Study skills tips

Read the study skills tips to practise and improve your reading skills. You'll learn some great study tips at the same time!

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.

Preparation

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Reading text

Many studies about language learning ask the question: What makes a good language learner? There are some things that good language learners do and some things they don't do. Here are some of the most useful suggestions from studies.

Don't be afraid of making mistakes. People often get things wrong. Good language learners notice their mistakes and learn from them.
Do group activities. People use language to communicate with other people. A good language learner always looks for opportunities to talk with other students.
Make notes during every class. Notes help you to remember new language. Look at your notes when you do your homework.
Use a dictionary. Good language learners often use dictionaries to check the meaning of words they don't know. They also make their own vocabulary lists.
Think in the language you're learning outside the classroom. When you're shopping or walking down the street, remember useful words and phrases. Sometimes, when you're at home, say new words to practise your pronunciation.
Do extra practice. Test and improve your language, reading and listening skills with self-study material. You can find a lot of this online.
Imagine yourself speaking in the language. Many good language learners can see and hear themselves speaking in the language. This helps their motivation.
Enjoy the process. Good language learners have fun with the language. Watch a TV series or film, listen to songs, play video games or read a book. It's never too late to become a good language learner.

Task 1

Exercise

Task 2

Exercise

Discussion

What other tips do you have for learning a new language?

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Language level

A2 - Pre-intermediate

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I think it's important to watch dramas and movies and listen to music in that country. I started studying Korean and Malay at university. I usually listen to K-POP and watch Korean dramas. This is very useful for class. It also improves my listening ability.

Hello. When I was high school student, I sang an English song in an English class. The song was "papurika". Do you know? I enjoyed singing in English. Now, I studies English watching many times my favorite movie. I think Japanese people should speak English more. Therefore, English conversation is one way to improve your speaking English skill. I want to talk with foreign people. I want to go to university and I do talk with international students.

I think listening to music and watching dramas from foreign countries are good for learning foreign languages. If I am interested in foreign culture, I will make progress in my studies of foreign languages.

When learning a new language, it is good to watch movies or listen to music. I also watch interviews with my favorite musicians. Then, look up the word in a dictionary whenever I found one I don't know. These methods improve our listening skills and are fun to learn. I think learning a new language in a fun way will improve our ability. So I actually do them.

I think chatting with foreign friends is good for learn English. There are many app that I can chatting with foreign friends. My favorite app is “Hello talk”. Because there are a lot of foreign people who want to learn Japanese culture. So we can chatting about it to use English. The app is good for make foreign friends and improve my English.

I think watching TV. Some Japanese say that watching TV abroad has made them good at English since they ware little. So I think watching TV is effective.

I think reading foreign books is one way to learn a new language. Reading a book will broaden your worldview and knowledge. It's very difficult to read a literary book suddenly, so it's a good idea to read a picture book. We can find illustration and words unique to that country. In addition, I think that you can learn more about the language by writing sentences and checking the meaning of words. In the case, I thunk it is best to rent it at the library.

I think that the effective study to learn a second language is to review the contents once done. This is because various information such as words, grammars and phrases are combined in the language, and it is important to learn the same content repeatedly to remember that information. However, this study method is very boring. Therefore, in order to reduce boredom as much as possible, it is effective to use things such as novels, movies, and other materials as teaching materials. It allows us to enjoy the content of study because the story is full of charm that we can’t discover just seeing it once.

To improve my English skill, I often watch English movies with English subtitles. I think it's good way. I always try to understand what the characters say in the movies. But I cant understand it perfectly because native speaker speak so fast. If I watch the movie with English subtitles, I can notice that the characters use easier English than I thought it would be. So I can understand more. It's so fun for me. I think it's the best way to improve English skill.

I think watching overseas anime, dramas and movies is one way to learn a new language. If you're still starting to learn a new language, I recommend watching anime because it uses simple words, and when you get used to it, I think it's good to see overseas movies. The above learning method is recommended because it is important to have fun learning the language.