Category Archives: English coaching

A sign of bravery

A popular statistic that there are more English learners in China than English native speakers in the whole world is often bandied around to prove how popular English is. But actually there are probably more English learners in the world than people in China now, it’s predicted that there’ll be nearly 2 billion learners byContinue reading “A sign of bravery”

This one’s for the failures

Are you a failure? I do hope so. Statistically you have failed many times in your life. I give you this meme: Basically toddlers can’t do anything, they suck at walking, can’t feed themselves and they can’t even speak! But they persist. They pull themselves up again and again. They shove their food in theirContinue reading “This one’s for the failures”

Write it to remember it

If you want to remember something write it down. Research has shown that students who type notes during lectures don’t remember as well as students who hand write their notes. Why is that? Researchers think because you can type faster than write, people who type tend to take verbatim notes – they write exactly whatContinue reading “Write it to remember it”

The magic of persistence

This video has been trending lately. In it a guy teaches himself to back flip in six hours. Watch the video hereI found it really inspiring. He doesn’t spend six hours reading a book about back flips, or watching other people back flip. He spends six long, hard hours turning somersaults, landing on his head,Continue reading “The magic of persistence”

Learning a language is like being on a diet.

What do language learning and diets have in common? I’ve been reading a lot recently about motivation and discipline and also willpower. Did you know willpower is finite? And flexible? Sometimes you have a lot of it, sometimes you don’t. Willpower is used to motivate dieters and language learners, but it’s not the best wayContinue reading “Learning a language is like being on a diet.”