English Learning Tips

English Learning Tips

There is so much advice out there on how to learn English, it can sometimes get a little overwhelming. In my experience as an ESL teacher, the following are my top 3 English learning tips that I’ve found to be most effective in my students’ progress:

1. Complete Immersion: The most important tip I can give when learning English is to accept & fully commit to the learning process. While in Canada, try to surround yourself with as much English as possible. The best way to learn is via complete immersion & speaking as often as possible. It doesn’t really matter if you make mistakes, this is how corrections are made and how learning occurs.

2. Asking for Help: The pathway to learning English is paved with making mistakes…. lots & lots of mistakes! It is nothing to be ashamed of and if anything, making mistakes is necessary. We are much better learners when we can see our errors and concretely rectify them. Keeping that in mind, I strongly encourage you to seek out help from others. Don’t be shy to ask your teachers for clarifications on different grammar points, or your homestay parent to explain what certain words mean, or ask friends to repeat or speak slower.  Understanding why & how we use the language in different ways is a great advantage to have when learning English.

3. Slow & Steady: Quite often students come up to me asking when they can take up Move Up test. There seems to be this unspoken misconception about the idea of moving up as quickly as possible being synonymous with it improving your English. More often than not, this simply isn’t the case. Everyone learns at a different pace & in different ways.  Our ESL classes are designed with your best interest in mind. We want to see you succeed with optimal results and so by completing the required amount of time in one level will only maximize your English progress. Concentrate on the level you are currently in and you will quickly see that more & more gaps in your English learning are being mended.

Katie Lemay