Category: English Tips

By Daniela Téllez

Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to develop advances and innovations so my country can improve its services and policies for children with disabilities. I was born and raised in a  small city in Mexico. I am the youngest of three siblings and one of them has intellectual disability. These two details about me, and many other experiences through my life, have influenced me in the pursuit of my ideals to thrive in order to help others. 

I have resigned myself to the idea that to accomplish my goals, I must persevere to obtain a higher level of education. It was my dad’s most repeated saying, “Education is the best investment someone can make,” which made me believe in it. I believe that if I invest in my preparation, I can contribute to my city, my country, and my world. 

 I was eighteen years old when I first moved away from home to pursue a degree in psychology. During that time, I also performed my first study abroad in Spain, searching for specialized, scientific, and evidence-based treatments for children with developmental disorders. The experience was inexplicably amazing. I came back home with tons of new ideas, an open mind, and motivation to keep on learning. 

A few months later, while I was doing research, I realized most of the updated papers were in English. At that point, I realized I needed to start my journey of learning the language. In fact, I started considering graduate school in the US. Even when the language was a challenge,  I ended up choosing the US because usually the papers I was interested in were written by authors from recognized universities in this country. Learning English started to become a very interesting and convenient option for my professional development. 

Finally, it took me a few months to find the perfect program I needed to boost my professional career, the Intensive English Program at Austin Community College, which is part of the ESOL program at ACC. I studied there for one year as an international student, and that was surprisingly efficient for me. Nevertheless, at the same time I faced many ups and downs such as economic and emotional instability during the pandemic of 2020. However, at the end of the day, the adversity encouraged me to keep working and finally apply for the second level: graduate school. 

This period was tougher than I imagined. Having no dominance of the new language, staying away from family and friends, not having permission to work because of the F-1 visa, experiencing a different culture, not having opportunities to socialize due to the pandemic, and facing difficulties to find real Mexican tacos made life challenging. However, it was my intrinsic motivation and my support system that helped me persevere. By the end of this struggle, I finally received four acceptance letters to study for a master’s degree in a few Texan universities. Although the journey is just about to start, I’d like to mention that preparation, dedication, and determination were key to filling up my tank. It wasn’t simply a miracle that happened from one day to another.

I strongly encourage every international or foreign student who may be struggling in the journey to study a foreign language, especially English, to persist, and always keep in mind the main motivation. Allow yourself to enjoy the journey, celebrate your small achievements, and ask for help if needed. 

Learning English Faster

By Jazmin Echavarria

Would you like to learn English faster? I know that like me; you would like to wake up one morning, speaking, reading and writing English. I wish it was that easy, but it is not impossible, either . Definitely, this is a process that can take years, but surely it becomes more fun, motivational and accelerated if you learn to know its logic. I have been studying English for one year, and I really did not bring good foundations of English from my country. However, at some point, I realized that learning English was a matter of strategy. For this reason, in this article, I have decided to share with you three main tips that have helped me to advance significantly during my process to learn English which are strategy, dedication and practice.

First of all, being strategic when it comes to learning English can help you quickly to develop skills for learning English. I do not know if you have heard of color theory, but when you color your ideas, texts, etc., your brain captures with greater speed what you are seeing, reading or learning. For example,  when I learn verbs, gerunds, paraphrases and vocabulary in general, I used index cards of colors; then, I wrote the regular verbs on the green index cards, and the irregular verbs on the yellow ones. Moreover, I generally use highlighters of different colors to underline the words in books as I read them, so I like to use green for verbs, orange for nouns, yellow for unknown words, and blue for important ideas to highlight. All of the above helps me to have a better understanding of grammar, allows me to better understand texts and learn vocabulary faster.

Equally important, dedication before and after class allows your brain to open in a more assertive way to learning a new code. For this reason, I recommend that you investigate a little about the topic that you will see before attending your class. When you do this, you get your brain more ready for the teacher’s explanation. Therefore, you will not be lost in class; on the contrary, you will be relearning and recording in your memory important details that you did not know before. In the same way, it is important to study after your class. Reviewing what you have learned allows your brain to save the information more accurately. Furthermore, making mind maps or organizing your class notes are excellent techniques to pay attention to what you have learned after your class session.

The most important of all is practice as a means of putting your learning in real context. For this, I recommend you immersing yourself  in English. Watching TV, listening to music, reading books or magazines, making your market list and trying to take your class notes in English are the best ways to put English into practice in your daily life. Every time that you do this,  your brain adapts to the sound, the grammatical structure of the words and the correct use of them. On the other hand, it is very important to start thinking about your day to day activities in English. If you do not have someone to practice with  at home, I recommend that you have internal conversations in English with yourself; then,start building those self-thoughts that we have on a daily basis in English. For example, if you are planning to go to the gym this morning, ask yourself how you might say and plan it in English.

In conclusion, learning English depends on the methodology that you use to learn it, the time you spend on it, and the way you adapt it to your reality. Although it seems impossible to us, learning English is not an impossible mission. It is a mission of challenge and discipline. Now, what are you waiting for? Try these tips in your learning process!