It is entirely possible to learn English by yourself. If you’re looking for the most effective ways to learn English on your own, then keep reading this post. This post on how to self-teach yourself English is a useful resource for both students and teachers at any level of education. It is also a great tool for adult learners of English as a second or foreign language.
Maybe you’re an adult who wants to learn English as a second language. What this means is that English is not your mother tongue but it is an official language of communication in your country. So learning to write or speak better English will help you to function effectively.
Benefits of Learning English by Yourself
When you acquire better English speaking skills, for example, it will allow you to interact with others with greater confidence and clarity. You can communicate intelligently with foreigners whose mother tongue is not the same as yours. Thus, English serves as a lingua franca that everyone must learn to write and speak well.
In other parts of the world, English is not even an official second language. But people still want to learn better English speaking, reading and writing. Because they have recognized English as an international language that makes it possible for them to do business, attend a school, travel abroad or just work in a setting where English speaking and writing skills are required. So, for them, English is more of a foreign language that they need to work or simply live in greater comfort.
So it does not really matter whether you want to learn English by yourself as a second language learner or foreign language learner.
What these tips will do for you
The tips I’ve got for you in this post will make it easier for you to learn English by yourself. That is if you cannot afford tuition for learning English as a second language speaker or foreign language learner. It might even be that you can’t find any place like the British Council. The British Council is one of those places where people go to learn better English speaking, reading and writing.
But you can still learn English by yourself without the help of the British Council or the American Embassy in your country’s capital city.
There are ways to learn English by yourself if you have no access to one of those places where native speakers of English teach adult learners how to speak and write better English. Many others have found a way to successfully learn English independently. So you too can do the same.
Pro Tip. Alison is one online learning platform to take free online courses. You can enrol for free online diploma courses in English and other career courses at Alison.
You need these simple requirements
But before I show you how to learn English by yourself, we need to have certain assumptions. Because learning English on your own, may be easier than you think but it is still not for everybody.
Basic English reading skills
It is easier to learn how to improve your English speaking and writing if you already have some basic reading skills. For example, if you can read and have a fair understanding of this post, then you stand a good chance to learn better English all by yourself.
Ability to speak some English
You can only improve on what you already have. This applies to people who wish to better their English speaking and writing as independent learners as well. So I take it that it is because you know how to express yourself with basic English vocabulary and grammar that is why you hope to learn English further all by yourself.
You are able to write simple English sentences
Sure, you may not be too proud of your English grammar and vocabulary. Maybe you often struggle to write what you wish to call perfect sentences. And when you open your mouth to speak, you find it difficult coming up with the most appropriate English words for the occasion.
But that’s fine too. At least you can say something intelligent in English for the other person to guess what you mean. This is a foundation upon which you can easily learn to improve your English speaking or writing or both.
Now that we know the fundamentals for anyone who wishes to independently learn English, let’s quickly move forward to how to learn English by yourself. Here are the tips to assist you to take your English usage skills to the next level without much external assistance from an English teacher from the British Council, for example.
1. Leverage Social Media
Are you a social media person? Then you’ve got a lot to gain from this first tip.
You see, we now live in a world where social media has eaten deep into almost every aspect of our lives. This is why it is helpful to take advantage of your interactions with social media to learn English all by yourself. Here are some tips for achieving this.
- Become friends with native speakers of English.
Speak and write to them as frequently as possible. You may decide not to tell them you wish to learn English from them. But it’s also a good idea to make your intentions known. Who knows, some will go out of their way to help you learn acceptable ways of writing and speaking English.
However, you need to bear in mind that not all native speakers have the kind of English speaking or writing skills you need. Being selective could help here.
- Write a post every day on Facebook or Twitter.
You may choose to ignore these two and find other social media platforms you love.
- Join Pinterest and go straight for boards that are devoted to motivational quotes.
There is so much to learn from these quotes in terms of self-improvement and excellent writing practices. Follow the people and boards on Pinterest that can help you discover more about English language learning, speaking and writing.
- Join discussion groups.
Then get active in the discussion forums. The more you write, the better it gets. You will even come to realize that the quality of your English is better than some others you will find here. This, surely, can be a further confidence booster for you to keep doing more.
2. Develop your appetite for reading widely
Bookmark international news websites and visit them regularly. My favourite is BBC World News. So I would recommend it to you. Make time to read as many newspapers, magazines and popular fiction as much as possible. You will learn from the best writers of the English language in these places. Personally, much of my English speaking and writing skills comes from extensive reading.
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3. Listen more
You can’t go far trying to learn English by yourself if you have no interest in listening to others use the language. There are many ways to listen to good English being spoken. Listen to podcasts, radio programmes, Television talk shows, news bulletins and a lot more.
Apart from the above, any time you speak English with someone, discipline your mouth and make your ear do more of the work. Pay attention to what they say and how they say it. This is one way I used to learn a lot from one of my lecturers who taught me Grammar and Linguistics back in university.
A quick reminder, though. You do not necessarily need a professor of Linguistics as a role model to learn English by yourself. The regular people you meet in the mosque, at church, at school, in the workplace, market, during a meetup or in the street are enough to show you the way to becoming a better speaker and writer of English.
This brings us to our next tip on how to learn English by yourself.
4. Get a role model
It may be your parent, your elder sibbling, a friend or colleague, a preacher, a politician, , any other public speaker, a movie star whose manner of speaking you admire a lot, a newscaster or whomsoever.
Just find one or two people and keep listening and watching them each time they express themselves in English. Believe me, you may not realize how much you’re learning from them, but the truth is you will be picking so much from them, unconsciously.
5. Practice English speaking and writing
The more you practice a skill, the better it gets. That’s a fact we’ve grown to learn and appreciate. It applies to learning English as a second or foreign language too.
Do not miss any opportunity to speak or write English. Put your voice out there. Ignore the people who know little but find fault with whatever others try to accomplish. Speak more, and keep learning from your mistakes.
And when it comes to writing, you will need to learn to write like crazy. I write all the time. Everywhere. Even on my bedroom and office walls and floors! Well, I’m not encouraging you to emulate my rather unusaul habit. All I’m saying is find a way to write every day.
You might want to simply keep a dairy and write many times in it on a daily basis.
6. Get bolder with public speaking
Don’t be afraid to speak your mind when the need arises. Speak English during meetings at your workplace. Be bold to answer calls in English. Use English to interract with as many people as possible in all social gatherings. When you visit the shop or market, find out if you can speak in English to the shop attendant or market woman. Some are very good speakers of English. This is a fact. Stop being ashamed of your English. And never allow fear to stop you from speaking English in public because, after all, no one is really perfect
7. Know that speed is not the same as fluency
Stop thinking that your inability to speak English very fast means you’re not fluent. When it comes to speech, we each have our unique and natural way of doing it. So it’s no use forcing to be as fast as the other guy you admire so much. That’s their natural flare; and it’s good for them too.
Being a slow speaker can also be great. You speak deliberately, with confidence and with a lot of authority behind it. Isn’t that awesome?
So focus more on how to improve your grammar and vocabulary. Learn how to express yourself clearly. These are the hallmark of a great speaker. It’s got nothing to do with how fast your tongue comes and goes.
8. Focus on using tense correctly.
One secret of effective language learning I love to share with the adult learners of English I teach is this. When someone says your English is bad, it is basically about your use of tenses.
It is the same thing where you’ve convinced yourself that your spoken or written English needs some polishing up. Tense is mostly what makes language shine or stink. Vocabulary is also a factor. But it doesn’t attract much attention as when you use “didn’t went” instead of “didn’t go”.
So spend more time learning the correct use of the past tense and present tense in particular. And when you’re comfortable with this, you can now devote more time and energy learning the other topics under learning English as a second language or foreign language.
9. Learn more about word building or word formation
It isn’t too difficult getting the right words to use as you speak or write English in any setting. Most of the tips above will help you to build on your English vocabulary.
In addition to that, get active about learning how words are formed from others. Do not forget to find out as many synonyms of words you love to use on a regular basis. Find the opposites too. Then you will be happy to know that you too can vary your words whenever you speak or write.
10. Get an English learning App/Software
The good news is that today, there are many English learning apps out there you can use to learn English by yourself. I know of FluentU, a platform dedicated to assisting language learners to do better.
Grammarly is another popular English grammar app you can use to write English more effectively. The Grammarly app alerts you in real time to the English grammar and syntax errors you may be committing while you write your official document, a personal email or blog post.
Find the English language learning app that suits your personall goals and make it assist you to self-teach yourself English.
11. Start a blog
A free personal lifestyle blog, for example, is just fine. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with going all out for a self-hosted WordPress blog about that other passion or small business of yours.
The key thing here is this. You’re going to use your blog to write and express yourself on a regular basis. Practicing how to express yourself via a blog is a great way to learn English by yourself.
12. Have your own YouTube channel
Wait a minute, I can’t even express myself well enough in English right now, so how can I start a YouTube Channel?
Now, listen to me. You will be surprised that there are lots of people like you who are leveraging YouTube to polish their spoken English. All they do is observe the way better English speakers present their content. Then they try to emulate them.
True, if you have a trained ear, you’ll notice the “grammar black holes” all over. But who cares. So far as you can make enough sense and you’re giving your audience the kind of super-useful information that makes them care very little about the quality of your English, you’re going to go places.
Over time, that’s if you keep going, your English is going to get better and better, trust me.
You may even decide to add a podcast if you have the means and the time.
13. Visit the British Council Website
You will find a lot of English learning resources on the British Council website. And it’s good to know that almost everything there is free to use.
14. Subscribe to Voice of America
When you subscribe to the Voice of America newsletter, they send you tons of practical English learning materials.
Just remember that much as there are some areas of difference between the British and American varieties of English, the rules are basically the same. And the cominng of the internet is gradually bridging the gap between these two major varieties of English. So there’s no need to fret about the differences.
15. Watch English movies with your ears too
I tell those I teach in my English for Life course not to watch their movies with their eyes and open mouths only. I sometimes catch myself with my mouth open when a movie gets really interesting. It happens to many others too.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ll advise that each time you’re watching your favourite Netflix movie or TV sitcom pay attention with your ears too. Listen to how actors express themselves. Trust me, there are powerful and some of the most effective expressions to pick from movies.
16. Get an English expressions notebook or software
So what do you do with what you’ve been able to pick from all these sources I’ve mentioned? In order not to forget them easily, it’s good to use and repeat them in your own English speaking and writing. But you need to write them down first. This is why you must always have a handy English expression notebook or software around. You really need to put down the following for future reference and personal use.
- Idioms
- Proverbs and other wise sayings
- Figures of speech
- Phrasal verbs
- Other interesting fixed constructions
- Quotes. Yes you need to love quotes to a fault to up your English learning game.
17. Enjoy yourself
Finally, avoid taking yourself too seriously. The best way to learn a language is the fun way. Forgive yourself for your lack of progress in certain areas. Just keep going in spite of the inevitable setbacks. This is how all the people you admire for their impeccable English have been able to do it. You too have what it takes to get there, trust me.
Final thoughts
The above tips on how to learn English by yourself should help you to become a better speaker and writer of English. It doesn’t matter whichever part of the world you come from. And, don’t forget. Always practice what you’re learning with all boldness.
Find out how to overcome the fear of speaking English in public. Do you need more convincing about why you need to learn English as a second or foreign language? Check out this post.
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