How to Learn English From Home
Sabrena Doherty 
Learning English from home is easy! If you know how. In this blog post we will have a look at 4 ways you can learn English from home.
NOTE: These blogs are to help you improve your English. As with most reading exercises in English, you do not need to understand every word, you only need to understand enough to know what is happening, and please use a translator like DeepL if you need to. If you stop to translate every word while you are reading, the task will be difficult and you will become bored.
A lot of people ask how they can learn English from home, without having to go out to meet people, join activities, or go out to classes. The good news is - Easily! If you know how. In this blog, we will briefly talk about 4 ways to learn English from home, no matter what your level is and what area you need to improve.
- Classes or language exchange online
- Listening
- Using online courses, websites, and apps
- Reading
- Classes or Language Exchange Online.
If you don't want to go out to classes or to meet people to practice your English, but you need classes to help you improve or you need to improve your speaking, then you can have classes or language exchanges online. It is much easier than you think, even if you are not used to using online platforms like Zoom or Skype, and it only takes a few classes to get accustomed to doing it.
The other big advantage is obviously that you save time on travelling and parking, and you can be more comfortable in your own home.If the cost of classes is an issue, or if you are looking for extra ways to improve your conversation skills, you could look at websites such as tusclasesparticulares.com to find someone who wants to do a language exchange with you. The idea is that you speak your language with them, then they speak English with you. This is one of the ways we first learned Spanish - we would meet a Spanish couple and speak a mixture of Spanish and English. If it is online, you can meet for one hour, for example, and speak in one language for 30 minutes.
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2. Listening.
Our second piece of advice today to improve your English from home is to listen or watch material in English.
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Watching a series or movies in English is great because you hear expressions and vocabulary that are regularly used (unless you watch a period drama for example, where the English could be more old-fashioned). Besides that, you can get used to different accents, and you see English in action. Although many people say it is a bad idea to use subtitles while you are watching TV to improve your English, I disagree. The reason I think it is a good idea is that if you don't understand what they are saying on the screen, you will become bored quickly and not want to continue with this exercise as a way to improve your English. Also, if you are at a stage where you don´t understand much, you NEED subtitles to help you until you reach a stage where you CAN understand a bit more and be able to follow the story. You can start by using subtitles in your own language until you are more confident, then you can move to subtitles in English, and the final step is NO SUBTITLES - YAY! It should be noted that you don't need to understand everything, just enough so that you can follow the story. I should also mention that some shows are easier to understand than others, so don't feel bad if you could understand well yesterday, but today it is more difficult.
Another way to improve your understanding is by listening - you can do this by listening to a podcast on a topic that you like, or one dedicated to helping you improve your English. I like to use Spotify. Besides podcasts, you could listen to Youtube, where you can find videos on any topic you could think of (you can find more than 50 videos to improve your English on our channel here). Other ideas are book audios that you can listen to and listening to the radio if you can get a station in English.
Before the pandemic, I used to listen to the radio in Spanish on my commute to and from work - a total of 30 minutes per day - and it absolutely improved my understanding, even though I wouldn't be concentrating 100% all of the time.
3. Using online courses, websites and applications can be a good way to study from home. You can do this casually by searching for what you want to learn and learning from random websites. Alternatively, you can download an English Learning app that you can do daily to help you improve, or join a specific online programme. For me personally, I find it easier to follow one or 2 people to help me in course creating as I felt overwhelmed with all the information out there. This way I am learning from one, excellent source instead of receiving too much information from every corner, which can be overwhelming.
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4. Reading can be a good way to improve your English. You can start with beginner books in English if you have a low level at the minute, and progress to more difficult books as you improve. You can also read blogs like this regularly to help you improve your reading AND knowledge in particular topics (in this case, how to improve your English). I advise you not to read classic novels as the English can be quite difficult, and try to preview a book before you buy it - this way you will be able to see if it is too difficult (or boring) for you.
One thing you should do is to change the language settings on your devices to English, and when you search for something, search for it in English - this way your results will be in English, and you will, by default, be reading more in English.
You could also choose to buy an academic book to help you improve your English. Some people still prefer to have a physical book to follow when they study. Search for a book on google until you find one that is suitable for you.
To summarise, nowadays it is very easy to improve your English from the comfort of your own home. However, to be effective, you need to plan. If it means dedicating one hour every evening to something SOMETHING in English, like watching a series or listening to a podcast, or setting daily reminders to use your chosen English application or doing your online course, you need to plan ahead. Motivation will help you for the first few days, but if you don't plan, and therefore create a habit, you are unlikely to continue with your learning. Also, having a commitment to something, and being accountable, helps you to stay motivated.
Remember, however you choose to improve, do a little every single day - improving your English will not happen overnight but it WILL happen if you are consistent and persistent.
This video from our Youtube channel talks about some useful English learning websites:
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Categories: : Improve Your English, Listening & Speaking