If you haven’t tried drilling in your English lessons, do. Here’s why.
In very basic terms, drilling repeating something you hear. (There’s a lot more to it, I’m simplifying it, of course.) You can see an example in this video where I'm practicing drilling with my student (slide #9): https://www.instagram.com/p/Cnyiqn4o9uw/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Drilling is can be really helpful for you because you can:
✅ get comfortable saying a phrase, thus increasing your chances of actually using it in the future;
✅ improve your listening skills: develop the ability to spot the differences between connected speech and separate words;
✅ improve your pronunciation: learn to connect words, reduce words, learn to use correct word and sentence stress, imitate intonation, etc.
✅ have a better shot at remembering the phrase
✅ get immediate feedback
People that bring up the negatives of drilling, like “You can’t learn how to use phrases through drilling”, are the same people who don’t like cake because you can’t mix it with your burritos. Ammm that’s not what it’s meant to do, hellooo!
As an English learner, having the knowledge of such powerful techniques allows you to be more in control of your progress. Drilling is not a magic pill for your English, there's no such thing, but it's insanely helpful when it's used as a part of a larger structured program.
Ask your teacher to introduce drilling into your English lessons!
Tina is a professional English Teacher with a Cambridge education and 10+ years of teaching English to adults in-person and online.
She wants you and English learners like you to develop a solid understanding of what you need to do to start speaking better English faster (and not fall for English-in-a-month scams).