Boost Your British English Skills with Daily Journalling Practice
- Claire Hayward
- Mar 26
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Journalling can be a great way to help with language learning. Not only will it encourage writing skills but will also help with learning vocabulary, grammar and fluency. Journalling can also be incorporated into daily routines and scheduled timely into your day as you only need at least 10 minutes a day for it to be effective. Take a look below at how you can incorporate journalling into your routine.
Why Journalling Helps Improve English
Journalling is fantastic to enhance writing skills and creativity. When journalling you are practising to put together different sentence structures and expressing feelings in a creative way. By writing consistently daily, you can improve vocabulary and it can also help with reinforcing grammar rules. When expressing feelings or views/opinions in your journal, it can help to boost self-confidence and drive creativity and imagination. Regular journalling is important to keep consistency and the more consistency you have the better your writing will improve and more vocabulary and rules you can remember to use correctly.
How to Start an English Journal
The first thing to decide is where you want to journal. You can choose a notebook, a journal app or a digital journal. Then, you need to set a schedule based on what you can realistically do. You can organise your time in different ways, you can set aside 30mins-1hour a few times a week or you can set aside 20 mins daily or choose timings that you can stick to. When you start journalling for the first time, start with simple entries and gradually increase the complexity when you become more comfortable and you learn more. You can write about anything in your journal, you can write about your day, weekend, messages to loved ones, holidays and trips you have taken recently or in the past or about anything you like or dislike. If you struggle from time to time with writer's block, it can be a good idea to have a list of prompts to turn to in order to overcome this problem.
Effective Journalling Techniques for Learning English
Before journalling, it is important to think about what you want to get out of the writing practice. It is good to use different techniques in different practice sessions to widen your practice. Here are some effective techniques you can use:
Freewriting - writing without worrying about mistakes. Focus on the flow of the sentences and paragraphs you are writing, don't worry about grammar mistakes.
New vocabulary - focus on incorporating new words and phrases that you have recently learned into your writing. Focus on the correct placement of these words and phrases, as well as correct spelling and forms.
Grammar structures - Choose one or two specific grammar structures to focus on. For example, if you want to write about a past holiday, try to incorporate past simple and past perfect structures.
Reflective writing - Write about personal experiences, opinions or current events. Focus on formal/informal writing and writing in the first and third person.
Useful Prompts to Get Started
Below are some useful prompts to help give you some ideas of what to write about. You can adapt some of the prompts to fit your own interests and lifestyle.
Describe your day/weekend in detail.
Write a letter to your future self.
If you could visit any country, where you you go and why?
Write a film/tv show review.
Write about a recent challenge and how you handled it.
Describe your work day in detail.
Explain your dream job.
Tips for Making Journalling a Habit
Regular practice is essential in order to improve writing skills. Here are some tips to help you make journalling a habit.
Set a reminder and schedule specific times for writing.
Keep it fun and engaging, don't worry about being perfect.
Write about relevant topics to you. If you have had a good or bad day, write about it. If you have seen the best film in your life, write about it. If you have a complaint and want to vent your frustration, write about it.
Use a variety of formats, for example, lists, dialogues, stories, formal and informal.
Track progress by looking at old entries. Make comparisons between them, focus on grammar structures, punctuation, spelling, forms of words, correct placement of words etc.
Journalling is great for written English improvement. You can improve various important areas of English, including vocabulary and grammar structures, so it is a beneficial tool to use consistently or as much as you can.
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