How to Practice Effectively

Everybody welcome back. It’s going to be quite a short lecture today. We’re just going to look at some bits of advice for how you can practice effectively when you study alone. So how to make the most of your self study time. We’re going to look at some do’s and don’ts and we’re going to start by looking at the don’ts to do nots. So here are the things I recommend that you avoid. Do not study with distractions. Make sure you are closing down your internet access. DOn’t HAVE FACEBOOK open don’t have twitter open. If you have a mobile phone. Turn it on silent turn it off May. So make sure you study without distraction so that you can remain focussed. Don’t be too self-critical. Don’t beat yourself up for making mistakes. Mistakes will happen. They’re inevitable. If you weren’t willing to make mistakes you wouldn’t have taken this exam. Okay so mistakes are a good thing. They allow you to learn. Just learn from the mistakes and try to avoid them next time. But don’t beat yourself up about them. Don’t sit around waiting for miracles to happen. It’s very important that you use the advice in these videos and apply it to your study. Don’t just watch the videos and imagine. On the day you’re going to magically create an amazing essay you need to use what is in these videos and apply it to yourself study practice. Don’t study alone. It’s good to study alone sometimes but if possible try to find yourself a study partner. You can motivate one another. You can make comments on one another’s work. You know your steady partner might be able to recognize when you’ve made a mistake when you can’t recognize it. So very useful to study with a friend as well as a light. Don’t forget about timing. We’ve mentioned this before. I recommend that you study with a clock study without a clock study with time limits and study without time limits but make sure you don’t forget about timing. Otherwise you’re going to struggle in the exam to hit that 40 minute time limit. Don’t ignore your health. You’ll sleep or your diet is very important that you stay healthy healthy mind healthy body healthy body a healthy mind so if you have a healthy mind then you’re going to apply yourself to your self study with much more focus and that’s what we want to see. Finally Do not overwork yourself. This is kind of related. Make sure that you are getting enough sleep. Try not to work for any more than two to three hours a day. The more you do past that point is just going to be detrimental. Good I think you can burn yourself out. If you work too hard so don’t overwork yourself. So try to avoid being like this Dill guy on the right here. He’s obviously caught himself in the cycle of distractions that you can sometimes find yourself in when you’re on sites like YouTube and you just scrolling through all those different videos. So make sure that you are being productive with your time. Now this is interesting. This little image on the right here is bar a comic called the oatmeal. The Oatmeal dot com. And funnily enough there are some excellent grammar references on this website. If you’re not sure how to use semicolons go there. If you are not sure how to use the expression I should go there. If you’re not sure how to use apostrophes also talks about that on the on the website so although it looks a little bit funny it’s actually a very good reference source for certain grammar and punctuation points. Let’s move on to the DOS so I recommend that you do shut down all distractions. Now there’s an excellent app called freedom. You just search into Google freedom app and this freedom map will completely shut down all Internet access for you for a specific amount of time that you set and there’s no way that you can turn it back on however badly you want it. You will not be able to turn the Internet back on until that time has passed. So it’s a very good way to avoid all distractions. Make sure you practice in different ways. As I said with a clock without a clock with time limits without time limits alone with a friend study Task 1 then task to maybe then Task 2 and a task one in different orders. Study different parts of the essay the introduction the conclusion the body. Make sure that your study is varied so it doesn’t become boring and monotonous. As I said Make sure you study alone and with the frenzy to motivate one another and check each other’s work. Reward yourself. It’s very important that you feel good about studying that you don’t just think of it as something boring and tedious but that you have something to look forward to at the end of it. Perhaps so reward yourself maybe with a movie or you know with ice cream or whatever whatever whatever you fancy. Make sure you take breaks. It’s very important that you take at least a few minutes every once in a while when you’re working. There’s a very good technique called the I think it’s called the Pomodoro Technique. And basically what that is is you study for 25 minutes and then you take a five minute break and then you study for 25 minutes and then you take a five minute break so you’re working for like 50 minutes out of every hour which is a pretty great rate and it can help you to keep going and keep going. I’ve mentioned it many times during this course but make sure you read read and read some more a variety of different materials on a variety of different topics. This will help you to see the patterns in English and just help you to improve your confidence as well. And lastly get guidance. We’re going to talk about this in a bit more detail in the next lecture but yet very important that you get guidance. All of this is designed to help you stay focussed. It’s all about focus. When you are studying you need to get in the zone in the flow. Now all of these do’s and don’ts will help you to do that. As I mentioned we’re going to look at getting guidance in the next lecture and in that lecture I’m going to show you perhaps the best form of. I didn’t know that you could possibly get in your preparation for a house. So see you in the next lecture.