- This article is about an unconventional but effective method.
PART I. Enlightenment
🔻Reality
I’m a senior student. Besides, I have a part-time job. Since it’s a start-up, it takes up a massive amount of my free time. Previously, I studied English for my university entrance exam, but since then, I have never had a moment to study English seriously. As you all know, a foreign language just needs to be left untouched for half a year, it’s lost a lot, let alone 3 years. I could feel my English getting worse every day, but only when I took the 1st test at the end of last year and got very poor results (it’s not convenient to give detailed grades because it’s really pathetic) Only then did I realize how much I had neglected myself.
🔻Problem:
Having determination is not enough, I was slapped in the face by reality.
If when I was in high school, I could sit and look at a page of new words for hours and memorize the hardest way, now I can’t learn the same way anymore. I made a to-do list to do the test, but every day when I get home from work, I’m tired and I skip to study that day. While doing my homework, it’s also very easy to lose focus, as long as I have a message from a customer, I will jump to another job for an hour. After that, I’ll watch cat videos for another hour and that’s it, it’s time to go to bed. There was a period when I also tried to do the test continuously, but the score kept stagnating, making me discouraged. Up to now, I have not finished a full Cambridge book.
Solution: I have to make learning accessible, natural and relevant to my work/hobbies so that there is no reason to procrastinate. Learning is to have fun. Because fun is durable. For example, I am passionate about beauty, fashion and all things women related. In the first stage, my learning will take these topics as the root to nurture my love of foreign languages. After that, I will move on to other interesting topics such as financial management, personal branding, marketing and advertisement, mental health. health),… In my opinion, these are topics that you must know sooner or later, so why not learn in English so that one arrow can hit two targets, also known as a stone that kills two birds? (kill two birds with one stone). Conclusion: Only when you can attach English to a passion or an interesting topic will your motivation not die
PART II. TU
I. Listening
My weakness so far has always been the listening part. It’s not because I can’t hear it, but because I have poor concentration and lose my temper easily, so if I miss a sentence, the whole next paragraph will panic and make mistakes. And practicing a lot only makes me strengthen that obsession, especially when the level is still at the intermediate level.
So, I decided to pause listening to Cam, mainly because I found it no longer fun.
In the first stage, I always choose to listen to sources of my expertise. Subscribe to channels about makeup, beauty, fashion, lifestyle,… When listening, you can gradually increase the difficulty by listening to accent styles or increase the speed slowly.
However, at a certain point, these topics will become too easy because I am already familiar with the vocabulary of that topic. That’s when I have to actively step out of the comfort zone and start listening to multiple channels. At this point, in addition to fun, we will add a useful criterion. The easiest to digest is probably TED, because the channel is diverse, the speakers are reliable, and it’s always packed with motivational content. Historically there is a very excellent Oversimplified. Many times I see tears in my eyes. On psychology there is the School of Life,.. and many other sources. I will share in a separate section about learning resources.
II. Reading Like I said, I’ve never finished a Cambridge book. I also don’t pay too much attention to “reading strategies”. Formula to get my maximum Reading score = 10% speed + 90% deep understanding. If you want speed, you must read a lot, if you want to understand deeply, you must read carefully.
▪️I really like using Instagram, partly because I remember information in the form of images better, partly because my work is associated with this social network. So I create my own account, besides watching memes, I will follow major news agencies or international organizations. The advantage of this is that while having fun it is still possible to tolerate knowledge (scrolling without guilt). Moreover, the words used as captions on social media must be concise and concise, you will learn a lot of vocabulary and good sentence structure.
▪️Read books and newspapers selectively, so start with the topics you are interested in first. If you don’t like reading the New York Times or the Guardian, there’s no need to try. Personally, I also rarely read these papers because it is not an area of too much interest, moreover, at first, with a small vocabulary, reading is also easy to get discouraged.
▪️There are some bestsellers that I think everyone taking the IELTS should read: 21 lessons for the 21st century. Reading and reflecting on this book alone can double your confidence in reading, speaking and writing. Just try and experience it.
▪️The last and most important boss: To optimize reading, after each chapter, especially your favorite chapters, you can stop for a few minutes to rearrange the main ideas in your head. Then summarize with a mind map or write a few sentences on paper. Better yet, you can present yourself through that note. This is the turning point in my reading learning. This not only forces me to really understand the text, but it also helps build a pool of ideas for writing and speaking. But normally, I read to the bottom of the page and forgot what was written at the top.
- Writing
This is my most subjective skill, the day I took the exam was the first time I wrote a complete article on the computer. As a result, I didn’t have time to finish writing task 2, the machine automatically said it was over. Thereby, I draw lessons worth 4,750,000 as follows:
▪️No matter how much or how little, you must practice writing under time pressure.
▪️As a patriot (H2O), I spent 4 minutes in the Writing section to go to the toilet. I thought I could take the time to walk from the exam room to the restroom to brainstorm, but in reality, I was too focused on the main task. So if you have to go, go from the time you do Reading.
▪️Even though I don’t practice writing full articles, I still have a small notebook to record my favorite sentences and ideas during reading or listening practice above. However, I don’t take notes rampantly or arbitrarily, just note down the really impressive ideas, so that I can remember them for a long time.
◼️PART III. PICKING FRUIT
Each person, at different times, needs different learning methods.
After all, IELTS score is just a number. What I find most interesting is finding a way to turn fear into passion. Remember: “Only when you can tie English to a passion or an interesting topic will your motivation not die prematurely.”
I firmly believe that if those who apply this “play to learn, learn to play” method persist in sticking to their goals, both foreign language skills and living capital will also continue to improve. Getting the expected IELTS score is just one of the inevitable consequences. Don’t treat a foreign language as a destination. Instead, see it as a tool to explore human knowledge.
🔥 Change your mind, change your life.
Ps: Good luck with your exams ♥️ Enjoy the journey.