You may have heard about the concept of life-long learning. According to Cambridge Dictionary, it’s the process of gaining knowledge and skills throughout your life, often to do your job properly. Without a doubt, it’s a beautiful thing, but how do you maintain motivation to keep learning, especially when you work full-time, have a family, and other commitments? How do you keep momentum going on this lifelong learning journey without burning out? In this article, we’ll explore what can help you continuously improve your language skills without feeling forced, how you can develop helpful learning habits, and live a lifestyle of someone who is always hungry for knowledge and self-improvement. You may be surprised to find that it’s not as hard as it may seem, so keep reading.

The Importance of the Right Mindset

“Learning is a journey, not a destination.” This quote is attributed to various sources, but regardless of its origin, the message is clear and true: learning is more about the process than the end result. Certainly, having a clear goal and understanding the purpose behind learning is crucial. However, once you’ve set your objectives, you embark on an exciting and seemingly endless journey. Learning a language is like doing a sport – it requires dedication, practice, and continual effort. Just as with physical exercise, if you stop practicing, you quickly lose the progress you’ve made, especially in terms of speaking skills.

So, our first tip for language learners is to cultivate a mindset that views learning as enriching, stimulating, and refreshing. Instead of using negative descriptors like “hard,” “difficult,” “exhausting,” and “boring,” choose more positive adjectives. Also, to ensure that the learning process remains engaging, think about what works for you and what doesn’t.

Meaningful and Joyful Activities for a More Positive Experience

If you learn a foreign language without a teacher’s help, you face certain challenges. For example, there is no one to give you language feedback, pointing out your mistakes and helping you correct and avoid them in the future. Speaking practice is obviously hard without a speaking partner, and you simply don’t have one if you don’t take classes—either one-on-one with a tutor or alongside other students. Of course, it’s possible to address these and other problems of self-studying, but we’d rather do it in a separate post. Here, we’d like to give you tips that help you figure out what to do when there is no one around to give you a hand. Where do you start? What do you focus on? Grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, pronunciation? All of these seem important, but how do you organize your effort and make the most of the time you have? If you are an English learner and have been able to read this article, you’ve most probably figured it out already, but it may still be a challenge if you tackle a new foreign language or if you are starting to learn your very first foreign language. What we can recommend here is remembering that all of the above-mentioned aspects are important, and you need to find time and energy to work on them all. But remember that it’s also important to keep things manageable. So, if you study on your own, buy textbooks that are well recommended for your level and suited for self-study (do your research online for that), complement your work with the textbooks with educational videos, say on YouTube for revision and further practice, do online tests, read blogs like this, and when your level allows, use your target language for exploring topics of your interest, e.g. sports, music, news, cooking, etc. Not only will you be having fun reading or listening about something you love, but you’ll also be learning a language at the same time: picking up new words, improving your reading/listening skills, hearing grammar in context, etc.

To sum up, 1) using a self-study course book and workbook supplement is a great idea for any level; 2) use Internet resources for complementing what you’re learning; 3) make use of your hobbies and other interests to learn about those enjoyable things with the help of your target language.

The Power of Habit

So, what does language learning have in common with brushing your teeth? That’s right. They are both part of your daily routine and not something you can just do once and forget about. You have to do those things regularly to maintain your skills and keep your teeth clean, respectively. And just as you’ve learned to maintain your dental hygiene, you also need to develop habits that support your lifelong learning goals, and language learning is definitely an endeavor that will last for quite some time. We’ve already mentioned how important it is to make learning meaningful yet fun, but it’s also worth noting that consistency is key. Good learning habits are extremely powerful because they set you up for success. After all, studying for 1 hour each day is more effective than studying for 7 hours once a week, based our own experience as well as the experience of many of our students. Examples of good learning habits include reviewing vocabulary with flashcards, keeping a diary in the target language, learning a new grammar topic and then practicing it, shadowing to improve pronunciation. Ideally, set aside some time during the day when you are not too tired or distracted and can really focus on what you are trying to learn. These periods of time don’t have to be very long, but they should allow you to concentrate as best as you can. Then, during times when you don’t have to concentrate as hard, incorporate bits of learning, such as listening to a level-appropriate podcast or audiobook while on the train, or using a gamified app to review vocabulary. Most importantly, remember to do these things every day, and before you know it, they will become habits, and you won’t even remember how you lived without doing them before. Needless to say, this will have a huge effect on your language abilities.

Don’t be Too Hard on Yourself & Keep Trying

Last but not least, remember not to beat yourself up over setbacks and the failure to form new habits quickly. That would be contrary to what we’ve been trying to tell you—having the right mindset is crucial, and part of it is accepting yourself as human, with unforeseen life circumstances and occasional laziness, which affects us all. It’s perfectly natural to let your mind wander every now and then, and it’s okay to sometimes take a break. We all do that. But make sure you get back to your routine of making learning, well, routine, and keep trying to establish those good habits until they become second nature. We can’t stress enough that the habit of making time for learning is the most important of all habits when it comes to language learning. You may feel like focusing on grammar one day and listening practice the next—that’s great, go with whatever feels good in the moment, but just keep going, don’t hesitate, and don’t (usually) put it off until tomorrow. Hopefully, with the tips we’ve given you above, it should be a little easier.

What do you think of the tips shared above? Do you have any additional strategies that have worked well for you? We’re all ears! So, please share your thoughts and tips in the comments below.