We have just a month left until Christmas, which means New Year’s is just around the corner. Every New Year’s day we all sit around with our family and friends and decide what improvement in our lives we’ll try and make in the coming year.

Normally topics such as going to the gym more regularly, or eating fewer sweets will be on most of our lists. Maybe we want to work a little harder or make more money, or maybe we vow to spend more time with our families. But one that sometimes pops up on the goals of Europeans is to improve their English skills, for various reasons.

So if you want to improve your English, what’s the best way to do it? You, of course, want to improve quickly. I mean who really has time to devote months of their already busy lives? But besides improving quickly, it’s also important that you make sure that the improvements that you make last for the long-term. It doesn’t do you much good if you improve for a little while and then forget everything you learn.

Based on those common needs, in this blog post, I propose a few ways to improve your English quickly and effectively, so that you can be sure your improvements will stay with you.

Okay, okay. So it’s no surprise I would recommend a group English course since we offer them here at Weaver English. But there’s a good reason: they work. Nothing gives you better motivation to show up every week and do the necessary work to improve than making friends and sharing the experience with classmates.

It’s kind of like going to the gym. It’s much easier to decide not to go do your workout when you’re the only person you’re letting down. But if you’re working out with a partner, it’s much harder to bail on your workout when you have to WhatsApp your friend and tell them your lame excuse for not going.

When you have to send the text to your teacher telling them you’re not coming, and then tell your classmates the next week why you weren’t there, it gives you that extra bit of pause that sometimes is all you need to decide to keep it up and go to class.

More than the accountability factor, group courses are just much more fun than studying a textbook at home or doing an online course. You can’t replace the energy that you feel when you’re in a room with a group of people working hard to help each other achieve the same goals.

If you don’t have time to make it to a group course, there are loads of learning options online. From Pimsleur to Rosetta Stone, options are out there for learning almost any language on the globe. Each provider has their own advantages, so make sure to compare the benefits of each before making a choice. If speaking conversationally quickly is your main goal, especially for travel, I would certainly recommend Pimsleur. If pronunciation and quick vocabulary improvement is your goal, in that case, I recommend Rosetta Stone.

Of course, this is the most expensive and resource-consuming option, but it’s also one of the most rewarding. There’s no better way to learn a language than traveling to that country and being forced to learn it. There’s no better motivation than the absolute need to use a language to live. When you’re forced to use a language, and completely immersed in a world where all they use is that language, it’s learn or die.