Motivate Yourself to Learn English
How to find the passion to study English.
Learning English can really be fun. You may already have some knowledge of English; perhaps your level is elementary, maybe pre-intermediate, or maybe higher. If you are looking for fresh ideas on how to increase your motivation for studying English, you will want to read on.
Learning a language can be a fascinating journey. It isn’t only sitting in the classroom or poring over grammar books, hour after hour. Learning English, and any other language for that matter, is also discovering and gaining access to the culture of the people who use that language, in our case English.
Learning a language is essentially learning a code, and you are a code breaker, a detective making connections between various aspects of the language. You are gathering ‘intel’ and then connecting the dots. You can think of yourself as James Bond of languages!
Learning a language is essentially learning a code, and you are a code breaker, a detective making connections between various aspects of the language.
When you want to connect better with your language learning experience and feel that you are actually enjoying it, think of all the culture that is hidden behind the curtains of this language.
Which countries is the language being used in? Who are the people? How do they live? How is their culture similar and different to your own? What is their history, their art and literature? What is their pop culture? What music do they make? What are the most spectacular regions of the places where the language is being spoken?
When you start discovering all this, you realise that by learning the language, you are slowly gaining an entrance to the culture of that language. This entrance gets wider and wider the more you learn the language, because you can learn about that culture through the words of the people who live it.
So, if you are trying to learn English, start to learn about the culture and think about what you like about it. Think about which elements of that culture speak to you. You could become very interested in the history of Australia, for example, and its incredible natural world. You dream of visiting it one day so you can experience being close to what fascinates you in that country. Speaking good English will enable you to freely explore it and make the most of it.
So, if you are trying to learn English, start to learn about the culture and think about what you like about it.
You might become interested in astronomy and Nasa. They are based in the USA and knowing English will help you access their original website and all the social media in English. You won’t need to use online translation, which can make the process less enjoyable and fun.
Or maybe you have always been interested in British history and culture. By learning English, you are getting closer to that history, that culture. You are gaining access to all the content that is written solely in English.
Summing up this first part of the article, find out what interests you in the people and culture of the English-speaking world.
The second part is: learn to have fun with English. Cherish the process of learning, and don’t feel bad when you don’t understand something the first time. Be persistent and keep searching for answers.
Organise your learning the way you like and enjoy. If you love notebooks, why not start your own notebook for learning English? You can, in fact, have several notebooks. One can be where you learn new things about grammar. Another one can be where you write down, draw, doodle and organise all the new vocabulary. Learn how to set up a fun and interesting vocabulary notebook.
If you love notebooks, why not start your own notebook for learning English?
Still another notebook can be where you write down all the interesting things you learn about some aspect of the English-speaking world that interest you. Perhaps you are very interested in diving and would love to one day go scuba diving off the shores of Australia? You could have a notebook where you write down all the interesting things about the best places to dive, the animals that live in those waters, what the different parts of the diving equipment are called in English, who the best diving instructors are in Australia, and so on.
The possibilities for finding something that interests you are huge. If you connect with this, it will become your motivation to learn English better, learn more. You will want to become as good in English as can be because you will realise that knowing English will open the doors to access this huge, interesting world.
Written by Joanna Bartosz-Donohoe, owner of Anglica Language School
