G'day, how are you going, everyone? Today, I am going to discuss my method to get good habits of using English wherever I am. Are you using English on a daily basis? It's worth changing your prior habits of not using English. What am I doing, then? Let me elucidate what my habits are.
First and foremost, here are some prerequisites for changing my habits: having all basic skills including English grammar, a wide range of active vocabularies, etymological knowledge, and correct pronunciation, etc.
You don't necessarily need all of them, but personally I've acquired them because it is plausible that you have them for using English freely in your daily life. For instance, if you persist mispronouncing some particular sounds, you might feel frustrated yourself. If you persist making grammatical mistakes all the time, you reckon you sort of stop talking intermittently, or you might translate into your language first, interpret and then retranslate into English, which terribly hampers your precious time a day. So ideally, making sure you try to have these basic skills before getting good habits of using English.
When I'm free or bored, I always contemplate something in English, which helps not only come up with an unexpected idea, but veg out in a productive way
Don't waste your time doing nothing at home unless you are horribly sick or something. You being bored doesn't mean you can't do anything. You can do think and subvocalise something in English, which is kind of fun, I suppose. You surely do in you language. The same way shall just be applied to the English language. For instance, assuming I am too famished I need to eat some nibbles before lunch, I might ponder what I want to munch, or where I want to have them, and so on and so forth. In doing so, I am getting into the habit of using English.
Trying to garner information as much as I possibly can is an excellent preparation for online chat with a friend of mine
I can hardly continuously speak English without having any knowledge and information, so I am almost never lazy to read books, watch news, research something in English. What I normally do is to read all mail magazines that I receive every morning, check all Australian newspapers, and watch some useful English YouTube videos. The more you read English articles, the more sophisticated your speaking contents will be, the less hesitation and unnecessary pause you will have during your online chat.
When I am watching news such as ABC news 24 (Australia), I always try to participate in sort of virtual discussion with the anchors on telly
Believe me, this is really an excellent training for your English learning. Even though you can't really be on telly, you just try to imagine as if you are one of the guests on a news program and being interviewed with the ABC anchor now. When the anchor is asking some questions, you ignore the real interviewee on telly, instead you start answering the questions. It doesn't really matter whether it does work or not, because, of course, the anchor won't react to your answers due to the nature of such a virtual tour. Don't worry about it. You just speak your mind. In doing so, you can definitely improve your listening skills, do active listening, boost a large repertoire of English idioms and vocabularies. And, ultimately speaking, you have nothing to lose joining this virtual discussion, whereas you have much to lose not saying anything.
When I work out some exercises, I try to explain the procedures of what and how I am working out
As I mentioned before, I am not encouraging English learners to listen to English podcast, radio or even watch TV during your work-out. By contrast, I'd like you to vocalise things pertaining to the procedures of what you are exercising, which helps not merely change your habit of using English, but enjoy your work-out in a more productive way. For instance, when I am working out, I'd say like 'ok now I am bending my legs like this, and then stretch these further, and blah blah blah... Don't worry too much about grammar, vocabularies, but at least make sure you speak clearly and intensively. Mumbling doesn't help a lot for sure. If you're, of course, working out heavy stuff, do not speak in order to avoid accidents.
That's all for today. Thanks for reading!
Have a great weekend!