How to Learn English in 2025

New Year and welcome back to our weekly live stream! My name is Alicia, and in this week's live lesson, we're going to talk about how to learn English in 2025.

I love starting the new year off with this type of lesson because we talk about how to set goals, how to understand your level, and we'll also discuss creating an action plan for your studies for the year.

This is a great way to begin your studies for any language, really. I also hope that everybody watching this live and everyone watching this after the live stream can add an answer to the comment that we're going to discuss in part one, which is your smart goal for 2025, specifically your smart goal for language learning.

If you don't know what I mean by a smart goal, please make sure to watch this video because I'm going to explain what a smart goal is, why it's really important, and how you can use a smart goal to ensure you give yourself clear targets for anything you are trying to work on.

As you join, please, please, please make sure to hit the like button and share this video so that other people can find today's lesson. That would be super cool! I'll come to the chat, the YouTube chat, and the Facebook chat in just a moment, but I want to share with you about this banner at the bottom of the screen, which says "Download your free 2,000-word ebook."

If you want to find our team's 2,000-word free PDF ebook, you can do that from the link below the video if you're watching on YouTube or above the video if you're watching this on Facebook. The 2,000 core words of English are the 2,000 most commonly used words in the English language.

This means if you want to study the most important words first, they will be in this PDF ebook. So make sure to check the link to get these and ensure you study the most important words first. These are the ones that are going to be the most helpful for you in everyday communication and everyday conversations.

This can be a great tool that you can use along with your smart goal today, and you can also just use this to build your vocabulary this year. So please check that out; it's totally free at englishclass101.com. I'll remind you again later.

All right, I think everything is rolling okay, so I'll say hello to the chat. Hello in the YouTube chat! I think I see YouTube, and I don't see Facebook yet. YouTube, hello! Hello, Victor, Natalie, Caleb, Abdul, Mary, Rayar! Hi, everybody! Welcome!

Facebook, I think, is still loading. I will say hello to Facebook in just a moment, but welcome everybody, and happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday and a great fresh start to this year.

This week, we're going to cover something you've probably heard me talk about before if you've joined me in past years, but I like to start the year with this topic. Facebook is joining very soon. Hello, everybody! Hello, Muhammad on Facebook and some other people that I can't see just yet.

But let's get into today's topic. Adam, what's up on Facebook? Hey! Okay, but let's get into today's topic because I think everything is rolling correctly now. Sounds good!

Okay, let's start with smart goals. Number one here for how to learn English in 2025 is smart goals. Smart goals refer to a specific type of goal. Lots of people write in the comments or they write in messages, they write just generally online very big and vague goals that aren't very helpful.

For example, I have seen many people write, "I want to be fluent in English," or "I want to speak like a native speaker." My goal is to speak like a native speaker. My goal is to speak fast or something like that. These goals are not very helpful.

I understand that goal; of course, we want to speak the language we're studying at a high level of fluency. Of course, I want to as well. I understand that, but the reason these goals are not so great is that they don't give you a clear target to aim for. They don't give you something that you can measure every day.

So this is the purpose of a smart goal: to help you choose goals for yourself that will actually give you targets and help you track your progress. It's really, really cool!

So if you have no idea what I'm talking about, if you're hearing this for the first time, let's break down what a smart goal is. You can see this: each word here, S, M, A, T, these all relate to a specific vocabulary word.

The first point in a smart goal is that the goal is specific. A specific goal. For example, "I want to be fluent"—that's not a very specific goal. What do you mean? What does fluency mean, right?

So choose something that is specific. Is it about vocabulary studies? Is it about a situation in your life? One person told me many years ago she set out in a language learning situation. I think she was studying English. She said one of her goals was to win an argument with her boyfriend.

She wanted to use her English language studies to win an argument, so that was a very specific goal. I thought that was a good example, though. So choose a goal for yourself and many goals for yourself that are specific like that.

Choose a situation or, what I'm going to talk about now, something that is measurable. Measurable! So maybe you can see this: able here. So measure-able. We are able to measure this, yeah?

So that means something you can check: Did I do it or not? For example, if your goal is to study like 100 vocabulary words, yeah, like 100 vocabulary words in a month, for example, you can measure that, right? Did I do it or not?

Right? Right! So we can measure that easily. We can also measure like three grammar videos every week or three live streams every month or something like that, right? We can measure it: Did I do it or not?

So choose something that you can actually measure, yeah? Okay, so let's move on to the next one, then. Achievable! Something that is achievable is something that you can actually do, right?

If you are a super beginner and your goal today, as a super beginner, is "I want to be a native fluent speaker of English by next week," it's not possible, right? Like, I appreciate that; that's a great goal for the long term to have, but it's not a reasonable goal, right? It's not actually achievable.

Okay, so choose a goal that you can actually achieve—something that is good for you in your level and in terms of your schedule, which we'll talk about here with the realistic section.

So a realistic goal is a goal that is realistic for you and your lifestyle right now. So if you say, "I'm going to study for three hours every morning, and I'm going to get up early, and I'm going to study like crazy every single day," that's a lot!

If you have to wake up at 4 in the morning and you study for three hours every day, is that a realistic goal for most people? Probably not, because it's very intense. Your motivation will probably go down very quickly, and you will probably get really tired and burn out, right?

So this is not an example of a realistic goal. Okay, finally, the T in smart stands for time-based. Time-based means that you have a timeline for your goal.

Okay, so for example, "In one year, I want to do blah blah blah," or "This week, I want to do blah blah blah." I have a goal this week, or I have a goal for the next three months. So you always have a timeline for your goal.

Okay, so your task now in the chat, whether you're watching live or later, is to answer this question then. Oh, I think it's a little bit cut off from the banner. Sorry, guys!

So I'll write some here. Oh my gosh, sorry! I'll write some here on the board so that everybody can get some of their items up here. So what is your smart goal for 2025? This space is for you, so send me your goals.

While we wait for people to send their goals in the chat, let's take a look at a few sample goals. I prepared three sample smart goals so you can understand what a smart goal might look like.

So first one: "My goal is to pass an English certification test this year." My goal is to pass an English certification test this year. I know everybody has different levels, of course, and there are a few different tests that you can take.

So maybe a great goal is to choose a certification test, like a language certification test, your level certification, and make that your target for this year. Many people choose to use a test for a goal. I think that's a great thing to do because even if the test isn't so important to you now, the test can be great study motivation because you don't want to fail, right?

So this can be a really good one—taking a test because it's external, right? It's outside us. That's a good one.

Okay, second: "My goal is to learn 100 vocabulary words each month." My goal is to learn 100 vocabulary words each month. This is a great goal; it's very smart as well, too.

Specific: What are we studying? Vocabulary words. We can measure it: Did we learn 100 or did we not learn 100? Right? Is it achievable? Yeah! 100 vocabulary words in one month—that's very achievable.

Realistic? Yes, absolutely! That's a realistic goal for most people. Time-based? Yep, each month, right? So we have all of the parts of the smart goal in this goal.

Yeah, maybe you can see this. Okay, I see some people are sending their examples in the chat. Please send your answers!

Yeah, what is your smart goal for 2025? And I'll come and check them out.

Okay, last one: "My goal is to complete three video lessons per week." My goal is to complete three video lessons per week. This is a smart goal because we have something specific.

So what am I doing? Video lessons. Can I measure it? Did I do three lessons or not? Right? Achievable? This is a pretty reasonable goal, right? Three lessons in a week is a very reasonable goal for many people.

Is it realistic? Again, probably for most people's schedules, it seems pretty good. And time-based? Per week, so we have a time frame for each one.

Okay, all right, I'm going to come to the chat. Some people are sending goals. Like, I see Jose just sent one. Hello, Jose on Facebook, who wrote, "My goal is to review all of your beautiful lessons."

Okay, so number one, there's no timeline on that, right? Two, is it realistic? Are you going to review every single one of my lessons in a year? I don't know what your schedule's like. Actually, I don't even know how many lessons I have. That's probably hundreds, probably.

And also, what are you trying to do, right? What are you studying with that? So think about that. Maybe think about that like, "I'm going to review all your lessons about, I don't know, hobbies or business or something," and then give yourself a timeline for it.

Okay, let's see. Some people are saying—many of you are sending goals that are not smart goals. Okay, so you are sending me vague things. Like someone, Muhammad on Facebook, you wrote, "I will focus on English studies to improve my speaking." Not a smart goal! That's a big vague goal.

What will you do to improve your speaking? For example, if your goal is to improve your speaking, "I'm going to take lessons with a speaking partner twice a week." There's a smart goal, right?

So give yourself a smart goal to do that thing that you want to do. You want to improve your speaking. What specific thing are you going to do to achieve that goal? You get it?

Okay, I'm going to look for some more. I'm coming to YouTube. Natalie has one that's not about language, but I love that: "My goal is to be a chartered accountant within this year." Good luck with that!

Okay, Jonathan wrote, "My goal is to study for and pass the TOEFL test this year by studying one hour per day." Nice! Good luck with that!

Okay, so you have used this test one, yeah? So you have a year to complete that. Good luck with that!

Okay, Humberto wrote, "I want to go to the USA this year and be able to speak English with native speakers." I think that's a good start. I would make it more specific.

So what do you want to talk to native speakers about out in the US? Do you want to be able to discuss your hobbies with them? Do you want to talk about travel with them? Get really specific with these kinds of things, yeah?

Let's see. I'm reading somebody else's. I'm not sure. Mino, my goal is to speak English. Oh, about what you did, right? So my goal is to talk about the past tense. Maybe that's what you want to explain.

My goal is to speak English about what I did and what I think and what I'm going to do. Okay, so it sounds like you have past tense, future tense, grammar points that you want to practice and talk about your thoughts as well, too.

I plan to speak English for 15 minutes. That sounds good! Now just add a time base for that: 15 minutes once a week, like 15 minutes, I don't know, once a month in a session. Talking for 15 minutes is a long time!

Like, I talk for 30 minutes in these live streams. It's a lot! So be careful! Start small, too. If your goal is speaking, maybe say, "I'm going to start by talking for one minute a week," just using my phone to record my voice, for example.

Okay, Sora wrote, "My goal is to complete my English classes by the end of this year." Oh, that's great! So do you have a—I wonder, I guess many of you probably have some English classes that you attend. That's great!

You'll be able to start your college major in biology and eventually become a surgeon. Wow, that's super cool! Good luck with that! That sounds like a great goal, and it sounds like your language learning is a part of that. Good luck with that! That's a big one for this year. Good luck!

Okay, Marshall, hey, Marshall! Marshall, I specifically want to improve my understanding of root words by studying 15 minutes a day for three months. Really? What do you mean by root words, Marshall? I'm very curious about this goal!

Okay, other—there are some people. Ah, EMR, you have a goal at the end of your comment: "I want to take—maybe I want to pass IELTS 6.5 by next month." That's a great goal! I love that!

Okay, I'll put this one on the board for those of you who are using tests for your smart goal. I will include a test example. Thanks for that one, EMR!

So EMR wrote, "I want to pass." Instead of "I want," well, you could say "I want to take the IELTS test." That's true, but maybe your goal is to pass a certain level. You want to complete it, right?

So I'll add that one here: "I want to pass." Yeah, that's a good one! I want to pass, in this case, IELTS 6.5 by the end of next month. By next month, yeah! That's a nice one! I like that!

Go! Very specific! This is a great smart goal because it is specific. We can measure it: Do we pass the test or not? Is it achievable for this person's level? I hope so!

And then is it realistic? I think maybe for this person's lifestyle, and we have a timeline, so that's good! So that's a good example. Sorry, next month got cut off there.

Okay, good! I have to continue. Oh my gosh, I talk so much about smart goals! I love smart goals!

Let's take a quick break, and then we'll head over to the next part, part two, which is about checking your level, which I get a lot of questions about.

In part three, we're going to talk about your personal study plan. Marshall, sorry, root beer, not root words! That's funny! Enjoy your root beer studies, Marshall!

Okay, quick break! If you missed it earlier, our team has a 2,000-word eBook to help you learn vocabulary words in 2025 and beyond. The core words of English are the 2,000 most commonly used words in the English language in everyday communication.

So if you want to make sure you study the most important words first, you should get this ebook. Here's a little guy right here in the corner. You should get this ebook! You can find it from the link below the video on YouTube or above the video on Facebook, and you can get this for free!

It's at englishclass101.com, so check this out for those of you who want to study vocabulary. It's a free resource, so go check it out!

Okay, let's continue on to the next part, two. Someone in the YouTube chat, Bio, what's up? You wrote, "How do I know my level?" Welcome to part two! Please watch this part!

So part two is all about checking your own level. If you have not, please make sure to hit the like button and share this video so other people can find today's lesson.

Okay, check your own level! What do you do? Because I know many people have this question: What do I study next? So if you have not heard me talk about this before, I'm going to talk today about something called a can-do list.

This is a tool you can use to check your level now and to track your progress with your studies. Usually, I like to recommend maybe once every three months you review this process to track your progress. If you do it every day, there's no point.

So use this system every few months to track and understand your progress. This is called a can-do list. So a can-do list right here—can-do is a list of questions that are phrased as "Can I?" or "Can I blah blah blah?" about different topics and different language skills.

The purpose of this is to help you understand which things you can do and which things are difficult for you and which things you cannot do at all. This is actually very helpful for your language learning.

Okay, it's very important to answer the questions honestly. Okay? Don't think, "Oh yeah, I could totally do that! I'm so good!" Be very honest with these.

And you might think, "Well, where do I get a list of these questions?" This is very easy to find on Google, and if you use englishclass101.com, you can find some resources there as well.

So for this, you can go on Google, like "can-do English question list," for example, and you can find a lot of different samples. Choose one that, of course, you can understand. If you can find one in your language, that's great!

Yeah, so use this list of questions to understand your level now. This list of questions will not say level one or level two or level three or anything like that. The level, the result from this, is it will help you to understand what things are difficult for you right now so you can focus on those topics.

So let me show you an example. I have three sample questions prepared here. Okay, let's take a look.

So an example question on this can-do list might be, "Can I talk about my hobbies?" Can I talk about my hobbies in English? And the answers, the possible answers are usually "yes," "with difficulty," and "no."

Okay, there are three answers here. So maybe if you have studied English for a little while, if you've studied English for a few years, maybe you think, "Yeah, I can do that!" If you think you can do it, maybe a little slowly, but you feel it might be possible, you can put "with difficulty."

If you think, "Oh no, I don't know anything about hobby vocabulary," you can put "no" for your answer. So for today, just for an example, let's say the answer is "yes." I can talk about my hobbies! Love it! Love to talk about my hobbies!

Okay, let's continue to the next one, then. "Can I make a restaurant reservation on the phone?" Can I make a restaurant reservation on the phone? Again, "yes," "with difficulty," or "no."

So feel how your body feels when I ask that question. How do you feel? You think, "Yes! Oh, that's easy! No problem! I can do that!" Great! Then you mark "yes" as your answer.

If you think, "Oh, I might need to practice a few times before I start the phone call, but maybe I could do it," I think I could—that's "with difficulty."

If this question makes you feel like, "Oh no, I'm so afraid! I don't even know what to say! What does the word reservation mean?" Your answer is "no," and that's okay! It's okay to answer "no."

So for today, let's say your answer is "with difficulty." Maybe I could do it, maybe not. I'm not sure, but I know a little bit.

Okay, then let's go to the last one. The last question: "Can I give a business presentation?" Can I give a business presentation?

If you are a super studier, if you are a fluent English speaker, maybe your answer could be "yes." If you are not so fluent but you don't have much, or rather, if you're not so fluent, you don't have much experience with this, you're not sure, makes you feel a little nervous, but maybe with some preparation, you could do it "with difficulty."

If you think, "Oh no, no, no! I have never studied business English! I don't know the correct vocabulary! I don't know how to speak in a business situation! No, no, no, no!" Your answer is "no," yeah? And that's okay!

So let's say, for example, your answer is "no." Okay, fine! So we have these three can-do questions here. We've answered them. So now what do we do?

All right, with this, we want to look for questions that we answered with difficulty, too. Yeah? Because this kind of thing, where we have something that we already know how to do—in this case, "I can talk about my hobbies"—great! That's wonderful!

So we don't need to spend lots and lots and lots more time practicing this topic because we can do it! That's great! That means we need to go to the next thing.

Okay, this thing, on the other hand, this "no" right here, this very scary "no," this means it's too difficult right now. Okay? In the future, maybe we will be at the right level, but right now, this is too difficult.

Business presentation? Nope! Too much! So if I try to study a business presentation right now, I'm going to have low motivation. I'm going to feel overwhelmed. It's too much new stuff right now!

But this, this is right in the middle, "with difficulty." This says it's a little challenging, but I know some things. I don't know other things, so I can grow in there.

So when you do your list of can-do questions, look for the ones you mark with difficulty, yeah? Because those are the hint situations for you.

What you're "with difficulty" or whatever the can-do test says, when you find those spots, you can go, "Ah, okay! Those are the next places for me to focus on!" And then you can build your study plan using smart goals, like we talked about before, to do that.

Yeah, so I'm going to talk quickly about the study plan at the end. All right, so this is the purpose of a can-do question list, and you can find these on Google or whatever search engine you like to use.

So definitely do a quick look at a can-do question list. I like to do it, or my recommendation is once every three months, of course, if you're studying regularly.

Okay, let's finish there, and then we'll go to the last part.

I'm looking at the chat really quickly. Some people are asking questions about topics that are different from today's lesson. I recommend you do a quick search on the YouTube channel, the EnglishClass101 YouTube channel, or if you are a member at englishclass101.com.

I've answered someone's asking a question about a whole bunch of different grammar points. I recommend you do a search, a video search at least, on the YouTube channel. You can access everything there easily, so check that out if you have questions different from today's topic.

Let's quickly go to the last point, and then I'll remind you about the ebook you can get for free.

Okay, so today I want to finish with creating a personalized study plan. So if you set your smart goal, if you checked your level, you understand what's easy, what's difficult, what's hard for you, then you maybe are ready to create your personalized study plan.

Some of you sent your smart goals earlier. That was great! I loved that! It's also important to consider that learning a language, learning to communicate in a language, requires many different skills, right?

When we say, "I want to be fluent in English," what does it mean? It means using all of these things, right, to communicate. We need vocabulary, right? We need grammar. We need listening skills. We need speaking skills. We need writing skills, right?

So when you make your personal study plan, make sure you can practice all of these elements, all of these pieces.

Yeah, for example, if you know you need to study vocabulary, great! You can get this PDF ebook. That's a great place to start! You can practice flashcards on your commute. This is always my personal all-time favorite way to study—was flashcards on my commute.

Oops! I'm drawing on the board! Sorry! So you can use flashcards on your commute. That's great to do! You can do flashcards during your lunch or whatever break you have.

So flashcards are a really popular way to study vocabulary. Of course, if you prefer a different method, you can use that too, but put that in your study plan to make sure you study vocabulary.

Okay, then grammar. So grammar, what should we do for grammar? We could do two grammar videos per week in the evenings, for example. That's a very specific pattern, right?

So we could also do one textbook lesson per week. So choose what fits you and your schedule the best, yeah?

Listening! What are some ideas for listening? For listening, you could do one audio dialogue practice per day if you listen to the audio dialogues at englishclass101.com. Thank you!

But you can also make sure to do one of those every day as part of your regular listening practice. Yeah, you could also watch a YouTube video per week, right?

So if you watch this every week, that is wonderful! I hope you watch more, of course! And it doesn't always have to be language learning videos. You can watch videos in English about your hobbies or topics that you enjoy. That's more fun, right?

So I will give you the tools, and then you can go out and practice those with your favorite YouTubers. Yeah, I love that, actually!

Okay, speaking! What can you do to put speaking practice into your schedule? You can have two conversation classes per week. Some of you mentioned that you are already taking language classes. That's super awesome and great!

And then I hope you also speak a lot in those. When I was teaching in-person language classes, many people were kind of shy at first, and then they became more comfortable speaking.

But that's your chance to practice speaking and get feedback from your teacher, so make sure you always practice speaking in your speaking classes. That's what you're there to do, and your teacher is there to help you.

And then another idea is daily speaking practice with an online teacher. If you use EnglishClass101.com, some of you maybe have experience with that. You can send them an audio file, and they will listen to it and give you feedback.

They will give you speaking feedback, like your pronunciation, your intonation, and so on. So that's another thing you can do with an online teacher.

Okay, lastly, a couple of writing points. I know it's very small here, so I will read out loud. Daily diary entries—I know some people like to do this.

So writing in a diary every day: What did I do that day? What am I going to do tomorrow? Somebody in the chat mentioned that earlier. I think it was Mino. Is that your name?

So this might be a good one for you, Mino: daily diary entry. So you can practice past tense, future tense, and your thoughts. What are you thinking about?

So maybe this is a good one for you. And the last one here is weekly social media posts. I know many people like to use social media to practice their language. That includes me, actually!

I like to put a caption in Japanese in my social media post too, just to challenge myself and see if I can express my ideas in both my core languages every time I put something out.

So that's my personal favorite as well. All right, so these are a few different ways to create a personalized study plan—some examples, really.

So your personal study plan is up to you and your smart goals and the level that you find for yourself. So you can make these very personal things for yourself and track your progress this way too. It's awesome!

All right, some people sent some things in. My plan is listening to one hour video per day and practice shadowing with the same video. Oh, that's good! That's a lot of listening practice! An hour is a lot!

I hope you can do that! That's great! Don't be afraid to make it like 30 minutes too if it's too much! Yeah, that's a really great goal! I love that for your listening practice!

Okay, I have talked too much again, so we'll finish there for today. But I hope that you enjoyed today's lesson. I'll move so you can take a screenshot if you want to now.

Okay, great! So this is a hopefully helpful guideline for how to learn English in 2025. Oh my gosh, another year, right?

So I hope that we can start it well, and we can push forward toward our goals and have a good time while we do it. Don't we love that? We love that!

Okay, so I have to end there for today. I'll be back next week, of course! Oh my gosh, what is next week's lesson topic? It's the first live stream of the year! I forgot what the next week's lesson topic is!

I think it's another one. I think I planned something to continue our practice of the next—of the learning at the beginning of the year. What did I plan for next week? Sorry, everybody!

Explaining your goals and resolutions for 2025! That's a good one! So we talked about smart goals today. We will talk about goals and resolutions, this kind of thing, and we'll talk about the grammar to express that for the year too.

So we'll continue talking about goals, but we're going to shift to talking more about grammar and key vocabulary for that in next week's lesson.

So please join me in next week's live for that! That will be so fun! Also, don't forget to get this core word PDF ebook. It is 100% free at englishclass101.com.

So please, please, please, please, please check it out, and you will find all 2,000 of the core words that you need for everyday communication there. We love it!

All right, so have a good day! I will finish there! Have a good day! Have a good week! Have a good weekend! Thank you so much for your great questions and comments in the chat, and I will see you again next time!