LEARNING TIPS: THE VARIABLE OF TIME

Good morning everybody. I hope you enjoyed your weekend.

As you know, this week we will be focusing on different aspects of learning English, based on the most important concerns expressed in your testimonies. Today we focus on the variable of time.

How much real practice do you get with English when you study in a traditional academy? If you're not working outside of class, you probably only get between 2 and 8 days of practice per year! In other words, a year in a typical English academy is the equivalent of spending only one week in London!! Do you find this hard to believe? Well, it's true.

Remember that most programmes include 120 hours of class per year. So how many days are 120 hours? Well, although there are 24 hours in a day, the average person is only awake about 15 hours per day. If we divide 120 hours by 15 hours/day we get only 8 days (120/15=8).

So, a 120-hour English programme is the equivalent of a maximum of 8 days practice. That's not very much.

But it gets worse. According to studies, the average class only provides students with about 10 to 15 minutes of real practice with English. If you think about it, this isn't a surprising statistic; classes start late, there are interruptions, you are often listening to the teacher talk or watching other students talking or participating, there are cancellations, etc. So in reality, unless you are working outside of class, in a traditional academy course you are probably really only getting about 30 hours of practice. That's only about 2 days of practice during the whole year! How much would you expect to learn if you spent a weekend in Sydney, London or New York?

CONCLUSION 1: Class is not enough. If you want to make progress, and if you want to maintain what you've already learned, working outside of class a few minutes per day is very important.

As we will begin to see tomorrow, this doesn't necessarily require a lot of time and it isn't difficult, if you are properly guided and self-motivated (or if you have someone to keep you motivated).

Enjoy your day!