Welcome to

The Pending Subject Newsletter

Every Thursday you will receive:

• Tips to improve your English
• English language content to keep you in touch with the language
• A weekly challenge to keep you progressing
• A quote to inspire your learning

Insufficient time. Not knowing how to improve. Insufficient confidence.

These are the three things that students say stop them from making progress in their English learning. Maybe you have said the same? Maybe you have said one or two of the three? I would almost guarantee that one of these defences has come out your mouth to explain your stagnation (lack of growth) when learning English.

I have good news though.

The problems: Insufficient time; not knowing how to improve; insufficient confidence, are all related, therefore the solution is easier.

When you learn how to use your time you can learn how to improve your English using that time (and I only mean five minutes per day to start with), and when you know how to improve then when you do improve, your confidence will grow.

It is all related.

So: How can you learn to use your time effectively? How can you learn how to learn? And how can you improve your confidence?

Read on to find out...

TIPS

1. Start small and habit stack! I have said many times that a habit needs to be established before it can be improved. That means starting small. With as little as five minutes per day you can be productive and work towards your goal. Habit stacking means adding one habit to another. If you drink a coffee every morning, maybe you can use the five minutes you spend sitting and drinking to read an article, watch a video, or review some vocabulary...
2. Know your goal: When you know your goal and the actions you need to take to achieve that goal, you can establish a plan of how to use your time effectively (remember: just five minutes per day to begin with) to work towards that goal.
3. Track your progress to gain confidence: I don't mean you have to write a diary about what you do. An example of tracking your progress could be: On Day One, maybe you can speak about a picture for 30 seconds. By Day 30, maybe you can speak about the same picture for three minutes. That improvement will give you a lot of confidence! You will not only feel your progress, it will be demonstrated in numbers (duration).

CONTENT

1. Sentence tricks: WHEN I DO X I WILL DO Y... BEFORE I DO X I WILL DO Y... AFTER I DO X I WILL DO Y... These 'tricks' are great for habit stacking and are very effective for connecting a new habit to an existing one.
2. On a piece of paper write your objective in the middle. For example: Speak with confidence in public. Then, write 10 actions (or as many as possible) that will help you reach that objective. For example: Speak for one minute about an object in my house every day; watch a Ted Talk every day; learn everything about the subject I need to speak about... Then draw a circle around the ones you think are the easiest to do... Then put a star next to the ones you think will be the most-effective actions... The ones with the star AND the circle will be the ones that will help you reach your objective.
3. ​The Picture Prompts section of The New York Times is a great activity to gain speaking confidence...

A CHALLENGE

Now you know how to progress, start by acting. You need to know why you are learning (your goal) and then you need to take action to progress towards your goal. You have time, because you can 'habit stack.' And when you act your confidence will improve...

You just need to start...

(A great place to start is the 5-5-5 Progress Plan).

AN INSPIRING QUOTE

"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect." Ronald Reagan.

Don't put any barriers on your progress!

If you really want to learn English, you can also read the How to (finally) learn English book:

​https://benpalmercoach.com/books/​

Out now on Amazon!

Find out more at https://benpalmercoach.com/​

Until next week,

Ben

PS: Keep learning!