How to quickly improve your English in a month
You have a big event coming up and you need to quickly improve your English for it. Maybe a job interview, a work trip, a move abroad or an exam. This article will give you a strategy to follow that will help you dramatically improve your English in a month, spending as little time and money on it as possible.
First, think about your goal. Is it fluency or accuracy?
If you need to express yourself easily (for example for an interview or moving abroad) focus on fluency. This means you need to focus on learning vocabulary, useful expressions and verb tenses.
If you’re taking an exam or being tested in some way, focus on accuracy. This means you need to focus mainly on grammar. You need to find out what mistakes you make and learn to avoid them.
If your goal is fluency
(If your main goal is accuracy, scroll down)
Immerse yourself in a totally English environment at home. Get a notebook to record all the great vocabulary and expressions you’re going to learn.
Do one of these every day:
⦁ Listen actively to at least 5 minutes of an English podcast.
Don’t just listen in the background while making your dinner. Sit down with your notebook and make a note of new words you hear.
Here are some recommendations for podcasts you can listen to.
⦁ Speak or write something in English (and ideally get feedback on it from a teacher or native speaker)
It’s not enough just to hear and read English. It’s very important that you produce English every day. This will make your brain comfortable with quickly finding the words and grammar that it needs.
You could find opportunities to write by replying to posts on Reddit or Twitter. If you want a qualified teacher to check a short text every day, use Go Correct. The teacher will also send daily topics for you to write about.
The app Twyn is awesome for quick, fun speaking practice. It uses AI and video of real people to let you practise speaking in real life situations. Or you can use a website like iTalki to pay for a live conversation session.
⦁ Watch a film or series with subtitles
Watch/listen in your language and use English subtitles. Or watch/listen in English and use subtitles in English. Compare the subtitles with what you’re hearing and write down anything new your learn.
⦁ Read a few pages of a book in English.
Look up any words you don’t know and write them in your notebook.
It’s best not to choose a novel. The language is often too creative and doesn’t represent how people really speak. Read a factual book. If you’re improving you English for work, read something about business, for example a biography of someone like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.
Finally…
Every day, review some or all of the vocabulary you’ve written in your notebook. Test yourself on it. You can even add the words to a flashcard app. For example, Buffl is a good one.
Do this at the same time every day to make it a habit. For example, in bed before going to sleep.
If your goal is accuracy
The work you need to put in to improve your accuracy is unfortunately less fun than improving your fluency. You won’t improve your grammar by watching Netflix in English.
First you need to identify the areas where you make a lot of grammatical mistakes. You need a teacher or native speaker to tell you about them. A great way to do this is with Go Correct — you write a short text in English every day and your mistakes are corrected by a qualified teacher. You can click a mistake to see an explanation and see a list of the mistakes you make most often.
You could book a lesson with a teacher on iTalki. First do a conversation session with the teacher or send the teacher a page of writing. Ask the teacher to identify some areas of grammar that you need to work on. Then ask for a lesson on those areas.
You can do grammar quizzes from a website such as English Club. But also make sure you write or speak English every day, so that you become comfortable using grammar in a more realistic way.
Good luck!
Suggested links from this article: Twyn, Go Correct, iTalki, English Club, Buffl
