The power of very small habits
Learning English through social media 'English content'
The first step towards sustainable learning

My biggest goal this year was to 'learn English'. I wanted to sit down for 30 minutes a day and memorize words, read English books, but that never happened.

Then I came across James Clear's book <Atomic Habits>. The author said, "One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify what you're already doing every day and build on that."

I thought about what 'I'm already doing every day'. It was looking at social media.

I decided to build English learning on top of the habit of social media and started changing all of my social media algorithms to 'English content'.

I followed foreign creators who fit my taste and constantly liked their posts to completely change the algorithm. And I started learning English in various ways according to the nature of each platform.

First, I used YouTube to improve my 'English listening skills'. I found a 1-2 hour long interview podcast channel called 'The Diary Of A CEO' and watched it consistently while driving and exercising, which helped me improve my listening skills. This channel is a channel where you can hear amazing insights from world-class speakers, which helped me with English, but also gave me a lot of inspiration in life, so I recommend it to readers.

I changed the YouTube Shorts algorithm to my 'comedy' taste by liking US stand-up comedy videos. Shorts are mostly watched to relieve boredom for a short time, so I thought I might as well enjoy it and chose comedy. A stand-up comedy YouTuber I recommend is 'Jimmy Yang'. Jimmy makes a lot of jokes about Asian culture, so Koreans can relate and find it fun, so I recommend it.

In the case of Thread, I used it to learn short sentences, and I changed the algorithm by liking and commenting on channels that post English quotes and used them for learning.

Reels mainly featured funny situations that happened in American everyday life, made in a drama format. Drama-format content was very helpful because I could learn natural everyday English. Also, in the case of this kind of content, 'comments' are often more interesting than the videos themselves, so I read through English comments and practiced English reading.

Finally, I recently started LinkedIn, where I'm 'writing in English' by uploading posts directly.

In this way, I was exposed to English every day for 6 months in various ways depending on the social media platform. What was the effect? The results were amazing. The biggest gain was that English itself became a part of my daily life, no longer something I had to 'study', but a living language. Using English to read books, have conversations, etc., became more comfortable and a natural part of my 'daily life'.

If I had said to myself that I had to set aside time to study English, I probably wouldn't have improved my English skills this year. However, English learning using social media 'habits' gave me a 'daily routine' of using English and improved my skills without having to set aside time.

The key point of English learning using social media is to watch 'content that I really like' in English. Many people watch content that is too high-level in terms of vocabulary and not interesting just for the sake of studying English, which makes learning less fun and hinders the sustainability of learning. However, watching content that I am interested in in English gives me continuous fun and makes sustainable learning possible.

If you want to learn English but are worried about only staring at social media, use social media for English learning instead. Change the algorithm, watch content that you love in English, and you'll find that English will become a part of your daily life without you knowing it.

※ The author of this article is me andan article from Woman Economy Newshas been copied.