The Deliberate Art of Practice

HOW many times have you heard the saying, "Practice Makes Perfect?"  Yes, you've heard this cliche numerous times that it no longer means anything to you.  However, if you are a top athlete, artist, musician, dancer, debater, you would know that practice means everything.

People who don't like to practice will never really know the importance of it all.  They want to get better in doing something, but would never really take the time to practice.  Let's take learning a language, for example, like English.  Learning a new language is not just about knowing one day in class and hoping to speak it fluently immediately.  One must do deliberate practice: read, converse, homework.  And did I mention read, converse, and homework? 

I cannot emphasize enough how important reading, conversing, and doing homework are.  There must always be some kind of interaction with English: enroll in a class, watch a movie, hang out with friends and speak in English, and so much more.  One cannot become good in English by speaking Filipino all the time.  As they say, birds of a feather, flock together.  So if your friends are always speaking Filipino, it's time to find new friends.  Well, you don't really have to replace your old friends, just add new friends who are either English speakers or at least trying to improve their English.

So for one last time, no matter how much you want to improve your English, if you do not practice, you will never really improve.

Commitment is Key to Learning English

Commitment does not belong only in relationships. When learning English we, also need to be committed. When we start, we are extremely enthusiastic about learning English. However, when things get rough or as time goes by, we tend to lose this level of enthusiasm. In order to continue building our English and communication skills, we need to make sure that we are committed to our goals. Without this commitment, it will be extremely difficult to achieve our goals when learning English.

So, how committed are you? Do you feel that you have the commitment that it takes to build and improve your English?

Learning Beyond the Classroom

It's always a great time at The American Institute: www.aiepro.com.

At the American Institute, we take learning out of the four corners of the classroom.  We believe that spending time with our students outside of the classroom can help them improve their English and communication skills.

In this photo, Chris (Specialist), Daniel (Specialist), Rosdom (Marketing and former student), Leah (Marketing and former student) spend time with the students in Eastwood.  We listened to a band and spoke in English throughout the whole night.

The others in the photo are July (aspiring call center agent), Pretty (auditor), Ken (aspiring English teacher in Japan), Ziad (aspiring businessman), Jennifer (aspiriing businesswoman), and Edward (engineer now in Saudi Arabia).

Most of our students are Filipino professionals who want to improve their grammar, American accent, public speaking, and confidence.  From time to time, we also have foreigners who prefer to study at The American Institute because they are surrounded by Filipino classmates whom they can practice their English with.

Teaching Foreigners is More Fun in the Philippines

More and more foreigners have been traveling to the Philippines to study English because the Philippines has an English speaking population, the cost is relatively inexpensive, and the country touts many beautiful tourist spots.  Therefore, studying English in the Philippines can be very rewarding, and the American Institute for English Proficiency is the best English school for Filipinos and international students alike.  We have three locations: Makati, Baguio, and Quezon City.

Confidence Building via English Learning

There are many ways to build confidence.  One these ways is to improve your communication skills, specifically English.  More and more, we're living in an era of globalization.  We no longer work or deal with others just locally.  With the advent of technology, like internet, email, videos, and communications improvement, it is vital that we improve our English.

When our English improves, we become more confident because we can deal with others easily and more effectively.  In the Filipino culture, speaking English well could also be a sign of upper social status.  It is the lingua franca of the rich.  When we can speak English well, it gives us a certain kind of status, thus making us more confident. 

For more information about learning English, visit the American Institute for English Proficiency in Makati, Baguio, or Quezon City.