7 Tips to Create English-learning-friendly Environment

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The learning environment can dramatically affect one’s learning ability and have a crucial impact on the success of an ESL student.

An English-learning-friendly place with comfortable seating arrangements, your preferred lights & color, and less noise can keep your motivation and engagement up. Whereas, if you study in an uncomfortable place full of distractions, you will surely lose focus and motivation to keep up the practice.

While creating an English-learning-friendly, you must consider different factors. So here are some crucial factors you must consider while making your learning zone. 

Prioritize Comfort Rather Than Anything Else

Prioritize comfort, no matter what brand, quality, or type of furniture you choose for your study zone. As an ESL student, your seating arrangements are (no matter whether it is a chair or a sofa) crucial to motivate self-learning.

Most ESL learners cannot carry forward their effort just because their learning environment is uncomfortable. As language learning is a lengthy process, no one can learn a language overnight.

Therefore, you must ensure a comfortable study zone where you can prepare yourself by practicing both actively and passively on a regular basis.

A comfortable environment can help you stay fine both physically and mentally. If you feel physical stress, you will feel stressed mentally too. So, comfort should be your best priority. You don’t always need to study sitting on a chair and gathering resources at the table.

If you feel comfortable studying lying on the bed, go for that. If you prefer the sofa, that is also fine. Prioritize your comfort to keep yourself stressless and motivated.  

Arrange Appropriate Lights for Enough Visibility

The lighting of your study zone can have a significant impact on your overall experience of study. Adequate lighting is essential to stay focused, alert and motivated. Otherwise, you may feel tired and demotivated.

You must have adequate eye-friendly visibility in your place of study. Natural lighting is the best way to stimulate your learning ability as it can boost mood and reduce feelings of stress and anxiety.

However, you may also arrange some good artificial lighting that can help you reduces eye strain. But, again, be careful about selecting lights, so they don’t irritate your eyes. I always suggest keeping the study room’s lighting as simple as possible.

Choose Colors Carefully to Support Your Mood of Study

Does the color of your surroundings matter for your learning? Yes, it does. However, many of us ignore the fact that the color of a room’s walls can influence our performance and mood while studying.

Research says that colors can significantly help ESL learners to stay focused and calm at the same time. In addition, it can help increase the level of attention.

I suggest you decorate your study zone with your favorite color. The best is to use neutral colors like white, cream, or grey. At the same time, I would like to mention that researchers and psychologists suggest that YELLOW can help maintain an optimum attention level and encourage creativity.

Ensure Less Noise to Avoid Distraction While Studying

You must make your study zone as less noisy as possible. There should not be any distractions or background noise. However, some people may feel okay with some background noise. If your attention is not affected, a little noise is acceptable.

Suppose your study zone is in such a place where external noises are unavoidable. In that case, you should take some measures to reduce it as more as possible.

You can keep your windows and doors closed or build proper insulation to make your study room less noisy. However, you should not always keep your windows closed. This may cause some other problems, such as suffocation and mental irritation.

In addition, if you are planning to use ceiling fans or air conditioners for your room, select something that doesn’t make any noise. Nowadays, there are o many modern electronics available that can fulfill your needs.

Make Sure of Cleanliness So That You Feel Refreshed

A chaotic learning environment can affect your learning experience. It can distract your focus and give you a feeling of stress. So, keep your study zone organized.

If you study in your bedroom, make sure your bed is always clean and organized. Likewise, your study desk and bookshelf should be well-ordered.

All your furniture should be clean so that you always feel good entering your study zone. No matter how much stress you go through somewhere else, your study room should be a place to relax.

So, to ensure a relaxing environment, you should always ensure cleanliness so that you can feel refreshed.

Guarantee the Availability of Resources

Last but not least is that you must ensure the availability of all necessary resources. Necessary supplies like books, notebooks, stationaries, or computers are essential to provide a comfortable learning-friendly environment.

Make sure everything you have is just beside you all the time. You should keep extra stock of your stationery items, so you never run out of supplies. You should also ensure that you have your computers updated in terms of both hardware and software.

Whatever pencil, pen, or exercise book you use, make sure you buy those you like. Many times excellent journals, pens, or pencils can motivate you to write. So make sure you stock your favorite brand of pens and pencils.

Keep Some Food & Space for Free-hand Exercise

Besides a comfortable study zone, you must ensure a healthy environment too. So, you may arrange healthy midnight snacks or foods like chocolates in your study room. Such food can help you when you are hungry at an odd time.

However, besides food, you should always keep a space in your study zone so that you can have some free-hand exercises when needed. Such activities are an excellent solution for stress release.

We all know that a healthy mind lies in a healthy body. And a healthy mental state is essential to concentrate while studying.

In Conclusion

The environment of a study zone matters a lot for ESL learners of all ages. Though creating an English-learning-friendly environment may seem difficult to many of my students, I still advise you to consider the factors I discussed.

Until you shift from your previous environment to the new one, you will never realize how your productivity will increase.

Thanks for reading.

Happy learning!  

Best of luck!

Niaj A A Khan is an ESL Instructor with over 8 years of experience in teaching & developing resources at different universities and institutes. Mr. Khan is also a passionate writer working on his first book, "Learn English at Ease."