I am not an English teacher. But while I have been living in Japan a lot of people have asked me if I can teach them English.
I always say ‘yes’ because I am happy to help people who want to learn something, but to be honest, I don’t know what to do to help them learn. Unless they ask me a question there is not really much I can do.
I may not actually be an English teacher but I have studied three different languages - French, German and Japanese, so I know a little bit about learning languages.
It might sound obvious, but to become skilled at using a foreign language you have to practice speaking, reading, writing and listening in that language. These are the core-four skills you will need to be fluent.
Some people are more interested in one particular thing, like being able to read English, or being able to talk in English to their foreign friends, and that is no problem at all, but I still think you should try to practice all four skills because each skill helps you with the other skill.
For example, when you are practicing your reading you will learn new words and phrases that will help you with your speaking. Also, the biggest benefit of practicing all four skills is that it makes your study time more interesting. If you only do one thing again and again you will soon lose interest and then the risk that you stop studying all together is very high.
And that brings us to what is, in my opinion, the most important thing for learning a language - persistence.
It takes time to study a language and there is no way to get around that fact and there really are no short cuts.
When I study Japanese I find that the best way to keep going and constantly improve my skills is to do just a tiny bit of study every single day - just five minutes on the train on the way to work in the morning. It is easy to do everyday because I only study a little bit so it doesn’t feel like hard work and because I study every day it has become a part of my lifestyle, it has become my new habit and it has become easy to continue. Also I get a great feeling of satisfaction from doing this because it feels like I am always learning and always progressing.
So my advice for you is to do a small bit of study every morning on the train to work. If you don’t take the train then study while you eat breakfast, if you don’t have time to do that then study while you are on the toilet! Any time you can fit a regular five or ten minutes study into your day will be fine. The key is to do it everyday at the same time so your body makes it into a habit.
