What language-learning luggage can you leave behind?

Do you have some beliefs about language learning that are holding you back from making progress in English?

Like Valérie for whom communicating in English with clients and colleagues in her physiotherapy clinic is a strain. She wants to speak and write more easily, yet it’s soooooo hard to move forward.

Here are 5 beliefs that keep pulling her down.

Do any of them sound familiar?

1. I’m no good at learning languages.

Maybe you’ve tried learning several languages and never gotten very far. This doesn’t mean you’re no good at languages.

As there are many approaches to learning, you haven’t yet found the way that suits you best.

You can ask me for advice.

2. I’m too old to improve my English.

Remembering new expressions may take longer because you already have a wealth of knowledge stored in your mental “filing cabinet”. So finding the right phrase means sifting through more information.

You can speed up retrieval with short but regular practice.

3. I’ll never be able to speak English fluently.

You’ve been learning English since forever and still you stumble and make silly mistakes.

Get some feedback to find the mistakes you keep repeating, figure out where you’re going wrong and fix it.

You can also use techniques like this one to prepare for speaking.

4. I need lots of grammar – boring!

Grammar’s only part of the picture and you don’t have to spend ages labouring over grammar exercises. Instead, you can improve your English by writing and reading real texts.

You can find ideas here.

5. I don’t have any time.

This is everyone’s bugbear (problem). But you don’t need to find one-hour chunks several times a week to work on English.

You can use the snowball strategy to slowly build up a training programme doing fun stuff.

So which one is your excuse?

And are you ready to leave this excess baggage behind and move forward to communicate with comfort and confidence for your job?

Need help? Get in touch.

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