How to Improve English in Three Months

by Younghoon Kim

Improving English in Three Months?

Improving English in three months is an improbable but possible task. It requires a considerable amount of
time from the ESL students to develop their English proficiency. And depending on which level an ESL
student belongs and which areas of English an ESL student is most interested in, the learning strategy can vary
greatly. The purpose of this essay is to provide a basic but fundamental English learning guideline to readers
who want to intensively study English in order to improve their English drastically in a short term.

This guideline focuses on English reading ability, based on my experience. Simply saying, what I suggest in this
essay is to read through a good English test vocabulary book as many times as you need to memorize every
entry word in the book. This advice originated from my personal English learning process, so I imagine the
actual application of the guideline introduced in this essay can be improvised according to the need of each
individual.

1. “Let there be reading!”

One invaluable lesson I learned from an English course at my alma mater, Myoung Ji University, is that
English writing, speaking, reading and listening skills are all connected activities. Professor Hong said, one day,
“Many ask me how to improve listening skill enough to catch up CNN news. I believe if you can read an
English newspaper as fast as the CNN news reporter’s speaking, you would not have any trouble to follow up
the news.” The same principle can be applied to writing and speaking as well. So, to understand CNN news,
you need to improve your reading skill, and to improve your English speaking, you better up your writing skill.
And then a smart ESL student would ask me, “What should I do to improve my English writing?” According to
my experience the answer is reading. Furthermore, it seems a universally accepted idea that even a Mozart of
writing first needs to read a lot to produce a good piece of writing. Reading is the cornerstone that supports
your improvement in speaking and writing. So, let’s say, in the beginning there was nothing. An ESL writing
coach said, “Let there be reading!”

Let me recall my own experience about 10 years ago. It is uncertain I sincerely understood Prof. Hong’s
advice back in the past or had real motivations or enthusiasm to practice the principle in my English learning
process. I went to the University in 1996; I was VERY young back then. About youth, Shakespeare
recites, “Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness.” The Brit folksinger Donovan croons, “Life is a
merry-go-round,” and “make up your mind to be happy.” Back then, I could always be optimistic until I
realized that my last university year was coming.

In this panic situation, I could come up with very few ideas to secure my future, and one of them was
improving English; unlike Canada, excellent English proficiency can be a valuable social capital for the
fresh-out-of-college student in Korea. That was my goal, but still there was a critical problem: I did not know
what to do to improve my English, especially my listening skills. It was the winter of 2000 when Prof. Hong’s
advice hit my numb head, again. So, I began reading, but reading what?
2. Set a Date for an English Test
Two questions follow here: what should I read to improve my English reading skill, and how do I know that
I am making some progress? Let me first delve into the second question, because it will guide us to answer
the first question.

Do we have any standard in a way allows us to measure how much we improve our English? I have been in
Edmonton, Canada since 2005 to perfect my English (though that is not the only reason I am here).
I sometimes feel better for my English, but it can be disastrous when I am in an auto repair shop; how do I
know the complex vocabulary to describe what is under my car’s hood? Your native English speaking friends
could tell you how much you have improved your English since you arrived in Edmonton, but it is
challenging for them to evaluate your English learning process in an objective way.

In this sense, an English test seems effective to know how much we improve our English, though it is not the
most pleasurable option we have. There are many English tests such as IELTS, TOEIC, and TOEFL. The tests,
I believe, ask very stupid questions that insult the intelligence of many ESL students. However, I can
understand that in a way they are supposed to ask foolish questions, because the purpose of the English test
is evaluating our English proficiency, not intelligence. In addition, it is also questionable that the English test
score can really reflect an individual’s English proficiency. I have seen many friends who have better scores
than me but speak poorer English and vice versa.

Regardless of these shortcomings, I argue that preparing an English test is an infallible method to improve
English in a short term like three months. First, it can provide you with a very realistic goal and strong
motivation: “Within three months, I will improve my TOEFL score at least 30 points!” Second, it can let you
know what your weak points and strong points are in English: “In a sample test of TOEIC exam, I found a
lot of strange business vocabulary.” Finally, the test result can give a sense of achievement, which is very
important in a long, often scarcely rewarding English learning process; we need some visible feedback to
keep motivating ourselves. So take an English exam practice kit to see where you are, and set a date for the
test; it doesn’t have to be a real test that you need to pay an expensive fee for, but money can make people
more serious.

3. How to Prepare for an English Test

Because of an impending test schedule, I rushed to study English, while focusing on my English reading
skills. I know English test preparing strategies can vary depending on what test you will take. Instead of
covering nuts and drills for each test, I would like to focus on improving reading skills, because it is the most
effective way, I found, to improve English in the short term. The point in improving reading skills is to enrich
your vocabulary. For many ESL students, studying a good vocabulary book can be the best way to improve
English, quickly.

Then, how do we learn new English words while improving our reading skill? I used to read an English
dictionary from “A.” (I can hear your sighs.) It is a never-ending, terrible reading experience, so don’t try it.
Many recommend creating your wordbook, so you can write down the new words whenever you find them.
Due to electronic dictionaries, word keeping becomes less onerous, but it is still a little bit troublesome:
find a new word, search the word in a dictionary, and write down it in a notepad or save it in an electronic
device. My suggestion is you just need to read some good vocabulary books. Two or three would be

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enough, but you need good ones. A good vocabulary book always presents multiple usage examples for
every entry word. In contrast, a bad one does not provide usage examples. Here is “abdicate” and it means
“to cast off” or “to relinquish.” That’s all. If you have such a vocabulary book, throw it away or give it to a
guy you don’t like. So find a good one like Word Smart by Princeton Review or vocabulary books by Harold
Levine. They all present multiple usage examples for each entry word. (When you are in a word book
hunting, don’t forget to figure out whether the word level in a book is suitable to your level. If you know
more than 40% of the entry words, you would need a more advanced one. In contrast, if less than 20% of
the words are only familiar to you, you should go for an easier one.) Here is an example from Word Smart,
Genius Edition:

DIVA [DEE vuh] n. an opera singer; a prima donna.

a) From the Italian word for “goddess,” a diva is a distinguished opera singer.

b) The cognoscenti at the opera house could not contain their glee when the latest diva approached the
wings to enter the stage.

c) After performing the most famous of all arias from The Magic Flute, the diva collapsed in fatigue and was
carried off the stage in a piano crate.

While briefly defining “diva,” it shows three good sentences in which we can see how this new vocabulary
can be used in a real situation. How do we remember this new word? Some would write “diva” a dozen
times to memorize it, and some would just read the short definition again and again. My suggestion is read
the sample sentences while keeping the short definition in your mind. In this way, you can not only enlarge
your vocabulary but also your English reading ability.

However, just a quick reading of sentences would not secure the word in your memory. Here repetition
matters greatly. Let’s say that you have a 360-page TOEFL vocabulary book. Each working day, read 60
pages of the book, which means after a week, you can finish the book from cover to cover. In the next week,
double the page number. Now you can read the book twice in a week. In the third week, triple the number,
so make sure you read through the book three times in a week. It might sound like an insane plan, but if
you pass the first week, you can get into the rhythm of the book, expect what new word will appear on the
next page, and make the sample sentences very familiar to yourself. So repeat this process until you can
finish reading the book within a day. By reading a TOEFL vocabulary book this way, you can not only
enlarge your vocabulary very quickly but also help yourself become accustomed to many good sentences,
which are very similar in terms of content and structure to the sentences that you will see at a TOEFL test.
Once you get to this point, you can’t help but see that you improved your reading skill a lot. And it would
catalyze your process of learning English listening, speaking and writing skills.

4. Conclusion
My advice in this essay is descriptive and scientifically unproven. I am not writing this essay with tons of
empirical research on improving English in a short term. My arguments are based on my experience, which
means I provide you with tips that work for me. So, please don’t be mad at me if you found out that my
advice does not work for your case.

- continued -

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I believe we have as many ways of improving English as the number of ESL students who crave to improve
their English, so feel free to modify my study guideline for your own sake. In addition, if you have not heard
of this advice, try this strategy to improve your English. It is worth it to give it a shot, I guarantee.
Who knows, you could finally get what you crave after such a long time.

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