6 everyday habits to improve your English do THIS daily
(gentle flowing music)
- Hello, everyone, and welcome
back to English with Lucy.
Today I am going to show
you six everyday habits
for improving your English,
and these are things
that you can do at home.
One of the best ways to learn a language
is to make it a part of your daily life.
And you need to do this by forming habits.
And I have got some great ideas for you.
Some of these habits are really enjoyable.
For example, the first one, which is
perform guided meditation in English.
So guided meditation is great
for relieving stress levels and anxiety
and making you feel more
connected with yourself,
but doing it in the
language you are learning
can offer so many benefits.
Often listening to English,
trying to understand English,
learning English in general is really,
really stressful for students.
But guided meditation sessions
are designed to relax you,
so you may find yourself
picking up on a lot more.
I have got three recommendations
for great YouTube channels
that offer guided meditation.
The first speaks with a British accent,
the second with an American accent,
and the third with an Australian accent.
So you can choose which is best for you.
For British, we have Caroline McCready.
- [Caroline] Simply become
aware of your breathing.
(ethereal music)
- She has got the most
beautiful voice and accent.
For the American accent, we
have The Mindful Movement.
- [Woman] And now turn
off all distractions
and commit this time for yourself.
- You can see there’s so much
vocabulary to pick up on.
And some people find that
listening to foreign languages
in a subconscious state can help them
pick up on more vocabulary.
It doesn’t happen for everyone,
but try it and see if it works for you.
And the last one, for Australian accents,
we have Michael Sealey.
- [Michael] And you understand that, yes,
these are your thoughts,
but you also know and understand
that who you are is so much more
than simply your thoughts.
- Right? Let’s move on
to habit number two.
Habit number two is all
about keeping yourself
inspired and motivated, okay?
Something that I found so
helpful and interesting
when I was actively learning Spanish
was discovering other people’s
language learning journeys.
And I want you to do this
with other non-native English speakers
who have reached a level of English
that you also want to reach.
Every day try and watch a video
of somebody sharing their experience.
You can learn so much from them.
There is only so much I can teach you
as a native English speaker.
I’m in your shoes because
I’ve learned other languages,
but I’m not absolutely in
your shoes with English.
That’s why I always say
it’s great to listen
to native speakers and native teachers,
but also non-native teachers
because they understand
where you’re coming from because
they were once there too.
So I’ve got an example for
you that I will link below.
There is the most lovely girl.
She’s from Brazil, but she speaks English
with this most incredible British accent.
She has absolutely nailed it.
And she tells you how she’s achieved that.
- I am originally from Brazil
and I’m just a regular English student
like all of you out
there learning English,
but I feel I would come.
- If every day you can make it a habit
to listen to at least one motivating
and inspiring learning journey story,
you’ll pick up on so much
knowledge and insight,
and you’ll feel much more confident
about your own learning
process and journey.
You’ll realise that you’re
not alone, you’re not stupid.
Learning English is bloody hard. (laughs)
It really, really is, and these people
who have achieved amazing
accents and wonderful fluency
should be really, really
proud of themselves.
Now this next segment of the video,
this next habit, has
been sponsored by Lingoda
and it is incredibly relevant.
It is to take a lesson every single day.
Make that habit of taking
a lesson every day.
And this is so relevant,
especially in these strange times
where so many of us are having to spend
so much more time at home alone.
You can take advantage of this
extra spare time right now
and take a proper English
class with a native-speaking
qualified teacher every single day.
Lingoda have launched
their language sprint
where you can learn to
speak a language confidently
in just three months, gain
100% of your money back,
and gain free access to the
Cambridge online speaking test.
You just need to take
one of their 24/7 classes
every day for three months
and get your course fees
completely refunded.
Click on the link in the description
to check the dates for this sprint,
but be quick because if
you miss the deadline
or the spaces are already
filled, you will miss out.
The super sprint offers a 100% refund
and there is also the lighter
option of the regular sprint,
which offers a 50% refund.
You can join the sprint in
English, business English,
Spanish, French, and German
from beginner to advanced level.
I’m really happy to share
this opportunity with you
because I’ve had first-hand experience
of how effective the Lingoda
language challenges can be.
It’s transformed many
of my students' lives.
I’ve also attended many of
the English classes myself
as a student, just to make sure
they were good enough for you,
and I found them to be excellent.
Many of my other students just like you
love Lingoda because they can interact
with native-speaking qualified teachers
anytime, anywhere.
Group sizes are really small
with an average of just
three students per class,
and over 30,000 people have participated
in the previous Lingoda
language challenges.
And for many of them,
it has completely transformed their lives,
allowing them to find new
jobs, make new friends,
travel to new places, and to overcome
their fear of speaking,
which is a huge problem
for learners of any foreign language.
So how can you participate?
Sign up for the sprint before the deadline
and pay the deposit to secure your spot.
You can use my code CLASS1
to get 10 euros off your deposit.
Lingoda will refund your
tuition fee in full,
along with the deposit, if you attend
the agreed amount of
classes within each month
by following the contest rules.
Remember places in the sprint are limited.
This is a language school, spaces fill up.
You have my link in the description box.
You have my code CLASS1.
What are you waiting for?
Right, let’s move on to habit number four.
This one is work out in English.
There are two ways of doing this
and I have many, many
recommendations for you.
Online fitness classes are booming
because everyone is at home.
They are so convenient and they are also
full of language-learning opportunities,
so many verbs, so many prepositions,
lots of pronunciation to learn as well.
Working out is something
that you should do anyway,
so why not multitask and learn
English at the same time.
I have got four recommendations for you,
two are British, they
speak British English,
and two speak American English.
My first recommendation is Joe
Wicks from The Body Coach TV.
He speaks with a Cockney accent.
During the lockdown, he has
been doing a daily live workout,
but you can watch these
after they’re live as well.
- We go down like this, come up,
and then we go one, two, three.
- Joe’s workouts are normally high energy.
They’re made to make you sweat.
A lot of interval training,
high-intensity interval
training, HIIT training.
We also have the wonderful
Lucy Wyndham-Read.
She is so lovely.
I’ve had the pleasure of
meeting her many times.
She speaks with a
beautiful British accent.
Her videos tend to be short
and suitable for all fitness levels.
They’re great if you’ve
just got 5, 7, 10 minutes
in the morning, or you
can stack lots together
and make a bigger workout.
I love her fitness videos.
- [Lucy] If you put in 100%,
you get in results of 100% back.
So that’s where I really
want you to focus this week,
on doing this for seven days.
- Then we have two American channels.
They’re quite different.
We have Blogilates.
Her name is Cassey and she speaks
with a very clear American accent.
- Hey guys, Cassey here
and welcome to your
seven-day glute challenge.
I’m so excited to be focusing
on the lower part of our body
for this entire week.
- I do a lot of Cassey’s workouts myself.
I love her brutal booty workout.
It’s quite old now, but I do it a lot.
And it’s really, really great
for reaching those muscles
in your bum that you can’t
reach with just a normal squat.
And we also have Yoga With Adriene.
She teaches yoga and she has
a beautiful accent as well.
It’s really a pleasure to listen to her.
- Hi, everyone, welcome to
home, your 30-day yoga journey.
It’s day 19, drum roll, please.
(hands tapping)
- I have linked all four
channels down below.
The other habit that I recommend
to do with working out as well
is if you like walking and running,
or you want to get into
walking and running,
listen to audio books whilst doing this.
Maybe you could listen to a
learning English audio book.
And this actually brings
me on to number five,
which is multitasking.
So I’m not just focusing on working out
whilst listening to audio books.
There’s so much more that you can do
whilst listening to audio books,
or other things, maybe radio programmes,
podcasts, anything that you
want to listen to in English,
do it whilst doing something else,
whilst you’re Hoovering,
whilst you’re cooking,
whilst you’re cleaning,
whilst you’re working from home.
There are just so many opportunities
that add an audio element
into your daily life.
And if you do it every single day, ah,
you’ll be picking up on
so much pronunciation,
on so much vocabulary,
and so much additional knowledge as well.
And now for my last habit, number six,
it is participate and discuss.
And I’m talking about joining forums
that are relevant to you,
places where you can have
genuine written conversations
about topics that interest you.
Writing a little bit every single day
is great for improving your spelling,
improving your vocabulary,
and improving your writing skills,
and even better if you can have
someone correct it as well.
An online forum platform that
I absolutely adore is Reddit.
I spend way too much time on there.
And there’s so much positivity on Reddit.
There are so many lovely people.
Don’t get me wrong, here are
some terrible things as well,
but forums like relationship
advice, ask men,
ask women, legal advice,
malicious compliance,
I’ll link down to them,
but they’re all forums where
people post their problems
and other people respond.
You can read and improve
your reading skills
and absorb new vocabulary,
and you can also offer advice as well.
You can mention, “Excuse my
English, I’m not native,”
and in brackets say, “If
anyone wants to correct me,
“I’ll be so happy,” and you will find
that there are a lot of people on Reddit
that are willing to take the
time to help out someone else.
There are so many subreddits,
these are subforums on Reddit
that cater for so many
different interests,
photography, art, certain
breeds of dogs, anything.
If you want to find people
to share opinions with,
to ask opinions from,
I think Reddit is a really good place.
Right, that’s it for today’s lesson.
I hope you enjoyed it
and I hope you are able to implement
some of these habits into your daily life,
thus improving your language skills.
Don’t forget to check out
the Lingoda language sprint.
All of the information
and the link to sign up
is in the description box.
If you want to download a free audio book,
the link for the 30-day
free trial on Audible
is in the description box as well.
Along with all of my recommendations
for the YouTube channels
that I’ve mentioned, too.
Don’t forget to connect with
me on all of my social media.
I’ve got my Facebook, my
Instagram, my Twitter,
and I shall see you
soon for another lesson.
Mwah.
(gentle upbeat music)