想让英语更进一步?

Take a moment， put down your pencil or pen， close your textbooks and notebooks and ask yourself this question： What is more important： only learning new language， or reviewing previous lessons？

All too often we get caught up in the idea that we need to learn as many new vocabulary terms， grammar rules and sentence structures as we can each and every day that we can forget to look back and review what we learned previously. Just why is this important？ There is an old saying that says it best with： If you don’t use it， you lose it.

While it may feel good to keep pushing through 100 new vocabulary words each day， attending eight hours of lessons seven days a week and writing down every new thing you learn 10 times this may not be the most effective way for you to develop your language skills. Will you learn new things this way？ Absolutely！ But it may take much longer and be more difficult than if you incorporate regular review periods into your studies.

As a test try this：

Give your English study notebook to a friend and have them open up to a random page you wrote over one month ago （ideally two months or more） and have them ask you about some of the language you wrote down at that time. If you have difficulties remembering some of the things don’t worry， that’s perfectly natural. It may be a sign it’s time for some more review time， though.

How You Should Review

Contrary to what most people believe reviewing previously learned materials is not something that is done only once.

An effective review process should be done：

The Same Day-After you finish your classes for the day take a moment and go over everything you learned， making sure to highlight any key items you want to remember. This will help you consolidate your information and make reviewing easier later on. Generally speaking it is best to focus on 5 to 9 items only to help make remembering them much easier.

The Next Day-Go back over what you learned the previous day， focusing on the key items you thought were most important. This is usually best done at the beginning of the day.

One Week Later-Go over all your lessons for the past week and summarize what you think was most important for them. Again， try to focus on 5 to 9 items.

One Month Later-Go over all your weekly studies and， again， summarize them into the most important items you wish to remember and focus on.

3-4 Months Later-Review all your previous studies for the past three to four months， focusing on your key study points as well as going back through your notes to review any other specific points you want to make sure you remember.

By following this process you will notice you will have a much easier time remembering much of what you learn and you will find your studies much more rewarding as well！