you will continue to improve your English, little by little.
Some days you will do more than others, but you will always have that small target that you can achieve every day.
So, even on a busy day when it feels like you can't do more, you still will have done a little bit, which is better than nothing.
Thank you for listening.
I hope this was helpful and I hope you have an amazing day.
Goodbye.
