i want to sound like a native speaker i need to speak more naturally i wish i could understand
natives when they speak fast i want to reach upper intermediate level i want to reach advanced level
i have to improve my listening skills in english if any of these sound like you as they do most of
my english students then today's lesson might just help you reach those goals today we're going to be
looking at improving the way you study and how you set your english language learning goals yes today
we will be learning smart english learning goals and when i use the word smart i'm not using it as
an adjective but as an acronym an acronym is when a word is formed by the first word of each letter
in a phrase in this case s m a r t smart so if you want to learn more about this acronym and
how it's going to help you improve your english language learning skills and help you achieve
your english language learning goals then keep watching this is going to be a very useful lesson
so whether you are studying english on your own or even with a teacher with an
online language school or indeed even if you're studying in the uk
setting smart goals is going to help you achieve what you want to in english in the
most efficient way possible one of the main problems language students have is keeping
their motivation maintaining that motivation and actually knowing how to go about studying english
even for me studying italian i find it very difficult to set myself targets and actually
maintain my motivation now by setting smart goals you're going to help yourself
stay motivated stay focused and adapt there's a certain amount of flexibility with smart goals too
now i don't want to just teach you about smart goals i want to show you all about smart goals so
if you want to follow us on instagram love english dot uk you'll be able to see what some of my smart
goals are when it comes to learning italian yes my husband's italian and he frequently complains
about my very poor language level so i'm going to be setting myself some smart goals to help me
learn italian i want you to do the same in english once i have explained what smart stands for
i would like you to comment below or indeed find me on instagram and tell me what your smart goals
are and there over the next one month let's work together to see if we can actually achieve
some of these english language goals or italian now although i am referring to smart girls in
this case in terms of studying and education learning a language you can actually use smart
goals in many different situations whether that is professional business academic kind of what we're
doing now or indeed personal perhaps you've got a fitness goal that you want to achieve
smart goals will help you achieve all of these different types of goals in the fastest most
efficient way possible so what does smart mean what does this acronym actually refer to
well let's take a look let's start with s of course s stands for specific specific goals make
sure your goals are focused and not too broad this again is a problem that many of my students have
i want to sound like a native english speaker i want to improve my listening skills my speaking
skills these are not specific goals at all which means it's a lot harder to achieve them to reach
those goals so by focusing your goal let's say speaking i want to be able to speak about
travel and tourism for three minutes without stopping there we've got a very specific goal
or when it comes to pronunciation i want to work on the pronunciation of
think think so that i sound a little bit more natural when i speak so by focusing and specifying
what your goals are you're going to make them more achievable so when it comes to english what do you
want to achieve speaking improve your listening right now focus that down what specifically about
speaking do you want to achieve do you want to be able to speak faster do you want to be able to add
more contractions to practice these when you speak or perhaps it's your intonation that you want to
improve so that you sound a little bit more like a native speaker when you talk let's specify
those speaking listening reading writing goals and comment below to let me know if i don't
think they are specific enough i will make some recommendations so there we have it a specific
goal and of course once you've achieved these goals you can add more you can think of other
aspects of speaking listening reading writing that you want to achieve and create a new goal
now m m stands for measurable measurable you want to be able to measure
your achievements this in turn will help you feel more motivated when you feel like you're
actually achieving something when you're able to measure the success you're having with your goal
whether you're getting closer to it you tend to feel more motivated when you're succeeding you
feel more positive and therefore it should give you that incentive and that motivation to continue
with your studies and continue learning so how can we measure our english language learning how can
we measure a language that we're studying to see whether we're actually improving well there are
lots of different ways to do this when it comes to speaking you can of course record your voice
and perhaps doing this at regular intervals during the period that you are studying towards this goal
then you can actually put them together and see the progress you are making if you want to be able
to talk about travel and tourism for two minutes start by seeing how much you can do at first
and then as you study as you build your vocabulary around this topic and practice you can record
yourself to then play back all of the recordings and see your progress of course when it comes to
learning things like vocabulary you can actually use numbers metrics so you can say i want to know
20 new words by the end of this week all focused on travel and tourism or i want to learn
10 new english idioms a day by testing yourself and actually seeing at the end of the week if you
have remembered all the idioms that you have learnt and of course if you are then able to
produce them in a context maybe writing them up in a little paragraph then you will be able
to measure as to whether you have actually learnt those idioms words phrases whatever
it might be and of course if you do have an english teacher or a native speaking friend
they'll be able to tell you whether they are noticing an improvement in your english getting
positive feedback like that is really going to help you boost your confidence and motivate you
so making sure that you set a measurable goal when it comes to our personal life things like
losing weight health and fitness we'd set goals like being able to run 5k in
what's realistic 20 minutes i don't know i don't run or losing 10 pounds that gives us such an
incentive particularly as we're reaching that goal and getting closer and closer to our target
so measurable specific measurable now a what does a stand for there's two possibilities here
actionable or achievable actionable or achievable so what we're looking at here is the actions that
we're taking to reach our main goal essentially we can be breaking the main goal up into sub goals
that often works very well so in my case i'm creating sub goals to improve my vocabulary range
when it comes to italian i want to learn 10 new verbs this week in italian but i'm being
a little bit ambitious once i've learned those ten verbs i then want to move it up a stage and
i want to be able to use those verbs in different tenses or at least know the present past future
present continuous form of those verbs so for the same reason i want you to make actionable goals
create some sub goals that will help you achieve your main goal making sense okay moving on to are
relevant relevant now for me i don't need to learn business italian i'm not working in a business
environment why do i want to learn italian why do i want to speak it essentially to be
able to speak with my husband particularly speak with my husband's friends and family so for me
just a basic understanding of italian the main verbs main phrases that i can use daily going
to the shops having a very simple conversation so for you why are you learning english what do
you want english for are you looking to travel do you want to improve your job prospects then decide
what you need for that goal so if you are looking to improve your job prospects maybe get a job
where you're talking speaking in english then you would be looking perhaps at working on interview
skills in english or indeed maybe more formal communication in english so you might want to look
at improving your formal vocabulary range rather than worrying too much about idioms and slang
make your goal relevant relevant to your needs what you need english for by doing this it means
that you're just not wasting your time of course you can learn some slang words or expressions in
english but really you want to focus on why you need english and what you want to use it for
you're not wasting time and you're pursuing a very clear goal so finally very important
and again this keeps us motivated and for me it's certainly one that i will struggle with
time bound time bound in order to achieve your goal you don't want to be achieving it over a
year depending on what the goal is but you want to set yourself a very clear time frame
so for me this week i want to learn 10 new verbs now i've specified this week because next week i
can set myself another goal i may say that over a period of three months i want to be able to
speak and have a basic conversation in italian but these sub goals that i set myself weekly will help
me achieve that and also a time frame to keep me motivated to keep me working towards my sub goals
and my main overall goal now with smart goals it's also important to remember to take a step back you
don't want to be involved in the action pursuing those goals constantly every few days every week
take a step back and evaluate what you are achieving check your progress and the way you are
actually going about studying revise your goals if and when you need to it is important to be
flexible if you think that your needs have changed perhaps you've got a job interview you might just
want to focus specifically on business english or the english related to the job that you are
going for you don't have to keep pursuing a goal if it becomes less relevant or important make sure
you step back evaluate and revise your goals on a regular basis so although i may not have
taught you any english in this lesson hopefully i have taught you a great way to help improve your
learning skills and again i would love you to join me on instagram to follow me and see how
i am doing with my smart goals when it comes to learning italian and of course if you are italian
you can help me on instagram thank you so much for watching and don't forget there are plenty
more lessons to watch and of course this weekend we've got two new lessons to come take care bye