New Year resolutions have a rather bad press. Maybe you are, just like me not long ago, one of those who every New Year's Eve think something like "this year I will definitely do this gym thing, I'll go everyday, honest!!". I think we all have excitedly and purposedly, set out, on our way to a better "us", to spectacularly fail just a few days into the brand new year. This, of course, leads to a feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction, which is not actually the best way to start anything, let alone a new, full of hope and new opportunities, year.
Well, all of this can change, and my strategy to it is simple. I haven't given up on new year resolutions, I like the motivation of new challenges, but after miserably failing year after year and fed up of never achieving my purposes, my new year now really starts with the new course, right about september, and I take small but steady steps towards my objective... It is then that I set my goals and aims for the year, and make my way towards a better me. Then, by the new year, unless I get something terribly wrong, I will probably have made some progress, right? Simple but, at least for me, super-effective. Small but steady steps make a long but sure way to success. Also, it does no good to punish yourself when you don't meet one of those little steps. Just breathe, chin up, and go for it!
Now, lets talk about English and what could be your new year's resolution. I often tell my students not to do a lot of hours of study in a short period of time , but to study steadily, be constant, make English a part of your life and your routine. As an English teacher I know that nowadays there is so much easily accesible material out there that it is really easy, "piece of cake" as the brits say, to do this in a fun way. You can play songs with apps that allow you to listen and fill gaps in the lyrics at the same time, therefore you are improving on your listening skills with your favourite songs. You can also watch Tv series or films in the original version through some platforms or apps, some of which even allow you to slow it down a little bit, just enough to give you time to process the sentences, as well as translating the words just by clicking on them. Grammar is easy to practice through plenty of platforms . Even speaking can be improved through repetition with programs that correct your pronunciation or can even answer you. Most of the previous mentioned, by the way, are free if you have internet access. And with the weekly guidance of an expert and all of this material you are sure on your way!
Reading is in my opinion the best thing you can do, for many things, but it is certainly incredibly good in order to learn a foreing language and in particular improve your English, and a huge selection of adapted books and audio books are available for this.
Just by choosing some of these things, any of them, every day or at least 5 of the 7 days of the week, and doing 10 or 15 minutes of it per day, you will improve much more than doing 2 hours one day per week.
Go ahead, try it, get a book and start with one page per day, or one song per night, maybe this can be the one new year resolution that you can keep and feel happy with way into this new year, and I can certainly promess you that your English will get better much faster:)