Shivali Nayak and Allison Chan, ABC Education

Posted Thu 26 Oct 2017, 11:51am

Updated Tue 30 Jan 2018, 9:42am
https://www.abc.net.au/education/learn-english/five-ways-to-improve-your-english-by-yourself/9085604

Learning English by yourself can be a challenge but it is possible. There are ways you can improve your reading, writing, listening and speaking skills — even though there is no-one physically around you to help you practise.

Virginia Lang, an Australian English teacher, shares her tips on improving your English by yourself:

Whether it be grammar or vocabulary, memorisation is a part of learning English. Memorisation can also be hard and boring, so Virginia Lang has a number of creative solutions for students.

"Get post-it notes and label everything in your house. Every time you associate that object with the word, you’re more likely to remember it."

English has a number of grammar rules, which students often find difficult to remember.
"You can put them in a place where you’re going to spend a lot of time — possibly the bathroom or your bedroom — where you can remind yourself of those rules," says Virginia.

"It’s one thing to learn it; it’s another thing to retain it."

You can write vocabulary and grammar rules on post-it notes and put them up around your home.

Starting an online blog or journal can be a simple (and free) way to develop you writing skills.

"Start small. Maybe start with some photos and a caption."

Once you have become comfortable with small writing tasks, such as captions, you can then move onto sentences and then hopefully paragraphs.
Virginia also suggests that you find ways to proofread or edit your writing: "You can use spellcheck, you can check it yourself, you can get another English speaker to help you."

You can start a blog by yourself and improve your English at the same time.

We all use our phones and other devices (such as laptops or computers) multiple times a day.

Virginia advises students to change the default language settings on their devices and apps to English.

"It forces you to think in English all the time."

"It will help you to improve more quickly," explains Virginia.

Could you still use the apps on your phone if they were all in English?

Reading is an important skill and it also helps your writing skills as well. In order to sustain your learning, Virginia recommends connecting reading with your passions.

"Read something you’re interested in. If you’re into sport, read a sports magazine."

When you read, do it actively and consider the tools that you can use while reading.

"Highlighters are great for highlighting new words that you don’t know. Have a good online dictionary or have a good paper dictionary as you’re reading, so you can check the definition and put it to memory as well," suggests Virginia.

Reading English articles and magazines on topics that interest you.

Listening to podcasts and watching videos and television in English are all useful ways to improve your English by yourself. Virginia recommends extending your learning by either writing down or saying aloud summaries of what you have heard or watched.

With its flexibility and widespread adoption, mobile learning is becoming the dominant form of eLearning.

In this article, I want to share my list of top mobile learning trends that you should adopt in 2021 to influence your training.

Modern learners do not like the traditional training formats that tend to be prescriptive and want training to be easily accessible or instant access to the training. The year 2020 marks the acceleration of this learning and its adoption among the learners due to the COVID-19 global pandemic to a must-have learning or training platform.

With the increasing demand for continuous learning and building skills, mobile learning seems to be a great platform for modern learners. Let’s see the top trends of this learning.

Today’s learners prefer learning on the go and mobile learning apps are able to provide instant courses, microlearning training, quizzes, and many more to facilitate active learning. Mobile apps are easily accessible over smartphones by the learners. These native mobile apps help learners to access their courses and training from remote locations or on-the-go to improve their skills. Native apps can be easily customized to reinforce learning and provide training to the learners. Thus, mobile apps are perfect for modern learners.

Most L&D teams have to struggle to provide personalized courses for the learners. Personalized courses are essential for any type of training, and more so for skills building. This learning is designed to make the training and courses more personalized for the learners. L&D teams can generate personalized courses due to their short learning format. Thus, mobile learning due to its personalized courses can be used for on-the-job training. This is why mobile learning with personalized courses are going to be popular in the future.

We all have come across chatbots. Remember…a customized bot is always ready to help you whenever you visit a site or an app. The same chatbots are being used by the L&D professionals to answer specific questions of a learner. These AI chatbots can be transformed into a virtual coach that can provide specific question answers to provide more ease in the training and guides the learners in building skill sets.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are the latest technologies that add a more digital touch to your mobile learning. These two elements are helping the professionals to simplify their training needs. It adds more specific and real-life objects with computer graphics to present the training in a more simplified way. Thus, AR and VR are becoming more important in providing training to the learners in a more illustrating way.

This learning is designed to provide a better learning experience to the learners. If your learners are not engaging with your courses then designing a better learning experience can help you in providing a better engagement to the learners. Enabling your learners to provide instant learning even in the offline mode is the key aspect of designing mobile learning courses for the learners. Thus, a better learning experience can make your mobile learning more popular among the learners. 

Mobile learning is turning dreams into reality by delivering a variety of skill-based training to the learners on-the-go. Following these trends in your training strategy, this year can be more helpful to reach your training goals. We at WPLMS provide you with the best mobile training platform for your eLearning courses.

Neuroscience has taught us a lot about how our brains process and hold on to information.

Deep Patel

Serial Entrepreneur

November 21, 2018 8 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/323450

Learning new things is a huge part of life -- we should always be striving to learn and grow. But it takes time, and time is precious. So how can you make the most of your time by speeding up the learning process? Thanks to neuroscience, we now have a better understanding of how we learn and the most effective ways our brains process and hold on to information.
If you want to get a jump start on expanding your knowledge, here are 10 proven ways you can start learning faster today.

1. Take notes with pen and paper.
Though it might seem that typing your notes on a laptop during a conference or lecture will be more thorough, thus helping you learn faster, it doesn’t work that way. To speed up your learning, skip the laptop and take notes the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. Research has shown that those who type in their lecture notes process and retain the information at a lower level. Those who take notes by hand actually learn more.

While taking notes by hand is slower and more cumbersome than typing, the act of writing out the information fosters comprehension and retention. Reframing the information in your own words helps you retain the information longer, meaning you’ll have better recall and will perform better on tests.

2. Have effective note-taking skills.
The better your notes are, the faster you’ll learn. Knowing how to take thorough and accurate notes will help you remember concepts, gain a deeper understanding of the topic and develop meaningful learning skills. So, before you learn a new topic, make sure you learn different strategies for note taking, such as the Cornell Method, which helps you organize class notes into easily digestible summaries.
Whatever method you use, some basic tips for note taking include:
Listen and take notes in your own words.

3. Distributed practice.
This method involves distributing multiple practices (or study sessions) on a topic over a period of time. Using short, spaced-out study sessions will encourage meaningful learning, as opposed to long “cram sessions,” which promote rote learning. The first step is to take thorough notes while the topic is being discussed. Afterward, take a few minutes to look over your notes, making any additions or changes to add detail and ensure accuracy.

Do this quickly, once or twice following each class or period of instruction. Over time, you can begin to spread the sessions out, starting with once per day and eventually moving to three times a week. Spacing out practice over a longer period of time is highly effective, because it’s easier to do small study sessions and you’ll stay motivated to keep learning.

4. Study, sleep, more study.
You have a big project or a major presentation tomorrow and you’re not prepared. If you’re like many of us, you stay up too late trying to cram beforehand. Surely your hard work will be rewarded, even if you’re exhausted the next day… right? However, that’s not the most efficient way for our brains to process information.

Research shows a strong connection between sleep and learning. It seems that getting some shut-eye is an important element in bolstering how our brains remember something. Deep sleep (non-rapid-eye-movement sleep) can strengthen memories if the sleep occurs within 12 hours of learning the new information. And students who both study and get plenty of sleep not only perform better academically; they’re also happier.

5. Modify your practice.
If you're learning a skill, don’t do the same thing over and over. Making slight changes during repeated practice sessions will help you master a skill faster than doing it the same way every time. In one study of people who learned a computer-based motor skill, those who learned a skill and then had a modified practice session where they practiced the skill in a slightly different way performed better than those who repeated the original task over and over.

This only works if the modifications are small -- making big changes in how the skill is performed won’t help. So, for instance, if you’re practicing a new golf swing or perfecting your tennis game, try adjusting the size or weight of your club or racket.

6. Try a mnemonic device.
One of the best ways to memorize a large amount of information quickly is to use a mnemonic device: a pattern of letters, sounds or other associations that assist in learning something. One of the most popular mnemonic devices is one we learned in kindergarten -- the alphabet song. This song helps children remember their “ABCs,” and it remains deeply ingrained in our memory as adults. Another is “i before e except after c” to help us remember a grammar rule.
Mnemonics help you simplify, summarize and compress information to make it easier to learn. It can be really handy for students in medical school or law school, or people studying a new language. So, if you need to memorize and store large amounts of new information, try a mnemonic and you’ll find you remember the information long past your test.

7. Use brain breaks to restore focus.
Information overload is a real thing. In order to learn something new, our brains must send signals to our sensory receptors to save the new information, but stress and overload will prevent your brain from effectively processing and storing information.

When we are confused, anxious or feeling overwhelmed, our brains effectively shut down. You can see this happen when students listening to long, detailed lectures “zone out” and stop paying attention to what’s being said.

They simply aren’t able to effectively conduct that information into their memory banks, so learning shuts down. The best way to combat this is by taking a “brain break,” or simply shifting your activity to focus on something new. Even a five-minute break can relieve brain fatigue and help you refocus.

8. Stay hydrated.
We know we should drink water because it’s good for us -- it’s good for our skin and our immune system, and it keeps our body functioning optimally. But staying hydrated is also key to our cognitive abilities. Drinking water can actually make us smarter. According to one study, students who took water with them to an examination room performed better than those who didn’t.

Dehydration, on the other hand, can seriously affect our mental function. When you fail to drink water, your brain has to work harder than usual.

When you use multiple ways to learn something, you’ll use more regions of the brain to store information about that subject. This makes that information more interconnected and embedded in your brain. It basically creates a redundancy of knowledge within your mind, helping you truly learn the information and not just memorize it.

You can do this by using different media to stimulate different parts of the brain, such as reading notes, reading the textbook, watching a video and listening to a podcast or audio file on the topic. The more resources you use, the faster you’ll learn.

10. Connect what you learn with something you know.
The more you can relate new concepts to ideas that you already understand, the faster the you’ll learn the new information. According to the book Make It Stick, many common study habits are counterproductive. They may create an illusion of mastery, but the information quickly fades from our minds.

Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems we haven’t encountered before and drawing inferences from facts already known. By finding ways to fit new information in with preexisting knowledge, you’ll find additional layers of meaning in the new material. This will help you fundamentally understand it better, and you’ll be able to recall it more accurately.

BY PAUL TURNER
https://www.tefl.net/elt/articles/teacher-technique/7-tricks-to-help-remember-new-words/ 

Words, words, words…so many to learn and it’s so hard to remember them all, let alone use them, right? Well, today I’ve got seven tips that should make learning & remembering new vocabulary easier, faster, more fun, and more effective.

1. Make word association webs – our brain takes what we read and makes it into images, ideas, and feelings etc. and then makes connections between what we knew before and the new information (words and ideas). This is how we remember things. The “new” stuff is fitted into the “old” stuff. Think of a tree. It is easier for you to see a big tree with lots of branches and leaves than it is to see a small tree with very few branches and leaves, right? Well, it’s the same for your brain. When you connect a new word or idea to things you already know you make it easier for your brain to find (see) it when you need to remember it. How can you do this? Easy. Make an Idea Web. Start with the thing you want to remember (words, ideas, sentences) in the middle of a piece of paper. Then draw lines from it like a spider’s web. At the end of the line write down any ideas or words or even pictures that you think of when you say the word or idea in the middle of the page. Anything you think of is ok…just write it down.

This only takes about 2 minutes. Now all the words/ideas are getting connected in your mind. If you see or hear one of them it will help your brain remember all of the others. To make this work really well, you can talk to yourself about how each word/idea fits together with the others. The more you do this, the more connections you make. Lots of connections makes it very easy for your brain to “see” the word you want to recall when you are trying to remember it.

2. Remember in Chunks (collocations) – Remembering the word is important but English, like Chinese, is a language and languages are NOT just facts to be remembered – they are tools for people to USE to express their ideas and communicate. So, find examples of how each word is used in your text. Write a few words before and after the word so that you remember how it is used. For example: if your word is “arrogant” write something like this….”the tall, arrogant man” … This will help you to remember that “arrogant” is an adjective and that it describes people. The next thing to do is to make 3 full sentences with the word to practice using it.

3. Use pictures – Draw small pictures that show the meaning of the word if you can. Sounds crazy, right? That’s why it works. Our brains have so much normal information coming in every moment that a crazy image is a nice surprise – and you always remember surprises, don’t you? Our brains are also specially designed to catch and understand visual information quickly. So, make a funny picture that shows the meaning of the word you want to remember and your brain will remember it easily.

4. Tell a tall story – I always hear my students say that there are too many new words to remember. There’s a memory trick you can use to do this. Just make a crazy story that uses all the words. Picture it in your mind as you make the story. We remember stories easily, especially crazy stories that we can imagine in detail in our minds. Repeat the story and you will remember the words. When you make the story connect the words in funny ways. For example, if you want to remember these 20 words:

shoes, piano, tree, pencil, bird, bus, books, driver, dog, pizza, flower, basketball, door, television, spoons, chair, jump, dance, computer, stone….you could make a story like this:

There is a piano wearing shoes and sitting in a tree. The tree is strange because someone has stuck a giant pencil through it. On the pencil a bird is sitting and watching a bus full of people reading books. Even the driver is reading a book which is bad because he isn’t paying attention to driving. So, he hits a dog that is eating a pizza in the middle of the road and kills it. The driver digs a hole and buries the dog in it and then puts a flower on it. He notices that there is a door in the dog’s grave and opens it. Inside he can see a television with 2 spoons for antennas on top of it. No-one is watching the television because they are all watching the chair. Why? – Because the chair is jumping and dancing and throwing stones at the computer.

Try it. You’ll be surprised!

5. Recycle the pieces – Use roots, prefixes and suffixes to guess what a word means. For example:

Maybe you don’t recognize this word “microbiology” but may be able to guess what it means. First, look at the prefix “micro”. Micro means very small. You may also remember that “ology” means a subject, the study of something. Already we know that part of this word’s meaning is “the study of” + “something small”. Now, you will probably remember that “bio” means living things. So, we can figure out that microbiology probably means the study of very small living things. This is correct. English is like a puzzle – we put the pieces together to make new words. So if you make a list of word beginnings that you often see (un-, dis-, con-, micro-, etc.) and word endings that you often see (-able, -ly, -ent, -tion, -ive, etc.) and remember what they mean, you will be able to guess what many new words mean.

6. Think & learn in opposites – Learn words with opposite meanings (antonyms) and words with similar meanings (synonyms) together. For example, learn angry/happy (antonyms) and angry/cross (synonyms) at the same time. We can remember similar and opposite things more easily because they “stick together” in our minds.

7. Timing is everything – According to psychologists who study how we remember anything, there is a better way to learn things quickly and permanently. Use the new word immediately. Use it 10 minutes later. Use it 1 hour later. Use it 1 day later. Use it 1 week later. After that, you’ll rarely have to review – the new vocabulary is yours forever.

A new English word gets into a dictionary when it is used by many people. And all these people agree that it means the same thing. New words are used in conversation first. One person uses a word, then others pick it up. As a result, its use spreads. The more people use it, the more likely it will be noticed by dictionary editors, or lexicographers. The people work at dictionaries like Merriam-Webster or the Oxford English Dictionary.

So, that doesn’t mean that all the new words in English are widely used in everyday life. Some are, many of them are not. For example, some new words are very specific to a particular occupation. Dentists might use the new word amelogenesis which means “the formation of tooth enamel by ameloblasts.”

There are also words you already know. For instance, the latest update of the Oxford English Dictionary added new English words like banana bread, LOL and plant-based.

Sometimes even slang, like LOL, makes it into the dictionaries as a new English word. Slang is very informal language or specific words used by a group of people. Usually you’ll hear slang in spoken language. You can also come across it in SMS or social media. However, you don’t use slang in formal written work. But, when a word is added to the dictionary as an official English word, you can also use it in written form, for example in your IELTS Writing test.

New English Word | Meaning
A-game | One’s highest level of performance
ambigue | An ambiguous statement or expression.
Anglosphere | English-speaking countries considered collectively (the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and Ireland).
anti-suffragism | Opposition to the extension of the right to vote in political elections to women; the political movement dedicated to this.
Aperol | A proprietary name for  an orange-coloured Italian aperitif flavoured with gentian, rhubarb, and a variety of herbs and roots.
April Fool’s | April Fool’s Day (1 April), a day on which tricks or hoaxes are traditionally perpetrated
ar | Used to express a range of emotions or responses, esp. affirmation, assent, or agreement.
arr | In humorous representations of the speech of pirates expressing approval, triumph, warning, etc.
assault weapon | A weapon designed for use in a large-scale military assault, esp. one used to attack a fortified or well-defended location.
athleisure | Casual, comfortable clothing or footwear designed to be suitable for both exercise and everyday wear
Aucklander | A native or inhabitant of city or region of Auckland, New Zealand.
awedde | Overcome with anger, madness, or distress; insane, mentally disturbed.
awe-inspiringly | So impressively, spectacularly, or formidably as to arouse or inspire awe.
awesomesauce | Extremely good; excellent.
awfulize | To class as awful or terrible
awfy | Terrible, dreadful; remarkable or notable.
awfy | As simple intensive; very, exceedingly, extremely.
bidie-in | A person who lives with his or her partner in a non-marital relationship; a cohabiting partner.
bigsie | Having an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance; arrogant, pretentious, conceited.
bok | A South African
broigus | Angry; irritated
bukateria | A roadside restaurant or street stall with a seating area, selling cooked food at low prices.
by-catch | A catch of unwanted fish
cab sav | Red wine made from the Cabernet Sauvignon grape
cancel culture | Call for the withdrawal of support from a public figure, usually in response to an accusation of a socially unacceptable action or comment.
chicken finger | A narrow strip of chicken meat, esp. from the breast, coated in breadcrumbs or batter and deep-fried.
chicken noodle soup | A soup made with chicken and noodles, sometimes popularly regarded as a remedy for all ailments or valued for its restorative properties
chickie | Used as a term of endearment, especially for a child or woman
chipmunky | Resembling or characteristic of a chipmunk, typically with reference to a person having prominent cheeks or a perky, mischievous character.
chuddies | Short trousers, shorts. Now it usually means underwear; underpants.
contact tracing | The practice of identifying and monitoring individuals who may have had contact with an infectious person
contactless | Not involving contact (physical and technological meanings of contactless are being used much more frequently).
coulrophobia | Extreme or irrational fear of clowns
Covid-19 | An acute respiratory illness in humans caused by a coronavirus, which is capable of producing severe symptoms and death, esp. in the elderly
deepfake | An image or recording that has been convincingly altered to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said
de-extinction | The (proposed or imagined) revival of an extinct species, typically by cloning or selective breeding.
deleter | A person who or thing which deletes something.
delicense | To deprive (a person, business, vehicle, etc.) of a license providing official permission to operate
denialism | The policy or stance of denying the existence or reality of something, esp. something which is supported by the majority of scientific evidence.
denialist | A person who denies the existence or reality of something, esp. something which is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence
destigmatizing | The action or process of removing the negative connotation or social stigma associated with something
dof | Stupid, dim-witted; uninformed, clueless.
droning | The action of using a military drone or a similar commercially available device
e-bike | An electric bike
eco-anxiety | A state of stress caused by concern for the earth’s environment
enoughness | The quality or fact of being enough; sufficiency, adequacy.
Epidemic curve | A visual representation in the form of a graph or chart depicting the onset and progression of an outbreak of disease in a particular population
e-waste | Worthless or inferior electronic text or content
fantoosh | Fancy, showy, flashy; stylish, sophisticated; fashionable, exotic. Often used disparagingly, implying ostentation or pretentiousness.
forehead thermometer | A thermometer that is placed on, passed over, or pointed at the forehead to measure a person’s body temperature.
franger | A condom.
hair doughnut | A doughnut-shaped sponge or similar material used as the support for a doughnut bun or similar updo
hench | Of a person having a powerful, muscular physique; fit, strong.
hir | Used as a gender-neutral possessive adjective (his/her/hir watch). In later use often corresponding to the subjective pronoun ze (he/she/ze wears a watch).
hygge | A Danish word for a quality of cosiness that comes from doing simple things such as lighting candles, baking, or spending time at home with your family
influencer | Someone who affects or changes the way that other people behave:
jerkweed | An obnoxious, detestable, or stupid person (esp. a male). Often as a contemptuous form of address.
kvell | Meaning to talk admiringly, enthusiastically, or proudly about something
kvetchy | Given to or characterized by complaining or criticizing; ill-tempered, irritable.
LOL | To laugh out loud; to be amused.
macaron | A confection consisting of two small, round (usually colourful) biscuits with a meringue-like consistency
MacGyver | To construct, fix, or modify (something) in an improvised or inventive way, typically by making use of whatever items are at hand
mama put | A street vendor, typically a woman, selling cooked food at low prices from a handcart or stall. Also a street stall or roadside restaurant.
mentionitis | A tendency towards repeatedly or habitually mentioning something (esp. the name of a person one is infatuated with), regardless of its relevance to the topic of conversation
microtarget | To direct tailored advertisements, political messages, etc., at (people) based on detailed information about them
misgendering | The action or fact of mistaking or misstating a person’s gender, esp. of addressing or referring to a transgender person in terms that do not reflect…
next tomorrow | The day after tomorrow.
oat milk | A milky liquid prepared from oats, used as a drink and in cooking
onboarding | The action or process of integrating a new employee into an organisation, team, etc
patient zero | Is defined as a person identified as the first to become infected with an illness or disease in an outbreak
pronoid | A person who is convinced of the goodwill of others towards himself or herself
puggle | A young or baby echidna or platypus.
puggle | A dog cross-bred from a pug and a beagle; such dogs considered collectively as a breed.
quilling | The action or practice of bribing electors in order to gain their votes, especially by providing free alcohol
rat tamer | Colloquial meaning for a psychologist or psychiatrist
report | An employee accountable to a particular manager
sadfishing | Colloquial the practice adopted by some people, especially on social media, of exaggerating claims about their emotional problems to generate sympathy
sandboxing | The restriction of a piece of software or code to a specific environment in a computer system in which it can be run securely
schnitty | Colloquial a schnitzel, especially a chicken schnitzel
Segway | A proprietary name for a two-wheeled motorised personal vehicle
self-isolate | To isolate oneself from others deliberately; to undertake self-imposed isolation for a period of time
shero | A female hero; a heroine.
single-use | Designed to be used once and then disposed of or destroyed
skunked | Drunk, intoxicated. In later use also under the influence of marijuana
slow-walk | To delay or prevent the progress of (something) by acting in a deliberately slow manner
social distancing | The action of practice of maintaining a specified physical distance from other people, or of limiting access to and contact between people
stepmonster | Colloquial (humorous) (sometimes derogatory) a stepmother
tag rugby | A non-contact, simplified form of rugby in which the removal of a tag attached to the ball carrier constitutes a tackle
theonomous | Ruled, governed by, or subject to the authority of God
thirstry | Showing a strong desire for attention, approval, or publicity.
title bar | A horizontal bar at the top of a program window, used to display information such as the name of the program in use, the file or web page that is active.
topophilia | Love of, or emotional connection to, a particular place or physical environment
truthiness | A seemingly truthful quality not supported by facts or evidence
UFO | UnFinished Object: In knitting, sewing, quilting, etc.: an unfinished piece of work
unfathom | To come to understand (something mysterious, puzzling, or complicated); to solve (a mystery, etc.)
weak sauce | That lacks power, substance, or credibility; pathetic, worthless; stupid.
WFH | An abbreviation for “working from home.”
WIP | Work in progress
zoodle | A spiralised strand of zucchini, sometimes used as a substitute for pasta