Craig Dodge Taiwan

Do you think LeBron James would be such a good basketball player if he only practiced once a week for 2 hours? Probably not. To be good at something takes a little work and learning a foreign language is no exception. If the only effort you put into it is attending a class or meeting with a tutor once a week for a couple of hours, you are not likely to make much progress. You're going to have to make some choices.

Let me tell you a story of two of my individual students, let's call them Mary and Susan. Both are very busy, high-level executives with very full schedules. Both meet with me once a week for 2 hours of business English coaching, but one is making far better progress than the other. In addition to our weekly meetings, Mary spends a little time each day reviewing the notes she has taken during our conversations and listens to podcasts downloaded from the Internet. Susan, on the other hand, spends no time whatsoever between our meetings practicing English.

One day last week, Mary told me she learned a new word: astonished. I asked in what context she learned it and she explained that she recently had to make a presentation to her new boss in English and one of the other managers said she was "astonished" at Mary's English ability. Mary has further integrated the word "astonished" in her daily vocabulary. Susan, on the other hand, has made some progress over the course of our meetings, but not nearly as "astonishing" as Mary's. The only difference between the two is that Mary is putting in a little time every day learning and practicing English while Susan is not.

I am not judging either person. We all have our different priorities and have to make choices on how we want to use our limited, valuable time. In my own case, I'm somewhat embarrassed to say, I've not learned much Chinese because I decided that other uses of my time were more important to me, such as work, reading novels, biking, exercise and spending time with friends and my dog.

The bottom line is that with most things we try to learn or do, we have to decide how badly we want it. If we want to take a shot at becoming a professional basketball player like LeBron James, we will have to practice hours and hours. Similarly, if we want to improve our foreign language skills, we need to invest some time into it, even if it's just a few minutes a day. Once a week, folks, is not enough.

So it's time to make some choices. If you really want to improve your English, you have to choose to spend some time on it, which may mean you need to give up some time doing other things. The choice is yours, but your choice will affect how much progress you will make learning English.