How To Be Successful in Your Online Lessons: 5 Strategies

Trying to learn a new foreign language can be intimidating at first. Here are some tips to get you started.

1 – Know Your Motivation for Learning a New Language

Knowing why you want to learn a foreign language is important for your success. By sharing this information with your instructor, you will find relevant content in your lessons and you will be able to see short and long-term results more easily, keeping your motivation up!

2 – Understand You Must Have Learning Goals Every Lesson

Language-learning goals are best when they are short, simple and easily measurable. When you course shows you that “By the end of today, you’ve learned how to greet someone and introduce yourself by using the verb to be, possessive pronouns, and contractions”, you will be happy to measure your progress and see you are able to speak properly in a variety of contexts, within a small amount of time!

3 – Create A Regular Study Space And Stay Organized.

Set up a dedicated learning environment. It doesn’t matter if you will have your lessons in your bedroom, in the kitchen, or at a coffee shop nearby. You only need to find what type of environment will work best for you. By having your lessons there repeatedly, you’ll begin to establish a routine and this will help you stay focused and productive.
When setting up your study space, make sure you:

• have a high-speed internet connection, headphones and updated softwares for the extra lessons tasks.
• have a dictionary, a notebook or any other document  to keep track of the course content (remember to write the lesson dates too).  

4 – Speak, Speak And Have Fun

• Produce real language and interact with people! Engaging in active learning for an hour may be equivalent to three to four hours of passive learning. 
• Participate in an active social community besides the lessons. If your instructor provides opportunities for extra group work, take advantage of them. Share vocabulary, ask questions, discuss language issues with other students, comment about homework, etc. That’s another way to effectively maximise your learning.
• As with anything, if you want to stick to your online lessons, you have to enjoy them and why not, have some fun with them? Talk about personal topics you care about. If you want to learn effectively, you need to connect your learning experiences to your own life. This way you’ll be more engaged and a lot more likely to retain what you’ve learned.

5 – Be Aware Of The Culture Of The Language And Expand Your Horizons

Many learners neglect the importance of culture when learning a foreign language, which is a shame because, for me, the culture of the language is one of the most important aspects of learning it. When you learn about its culture, you can also learn about its people, their way of thinking, their way of life, their history and so on. This will help you communicate more effectively, avoid cultural misunderstandings, and expand your horizons.