Improve English Study Habits with High and LowIntensity Practice
Hi, I’m Kasia.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
Here’s a question: do you want to improve
your English vocabulary, or learn to understand
native speakers better?
Of course you do!
In this lesson, you’ll see a study technique
which can help you to learn English more efficiently,
and make real, deep progress over time.
You’ll see a mistake which many English
learners make, and how you can avoid it.
Before we start, don’t forget to check out
our website: Oxford Online English dot com.
Do you need English classes?
We have many professional English teachers,
with many years of experience, who you can
study with in online classes.
Even if you’re not interested in this, you
can also find many free English lessons, including
videos and listening lessons.
But now, let’s get back to the question
you heard before.
How can you improve your English over time?
How can you make real progress, so that you
don’t keep forgetting and relearning the
same things?
The solution is not easy or fast, but it is
simple: read more and listen more in English.
Reading and listening in English regularly
are essential if you want to improve your
English skills.
OK, you say, but what about my speaking?
What about my writing?
I need to learn to speak in English!
Fine, but where will your vocabulary come
from?
Where will your sentence structure come from?
These building blocks of language don’t
come from nowhere.
They come from things you read or hear.
The more you read and listen, the more tools
you’ll have when you’re speaking or writing.
But, many English learners don’t read or
listen enough.
Sometimes, they say things like: “It’s
too difficult to read in English.”
“There are too many unknown words!”
“It’s too tiring!
I get bored!”
You’re going to see an idea to help you
deal with these problems, so you can take
control of your study habits, and make real,
deep improvements to your English over time.
When you read or listen, especially in a foreign
language, there are two basic approaches you
can take.
Let’s call them “high-intensity practice”
and “low-intensity practice.”
What do we mean here?
High-intensity practice means you give 100%
of your focus.
If you’re reading or listening, you try
to understand as much as you can.
You repeat the same task several times.
Low-intensity means that you relax.
You don’t worry about understanding everything.
You do as much as you want.
So, what’s the big deal?
Why think about this?
To improve, you need to read and listen regularly.
You also need a balance between high-intensity
and low-intensity practice.
This is where many English learners make mistakes.
They don’t get the balance between these
types of practice right, and this affects
their results.
If you do too much high-intensity practice,
you’ll burn out.
You’ll get tired and bored; you won’t
be able to motivate yourself to study and
practise regularly.
Then, you won’t spend enough time practising,
and you’ll struggle to improve.
On the other hand, if all your practice is
low-intensity, you also won’t improve much.
You won’t learn a lot from your reading
or listening.
Again, in the long term, this leads to frustration
and loss of motivation.
In the rest of this lesson, you’ll see how
to apply these ideas to your English reading
and listening practice, and how to find the
right balance between high-intensity and low-intensity
practice.
You’ll also see how to make a sample study
plan to maximise the results you get from
your English study time.
First, let’s talk about listening.
Think about four different ways to practice
listening.
One: you watch a film in English, with English
subtitles.
You don’t pause it or check words which
you don’t know.
Two: you watch fifteen minutes of a film in
English, without subtitles.
You pause and rewind to re-listen to sections.
You use a dictionary to check words which
you don’t know.
Afterwards, you watch the same section again,
with subtitles, so that you can check what
you heard.
Three: you listen to a podcast or radio station
in English while you’re working, or maybe
while you’re doing some housework.
You’re concentrating on what you’re doing,
so you aren’t really listening most of the
time.
Four: you do an IELTS listening exam.
You check your answers and give yourself a
score.
We’ll ask: which are high-intensity and
which are low-intensity ways to practise?
Hopefully, the answer is obvious.
One and three are low-intensity ways to practise;
two and four are high-intensity.
When you’re listening to something in English,
what does high-intensity practice mean?
It means: you focus 100% on what you’re
listening to, you try to understand as much
as possible, you use a dictionary to check
new words, and you also repeat the same task
at least twice, or possibly more.
High-intensity practice should also include
feedback; you should be able to check if you
understood what you heard correctly or not.
In example number two, above, you do this
by rewatching the clip with subtitles.
You use the subtitles to check if you heard
everything correctly.
In example number four, you get feedback by
checking your answers against the answer key.
This is a key part of high-intensity listening
practice.
There should always be feedback.
You need a way to check if you heard correctly
or not.
There’s one more important difference: high-intensity
practice is time-limited.
You aren’t trying to watch a whole film;
you’re working on a 15-minute clip.
Obviously, IELTS exams are also time-limited.
By contrast, low-intensity practice can go
on for any length of time.
If you’re listening to podcasts while you’re
cleaning your house, you can go on listening
for as long as you want.
What about low-intensity practice?
What does this look like?
Remember the criteria for high-intensity practice.
What were they?
100% focus, try to understand as much as possible,
use a dictionary, repeat the same task, and
get feedback.
If you’re not doing these things, then it’s
low-intensity practice.
Now, can you think of other examples of high-intensity
listening practice and low-intensity listening
practice?
Remember: both sides are useful!
Pause the video now and think about your ideas.
Try to get three methods for high-intensity
practice, and three for low-intensity.
So, what did you get?
There are many possibilities, but here are
three suggestions for high-intensity practice:
One: listen to a song twice, trying to hear
the words.
Then, listen with the lyrics, check any words
you don’t know in a dictionary, then listen
again.
Two: do listening exercises from an English
textbook.
Three: do a conversation class with an English
teacher, so you have to understand and respond
to the teacher’s ideas.
What about you?
Did you get similar ideas, or different?
By the way, please put your suggestions in
the comments and share them with other learners!
Next, what about low-intensity practice?
Here are three ideas:
One: make a playlist of English songs, and
listen to it regularly, for example in your
car, or while you’re on the bus or the subway
going to work.
Two: watch an English TV series with English
subtitles, without worrying about whether
you understand everything or not.
Three: listen to English-language radio while
you’re working.
Often, low-intensity practice means you listen
to something in English while you’re doing
something else.
That’s valuable, because you don’t need
to make time for this kind of practice—you
can combine it with other things.
Now, you should have some ideas about high-intensity
and low-intensity listening practice.
What about reading?
A question: what does high-intensity reading
practice look like?
What about low-intensity reading practice?
You can answer this with many of the same
ideas you heard about listening practice.
High-intensity reading practice means: you
read everything carefully, you read sentences
and whole texts several times, and you use
a dictionary.
Low-intensity reading practice means you don’t
do these things: you read something once,
you don’t worry about unknown words, you
don’t worry about whether you’ve understood
everything or not, and you use a dictionary
little or not at all.
So, is there a difference between high-intensity
and low-intensity practice in reading and
listening?
There are two small differences.
First, you need feedback for high-intensity
listening practice, to check if you’ve heard
things correctly or not.
When you’re reading, you can see the words,
so this is less important.
Second, you can do low-intensity listening
practice while you’re doing something else.
You can’t do this with reading.
You need to make time for all reading practice,
including low-intensity reading.
Let’s think about another question: should
you choose different things to read for different
types of practice?
Or, should you read the same things whether
you’re doing high-intensity or low-intensity
training?
What do you think?
Probably, you should read different things.
When you do high-intensity practice, you should
read something that’s challenging, something
right on the edge of what’s possible for
you.
On the other hand, for low-intensity practice,
you should read something that’s relatively
easy, so you don’t need to focus too hard.
Want an idea?
Read children’s books, or comic books.
A lot of learners we talk to are against this,
because they think it’s childish or unhelpful,
but we disagree!
Children’s books can really help your reading,
especially if your English level is lower.
In any case, find something you can read without
much effort, so that you have something you
can use for low-intensity practice.
What about you?
What would you do for high-intensity and low-intensity
reading practice?
Again, please share your ideas in the comments.
Maybe you’ll get some good tips from other
viewers!
Next, let’s see how you can use these ideas
to make an effective, realistic study plan
to improve your English.
Let’s start with some basic points.
First, you need to make time for high-intensity
listening practice, and both high-intensity
and low-intensity reading practice.
Second, you need to think of ways to get as
much low-intensity listening practice as possible.
Remember that you can do this while you’re
doing something else.
Third, you need a good balance of high-intensity
and low-intensity practice.
What does this mean?
You need some high-intensity practice, ideally
a little bit every day, but not too much!
High-intensity practice is tiring and probably
not fun.
You need to concentrate hard.
It’s work.
So, schedule high-intensity practice for your
best time of day.
Are you a morning person?
Do it as soon as possible after you wake up.
Are you a night owl?
Schedule your practice late in the evening.
Set a time limit for high-intensity practice.
This will help you to focus.
Start with fifteen minutes, and then increase
it slowly if you think this is too little.
For low-intensity practice, do as much as
possible.
A good way to do this: take things you do
every day in your language, and replace them
with English.
For example, do you read the news every day,
maybe while you’re having breakfast?
Read the news in English, instead.
Do you listen to podcasts while you’re walking
around?
Listen to English podcasts, instead.
Remember: low-intensity practice shouldn’t
be stressful.
It shouldn’t be hard to motivate yourself
to do it.
The idea is to expose yourself to as much
English as possible.
That’s it.
Don’t try to do more.
Keep high-intensity and low-intensity practice
separate.
Here’s a possible study plan for one day:
High-intensity listening: watch a 5-minute
clip from a TV show, like Friends.
Watch once without subtitles, then again with
subtitles, and check any new words in the
dictionary.
Watch a third time to ‘fix’ the new vocabulary
in your head.
Low-intensity listening: put a playlist of
English videos on in the background while
making dinner.
High-intensity reading: read a short news
article on a technical topic.
Read once, check new vocabulary, then read
again.
Low-intensity reading: browse the comments
under a news article on a topic you’re interested
in.
What do you think?
Would this be realistic for you?
The high-intensity parts here should take
maybe 10-20 minutes each.
The low-intensity reading can take as little
or as long as you want.
That means you need maybe one hour a day total.
It also means you don’t need to sit at a
desk and study for hours.
You need to focus for maybe 20 minutes at
a time.
That’s not so bad, right?
Could you do this?
If you could follow a study plan like this
regularly, your English will get better over
time.
Of course, you should give yourself different
things to do at least some days, and you probably
won’t be able to do this seven days a week,
365 days a year.
But, maybe you can do it three days a week,
or four.
Maybe even five!
This will still help you.
Make a realistic study plan, and don’t get
discouraged if you don’t stick to it perfectly.
Do as much as you can, as often as you can.
What about you?
Could you make a study plan for yourself using
these ideas?
Think about your English level, your interests,
and what’s easy or difficult for you.
If you want, share your daily study plan in
the comments.
Sharing your ideas might help other learners,
and you can also get tips from other people!
Thanks for watching!
See you next time!