‘I always couldn't understand at first, but my teacher said don't be afraid of making mistakes, listen more and talk more. I would listen to stories and dialogues with headphones every day, and slowly, I felt like I understood some of them! Then I would use the words I learnt to communicate with others, even if they were simple. In this way my pronunciation and use of words became more and more natural.’

Use games to remember words

‘Sometimes it's super hard to remember words, but the teacher uses games to help us remember. My favourite ones are competitions to see who remembers more, or playing matching games with flashcards, and when I'm having fun I don't even realise I've memorised all the words!’

Learning through stories

‘In class, we sometimes read storybooks which will have lots of words I haven't learnt before, but the teacher will explain them for me. This method was fun! I would write down the new words I learnt and would make up my own similar stories so that the words were easier to remember.’

Role-playing to practice dialogues

‘The teacher let us have role-play dialogues and I could be the ‘customer’ or the ‘shopkeeper’. I would be a bit shy at first, but after that I was more natural, and I learnt a lot of practical sentences, such as those for ordering food and asking for directions.’

Revise in your own way

‘I found that I like to make diagrams to remember grammar and sentence patterns. For example, I'll mark the structure of different sentences in different colours so that I can see them at a glance when I'm revising! Everyone has their own way of studying and I think it's especially important to find the right method for you.’

Stick to learning a little bit every day

‘I will spend a little time practising every day. It may only be 10 minutes, but it feels like a lot of progress over a long period of time. What I learnt is more solid, even if it's a short period of time, but I can stick to it every day!’