Friday, August 30, 2013

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.