If you’re on the lookout for ideas to practice your English skills, you’re in the right place!

Even if you’ve been learning English in class, much of your progress will rely on your ability to come up with your own learning process.

So today, I’m going to share with you five daily tips to help you practice your English:

Watch movies with subtitles in English or no subtitles at all!
Practice answering questions
Use the vocabulary you’re learning
Read as much as you can
Download our lesson plans

These simple recommendations can be included in your daily routine easily and will significantly add to your progress.

Now, let’s discuss them in detail!

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Useful Tips for Practicing English

1. Watch movies with subtitles in English or no subtitles at all!

Watching your favorite English shows can also have an educational twist! This can be an effective and fun way to build your vocabulary and reinforce your listening skills.

What I like most about this exercise is that it’s fun! And all it takes is just a comfortable place and your computer or TV.

If you’ve been studying English for a while and you’re interested in taking it one step further, you should consider turning off the subtitles when watching a video or a show in English. And make sure you keep a notebook at hand.

At first, it’s perfectly normal to feel that you’re missing half of the dialogues, but it's just a matter of habit. The more practice you get, the more you’ll understand. And because you’ll be picking up new vocabulary, your English comprehension improves as well.

Alternatively, you could turn on English subtitles until you feel comfortable enough to turn them off. The important thing is not to depend on the subtitles for a long time, and to challenge yourself and push your limits once you get comfortable.

I always enjoyed learning through movies and series simply because they’re full of phrasal verbs and colloquial expressions, typical of spoken English. I think it gives us a closer look at how people actually talk in casual interactions.

Not ready to watch an entire movie or episode without subtitles or subtitles in English? Not a problem! You could start with movie trailers or sneak peeks.

If you need definitions, synonyms, and common structures, Vocabulary.com is a great resource.

For slang or idioms, I recommend Online Slang Dictionary. Also, Phrasal Verb Demon is my favorite resource to learn more about phrasal verbs.

2. Practice answering questions

Maybe you don’t have a problem with writing or listening to others in English, but having a conversation is a whole different story.

You feel stuck whenever you want to express yourself in English, or at its worst, your mind goes blank.

When I was studying English, one of my weakest points was thinking of an answer when I was asked a random question. So I came up with this activity to overcome this problem. I simply planned ahead and practiced possible common answers.

Here is how it works:

Pick a random topic and express your opinion on it. Let’s say: What’s your standpoint on the rapid growth of technology? Or something as simple as: What’s your favorite place to travel to? You could even use a timer to add to the fun.

If you need inspiration, here’s a list of questions you can use to get you started. Or you can try this random topic generator instead.

From experience I can guarantee you that this simple exercise is such an effective way to build your confidence when talking to others in English. The key is to keep this practice short so you can add it to your daily routine. For example, you can practice while you’re having breakfast, right before dinner, or before you go to sleep.

I also recommend recording yourself while doing this exercise. Playing your own audiotape allows you to spot those parts of your speaking you’d like to work on more.

If you’re really short on time, you can choose a question or a topic and simply think about how you would answer it while engaged in other things such as, going for a walk, waiting for an appointment, on a bus ride, etc.

Wonderful time killer, isn’t it?

Of course, it would be ideal if you can find the time to practice answering the questions out loud. But if you can’t, this exercise will still benefit you greatly. It will help you stop translating in your head from your native language because you’ll be teaching yourself how to think directly in English.

3. Use the vocabulary you’re learning

So you’re learning new vocabulary, but how can you retain what you’re learning?

The answer is simple: you need to use the new words to incorporate them successfully in your repertoire, and writing is a great way to do that.

You don’t need to write a long essay or a story. Start with a few lines that have some sort of an emotional connection to you. When you deal with content that’s relevant to your interests or needs, your memory does a better job at retaining new words.

To help you brainstorm, I’ve compiled this list of ideas you could write about:

Summarize an episode from your favorite sitcom
Describe how you feel today or elaborate on your future plans
Imagine a dialogue with someone you’d like to meet
Tell a funny anecdote or unfortunate event
You could even rate the food you’re eating
Or it might even be a simple account of how your day went

Writing prompts can stimulate your imagination and creativity. You can find a long list of those here to resort to when you run out of ideas.

And once you’re ready to raise the bar and come up with more complex pieces of writing, you should check this article on the secret to writing faster, more effective essays in English.

Getting good at writing takes practice. Take a few minutes a day and write some lines. You’ll notice a big improvement after a couple of weeks.

4. Read as much as you can

This is a great activity to keep our brains active. The important thing is that you don’t need to stick to textbooks for it to count as good, purposeful reading. If you pick something you enjoy, the results will be even better.

To give you an example, I recently came across scottmetzgercartoons on Instagram and I related to them immediately. They feature witty and funny single-panel cartoons on cats, dogs, and other animals.

Reading can be laughter-filled and still be educational. Comics are a great choice because they use common expressions, phrasal verbs and slang. If you’re not sure where to start, here are ten comics we recommend for learning English.

Interestingly enough, I got plenty of vocabulary from reading descriptions of film and series from streaming platforms. What I’m trying to say is that you can take any activity in your daily life as a learning opportunity.

Do you like spending time on social media? take advantage of that and follow pages that publish content in English.

We post practical tips on learning English on our Instagram and Facebook accounts. I highly recommend studying our “What’s another way to say…?” section to learn useful expressions, phrasal verbs and idioms.

But of course the content you read doesn’t have to be specifically for learning English. I like reading inspirational stories posted on TED or funny facts about nature and animals on BBC Earth.

TIP: Make sure you subscribe or follow pages. This way you’ll see the posts on your feed and you’ll be more likely to read them frequently.

When studying English, I find it useful to be exposed to as much content in the language as possible. I would go as far as changing my phone’s language.

Now, if you actually enjoy reading and need recommendations on books, this article has great suggestions.

5. Download our ESL lesson plans

Need extra practice after class? Try our ESL Lesson Plans.

We create the lesson plans to help our students improve their listening, grammar and vocabulary. You can choose between different styles of lessons (listening, grammar or vocabulary) depending on the skill you want to practice.

An added bonus is that we design them to feature varying and interesting topics that reflect authentic English, and some of them are based on popular YouTube videos and include transcripts.

You know that the best way to learn a language is to actively use it! The tips we shared today will help you find easy ways to practice your English daily, and also use the language you’re learning. I encourage you to set a goal for yourself and to incorporate what you learned today in your daily routine because the key to acquire and master English is to simply practice as much and as often as possible.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, please share them in the comments. We’ll be happy to help!

About the writer

Sol is an English teacher and a self-professed grammar geek. As a writer for In English With Love, her mission is to create content that will help encourage and inspire English learners.