| Back to Back Issues Page | ||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
How to be a Smart Cookie in 2014 January 14, 2014 |
||||||||
January 14, 2014 Dear,
Happy New Year! Listen to the audio version here. I am very excited to be sending you this newsletter because the results are in! I asked you what I should call my newsletter subscribers (over 6000 people...make that over 7000!) and I've got the results for you. ...
Well, that you are intelligent, persistent, motivated and determined. These are all qualities that any language learner needs to possess.
It is clear to me that you are much more than "students". You are loving, caring and compassionate people who love English and who want to excel at it. But enough about names and labels for now, let's get to your English. With the new year, many of you probably made the New Year's resolution to "Improve your English". Although it is a great idea and I know you want to do just that, your goal is setting you up for failure. You see, "Improving your English" is not a tangible goal. Meaning, you can not see or measure when this goal is achieved. In order to stay motivated and keep progressing, you need to focus your goals on smaller action steps that can be measured. 
For example, one of my B1.1 online students told me that he wanted, "to be able to understand spoken conversations". You might think this is specific enough (as it is focusing on oral English) but how are you going to know when you have achieved this goal? We worked together to make his goal more specific and tangible and this is what we came up with... "I want to be able to understand everything you (Diana) say during one of our one hour long classes". That is much more specific and easier to measure. He can ask himself "How much did I understand today?" and get a feel for his level of understanding. Right now he "feels" like he only understands 20%. That may or may not be true, but how he feels is the most important part. Every week or month he can check in and ask himself how much he has understood, and he will be able to see if/how much he is improving. Another idea to make your new years resolutions successful is to break down larger goals into smaller action steps. "Richard Wiseman (a professor of psychology who has studied New Year’s resolutions, and offers sound advice on how to stick to them) found people tended to be a bit more successful if they set achievable goals, broke them down [separated them] into doable steps, told their friends about their plans, and rewarded themselves for successes. It’s also very important to be aware that we all occasionally make mistakes. People who are successful in achieving their resolutions tend to accept this fact." Read the whole article here at "The Conversation". So what action steps can we get from Wiseman to make our New Years Resolutions work? 1) Set achievable goals If you do those 5 steps you will start 2014 off to a great start. Number 3 is especially important. Why not visit the website and share your specific and achievable goals with us.? Share your goals today and make 2014 the year of change! Just one more thing. Remember...
All the best, Want to make a suggestion? Click here to submit your comments or ideas and in less than a minute you will have helped me make this website more useful for you!
www.helping-you-learn-english.com
www.facebook.com/helpingyoulearnenglish www.twitter.com/Englishcoach www.youtube.com/user/howtolearnenglish
eEnglish and Pronunciation Power 1 & 2 
Why Using English Harmony Should Be a Priority!1) It saves you time. It only teaches you useful expressions and word chunks (groups of words) and it does it all through listening and speaking.2) The confidence mentor DVD helps you believe in yourself and think positively. It allows you to ignore the negative beliefs that you may be holding about your English. 3) Robby's eBook provides some new insights into the process of learning a language and also talks about how the learning English industry is setting learners up to fail. (A great read!) It is such a great book that I recorded it so you can listen at the same time as you read it. You will receive the MP3 of me reading Robby's eBook "English Harmony: Insiders Secrets" when you purchase English Harmony (...my special gift for my newsletter subscribers!)
In my next newsletter I will show you what tapping is and how to use it when improving your English. Also I wanted to let you know that "The Learn English Corner" Social Cafe is officially closed. I have been trying to keep it alive for over 3 years but it never seemed to be active enough. If you are looking for an ESL cafe or social group to join I would highly recommend My English Club. I am a member and you can see me here at my blog.
**If you have any comments or feedback about this newsletter please send me a message via this form. Please Help! Encourage others to sign-up for this free newsletter by sending them to www.helping-you-learn-english.com/english-newsletter.html We have officially hit 7000! Subscribers! Let's try for 8000! Just tell 3 more people about this newsletter and encourage them to sign up! Have a wonderful day. -Diana
|
||||||||
| Back to Back Issues Page |
