5 English Habits to Practice Every Day to Improve English Fluency and Communication Skills
at the upper intermediate and advanced
level of english
it’s time to really make english part of
your day-to-day life
many of you have already been to
esl courses
and now
you’re using english in the real world
with your jobs and your relationships
and
in everyday life in english
but in order to really use it every day
you need to create daily habits
centered around english practice
but it’s gonna be fun i promise
so today in this lesson i am sharing
five
daily habits that you can add to your
daily routines and your schedules what’s
amazing is that they won’t take more
than one hour of each day can you
believe it you’ll have fun while doing
it and you will dramatically improve
your english communication skills
these english habits will focus on
reading
writing
listening
speaking and comprehending what are we
waiting for let’s get started
[Music]
for each of the five categories of
english habits that we’re building
try to choose something that interests
you or something that you’re curious
about learning the idea is to make it
fun not a chore
and don’t think of this as homework
think of it as a way to add value to
your life
what’s great is that it serves a dual
purpose
one
improving your english language skills
and two
learning something new okay for the
first thing
read 10 minutes in english each day
choose your favorite type of reading and
content to read and make it a daily
practice
some examples of this include reading
online news
reading books paper or digital it’s up
to you
reading recipes reading blogs
reading articles or newsletters the
focus here is on absorbing grammatical
structures
learning spelling and vocabulary
acquisition and my pro tip for you is to
read aloud
because this can help you with your
pronunciation muscles and your speaking
endurance you’ll notice that you might
get tired in your mouth in your jaw and
your throat
and that’s because it’s a different
language and you might not be used to
using all of the muscles that we use
in english
and so
you might feel like you need to work on
that endurance and that’s what i mean by
speaking endurance
also reading aloud will help you retain
the information that you read better all
right number two write for 10 minutes
each day in english
if you’re not really sure about what to
write or if writing feels laborious to
you
try to make it something that you really
enjoy
so here are some examples of fun writing
activities
writing a gratitude list or a journal
entry on gratitude writing down things
that you’re grateful for in your life
and what you’re thankful for
writing out your worries it’s also known
as worry pages or a brain dump just
getting everything off your mind that’s
causing you to worry about something
writing in a stream of consciousness so
this is about writing anything that
comes into your thought system and just
writing writing writing without lifting
your pen from the paper it’s fun you
should try it and then the other one is
writing about your day
logging the events of the day what
happened what you’ve done
you can also write an email in english
to a friend or it can be a totally
fictional person such as your favorite
character from a book
a movie or a show
and this obviously won’t get sent
but it’s still a really fun activity to
try and it’s good english writing
practice
so the focus here is on vocabulary
retention and thinking in english my pro
tip for this is to write aloud meaning
as you write or as you type
you are
speaking aloud your thoughts this is
going to help you think more clearly
because you actually hear what you say
and also it will help you structure your
writing
more effectively
number three listen 10 minutes in
english each day
listening comprehension is also very
important and we want to make sure that
we’re giving this skill some time to
shine
so some ideas for listening materials
are the following
songs in english from your favorite
artist or genre
podcasts in areas of interest or in your
field of expertise or study audiobooks
i’m a huge fan of the libby app which is
a free library app and all you need is a
library card if you’re in the us the
radio and if you’re in a car you might
be able to turn the radio on or you can
access some stations from your computer
focus is on connected speech training
your ear to porosity stress patterns and
intonation and also to learn new words
and expressions
so for my pro tip pause and imitate the
pronunciation it’s a lot of fun and you
might find yourself laughing afterwards
which is a good thing
number four watch 10 minutes in english
each day
so out of all of these many of you might
find it easiest to make time for working
on this skill simply because video based
learning is more and more accessible
these days
right
the point with watching is to increase
your listening comprehension
and also to improve your awareness of
non-verbal communication which is very
important
that includes things like head movement
hand gestures
facial expressions and overall body
language that we use to communicate our
points
if you’re watching without subtitles you
can give yourself that extra
comprehension challenge if you’re
feeling up to it here are some examples
of possible content to watch youtube
videos to learn something new or watch
your favorite channel
watch a ted talk without subtitles
watch half of an episode on your
favorite streaming platform no subtitles
watch a web course that you’re following
watch a free webinar that you’ve signed
up for all right so the focus with this
is listed in comprehension learning
nonverbal communication like gestures
facial expressions hand movements and
when they are used and then my pro tip
for this is to pause and imitate the
non-verbals of the speaker
and also to pause and do a comprehension
check so every few minutes
or seconds
depending on your preference you pause
and then paraphrase or repeat
in your own words what was just
discussed or the gist of
the video whatever you’re watching try
to do your own self-administered
comprehension check number five speak 10
minutes in english each day some of you
might find this to be the most
challenging habit to do because of
nerves or because of limited access to
real world communities
well
the good news is
is that the beauty of speaking practice
is that you can literally practice
anywhere in the world
and that’s because we can tap into
online communities and leverage our
virtual communication platforms
now there’s no excuse because of what
technology has made possible so if
you’re not able to have in-person
conversations that is okay
hop online and join a forum where you
can have conversations in the comments
or in the chat rooms
or you can jump online for a zoom or a
skype call say while doing a virtual
book club meeting
the point is you can practice your
speaking skills in person
or in the virtual world
all right so some examples include
making small talk with strangers at a
cafe
waiting online or at the library
chatting with a colleague from work
joining an online community for example
if you’re into fitness let’s say there
are plenty of fitness communities around
and you can strike up a conversation
with people who also enjoy working on
their fitness
joining a book club or any type of
meetup based on your own interests
doing a zoom or a skype call with
someone even
a regular phone call would work which is
voice only
there are so many options to check this
one off the list so definitely leverage
both in-person communication as well as
virtual communication
so the focus here is on verbal
communication skills communicative
competence and strategic competence
and my pro tip here is to use the new
words that you’ve acquired practicing
newly acquired expressions phrases
idioms vocabulary and testing out your
grammar and syntax
and also thinking in english and it
would also be a great opportunity to ask
for corrective feedback
alright there you have it five daily
english habits to do every day doing
these five things every day will
increase your communication skills and
your ability to hold conversations in
english
now it might seem like a lot but if
you’re only spending 10 minutes a day on
each of the skills that i shared with
you then you’re really looking at less
than one hour of english practice a day
which is not really that much most
workouts take longer than an hour right
and most commutes to the office take
more than one hour if you want to set
aside one hour and complete all the
tasks in one go roughly 50 minutes then
that’s great but if you prefer to space
it out over the entire day and into the
evening that’s also great
the best configuration is the one that
works best for you and the one that
you’re going to actually do
so i want you to sit down with your
calendar before the start of each week
and take a look at your commitments both
personal and professional
find time to squeeze in your daily
english habits because it’s going to
make a huge difference in your personal
and professional life in english
if it’s a priority for you
also think about being as strategic as
possible for example if you have a long
commute then you might be able to get a
bunch of the tasks done in transit
if you find that your afternoons are
pretty slow
add some english practice to make things
more lively and spice things up
set up a schedule and stick to it that’s
the most important thing
10 minutes for each task is not a lot
but over time
practicing a little bit each day has big
returns
the magic will start to unfold once
you’re keeping consistent and actually
creating these habits hold yourself
accountable and if needed find an
accountability partner an accountability
partner is someone who helps hold
yourself accountable for the tasks at
hand this person can be a native speaker
of english or a non-native speaker of
english it doesn’t matter the idea is
for the two of you to consume the same
content for 10 minutes and then discuss
afterwards and this can be done
virtually or over a cup of coffee in
real life
for example let’s say you found a
podcast that you want to listen to and
you think that they will also enjoy
just send it along to them both of you
will listen to it and you can discuss
afterwards so while this might take some
additional time for planning and
coordinating it also might make it that
extra bit of fun for you so it’s up to
you
and more importantly if you’re finding
it hard to hold yourself accountable and
accountability partner can really help
either way
do these five things every day and i
promise that you will notice a world of
difference in your english speaking
listening writing reading and
comprehension skills
all right advanced english learners
thank you so much for joining for this
lesson the full transcript of this
lesson can be found on our blog
so be sure to check out
advancedenglish.com
when do you plan on starting these daily
english habits how will you hold
yourself accountable feel free to share
that with us in the comments down below
alright i will see you in the next one
where we’re going to continue advancing
your english together until then keep up
the awesome work and i’ll see you soon
[Music]
