Patty, the Academic Director for GV Caloundra, has passed on some great study tips to help you get the most out of your time whilst at Global Village.
Learning a second language can be fun and easy for some but difficult for others. For most of us it doesn’t happen over night and it takes lots of practice.
We all learn differently and have preferred ways of studying but one thing that would really help you improve your English is to keep a study journal. It’s an easy way to monitor your progress. It allows you to assess what works and doesn’t work for you and it makes you take responsibility for your learning.
I am sure you have your own ideas about how you like to study and the types of activities you enjoy doing and don’t enjoy doing.
It is important, however, to think about whether or not you have been successful doing these activities or if you should try something new, if you should use different strategies to help you reach your goal. If you are serious about trying to improve in a particular area you should set an achievable goal and then think about how you are going to do it.
If improving your listening is your goal then think about which area of ‘listening’ you are weakest in. Do you need to improve; listening for specific information or general ideas? Once you have decided there are many different types of exercises you could do.
- A good website you can access is http://www.abc.net.au/news/btn/topics.html
(There are even lessons and questions provided if you are interested. This website would probably suit Pre-Intermediate to Intermediate students.)
- For something a little more challenging you can access the following website for IELTS – listening exercises http://www.ielts-exam.net
(This would be suitable for Intermediate to Advanced students.)
- Of course, there are fun ways to improve your listening like watching movies, DVDs, (but without subtitles because the purpose is to improve your listening not your reading) and downloading lyrics to popular songs and creating your own gap-fill exercises.
You can use the template below as a starting point. It can be as detailed as you choose it to be.
Remember we are here to help so ask your teacher for some advice!
