daily – The Life and Times of Ben Weinberg

If you are learning a language such as English, it can be tough to justify doing homework and worksheets and additional activities. However, here’s a secret for you, dear reader: you have to do it as part of the learning process. In order to retain the knowledge, you have learned either through online courses, private lessons, or group classes, you need to have worksheets or activities in order to be able to remember what the concepts were that you have to put into practice. While worksheets alone will not make you an English master, the practice you can gain from them is invaluable.

From my experiences as an English as a Second Language teacher and as a business owner now, I can tell you that any kind of lectures or instructional materials whether they are by video, audio, or in-person should come with some kind of assessment in order to make sure that the student has absorbed the content and can make good use of it. Now, that does not mean repetition or intensive memorization but rather in the worksheets themselves, can they utilize this lecture material to write a paper, interpret a passage, form questions, give some answers, or even create a video or audio of their own.

It is a fallacy that worksheets have to be boring especially with languages. You can use them for many different purposes for English including grammar and vocabulary of course to be general but also for speaking, writing, reading, and listening. A true measure of a student is how they are able to discuss their reactions to a music video or answer questions about a movie scene or as well as ask questions of their classmates and write down the answers.

If you are a student and don’t have access to a private tutor or a regular English teacher, try to go online to different ESL websites to see if there are free resources to use including worksheets. Many sites offer free worksheets categorized by topics and themes, which you can then use to self-study English on your own. A good habit to pick up is to bookmark those websites that offer these free worksheets and use them each day depending upon which topic within English you would like to learn. You do not have to spend any money in order to get access to worksheets and they should cover a wide range of activities from speaking to writing to reading.

Also, paid worksheets that come with course videos or private lesson instruction come with the added benefit of the professor or teacher reviewing your work and correcting your mistakes. Having a private tutor can also help you realize where you went wrong, what you are doing well, and what you still have to improve upon. A course without any activities or worksheets is not much of an English course at all so it is very important to try to be able to evaluate yourself after going through some course material with either a worksheet, activity, or assignment to be graded.

We all know how having Homework especially as a teenager or an adult is no fun at all but for language learning, it is key to use worksheets that are due on a certain date and require grading to be used both in the virtual classroom and in the real classroom. Doing worksheets is not only for learning but for practice and to retain your knowledge. You can also be sure that by saving these worksheets for the future, you will be giving yourself a chance to go back, look at your mistakes, see where you are now as having improved and hopefully gotten better.

This is especially the case with vocabulary worksheets to help make sure you remember many verbs, adjectives, and nouns you may have forgot and to study them in order to improve your memory. Who knows? Perhaps you may have a family member or friend who wants to learn English who you can pass your worksheets on to so they can learn these concepts and skills too. Similar to a downloaded video, a downloaded worksheet can last for a while so you can always go back to it a few days, weeks, months, or even years later in case your English language skills start to get rusty again.

As I have mentioned, practice makes perfect and there are few better ways to make that happen than by working on and then completing worksheets. Whether you self-study and do them on your own, work with a friend or classmates, or even work through them together with a private tutor, English worksheets are a key part of boosting your knowledge of this language regardless of which part you are focusing on. You can do a worksheet on any part of the English language and I would recommend getting started with a base of vocabulary and grammar sheets before tackling the more advanced speaking, reading, writing, and listening worksheets.

Do not forget to take your time, check your work, read out loud the answers, or even seek the advice of a friend but make sure you do the worksheets, get feedback, and then save them for the future. You never know when you just might need them next and they are an amazing resource to have as an English as a Second Language student. Lastly, don’t forget to highlight your answers in yellow or cross them out with red ink. Using black or blue ink all of the time could get confusing for you.

Discipline is the hardest yet most important personal trait for an adult to develop. In previous articles such as A Wealth of Knowledge and A Lifetime of Learning, I covered the importance of learning new things and making them apart of your skills and abilities. I want to continue on a similar note for this article on the topic of ‘daily discipline.’ We often think of having discipline in terms of avoiding that delicious piece of chocolate cake or making sure you don’t procrastinate when you’re studying for a test. However, discipline is so much more than that as a concept. The best definitions for discipline in my opinion focus on controlling one’s behavior and honing it towards a certain goal you have in mind.

Another definition that discipline is often associated with focuses on training yourself mentally or physically in order to do an activity or go through an experience. Discipline can be one of these definitions or both depending upon the context of its’ usage. It’s not difficult to obtain basic discipline when it comes to controlling your food habits or in participating in an activity that can happen on a weekly or monthly basis. However, the real test of discipline is making something a daily habit or being able to do something positive for yourself on a daily basis that takes some effort.

The first kind of daily discipline is committing to do something every day that will benefit you either mentally or physically. The key to improving or reaching your goal is to do it every day. If you want to see rapid gains in your abilities, you have to commit to it each day for as long as you can. For every person, this is a little bit different depending upon what goal you’re trying to reach and what activity you want to focus on.

The activity could be lifting weights to get stronger by committing yourself to do it every day or at least every other day. Even if you’re not lifting weights, you could be doing push ups, sit-ups or squats. More generally, you want to be doing some kind of exercise every day for an hour and you should see results if you’re disciplined about it. The ‘daily’ part of the discipline factors in because you won’t see much improvement if you’re only exercising once a week. The same goes for playing sports or doing martial arts. You won’t improve much in soccer if you only play or practice once per week. You won’t become a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu if you only train once a week.

When it comes to mental discipline on a daily basis, there are a variety of ways in order to accomplish this. Being able to sit down and read from a book each day for thirty minutes or an hour straight without stopping is a good example. Concentrating on learning a new language every day consistently whether it’s focusing on grammar, vocabulary, speaking, and/or writing it is key in order to make progress. If you want to develop a new academic skill like getting proficient at coding or statistics, you need to be able to sit down and work on those skills consistently for at least an hour a day. When it comes to these mental tasks, one day per week is simply not going to cut it. Similar to physical activities, in order to become proficient at mental activities, you really need more than just monthly or weekly discipline; you need daily discipline. Daily discipline takes a serious amount of effort and hard work which means that it’s not for everyone. However, if you’re able to prepare yourself both mentally and physically, you’ll be able to make progress and reach your goals.

The second kind of daily discipline is not just doing the activity but doing it well. What I mean by that is that you have to be concentrating solely on that activity. You should not be checking your social media, texting your friends, or watching Netflix at the same time. This kind of discipline takes narrow and complete focus. It’s simply a fact from my own experience among other people I’ve read about is that you have to be working on the one mental and/or physical activity at a time in order to achieve the most gains. This is the hardest part when it comes to having discipline because there are so many distractions in today’s world so that it can be difficult to focus only on one task at a time.

However, I’m telling you that it is completely possible and you need to have a strong sense of self-control in order to be able to do it. Daily discipline is not for everybody and it’s going to take sacrifices. If you really want to achieve something great, you really have to dedicate a lot of time and effort to it. Unless you are a natural-born genius who excels in all areas of life, you won’t be able to achieve your goals unless you’re dedicated to it 100%. If you want to do something badly enough, then you need to put the time and effort necessary into it in order to become great at it.

To use myself as a personal example, I’ve written over one hundred thousand words on my blog at this point. I would say that I’m a good writer but I have a long way to go. I’m humble about my abilities because I’ve read some truly excellent writers who have a lot more dedication to the craft than I do at the moment. I’m hoping to change that in the future but to be a great writer; it takes serious discipline, focus, and a canny ability to make observations about the world in a succinct way. I still have a goal to become a great and renowned writer but it’s going to take a lot more time and effort on my part. I have to be committed to it and to keep practicing which is what this website is for.

As I mentioned in the previous article, The Passage of Time, time is precious and it is fleeting. You have to choose what you devote your time to. That being said, if you have a serious goal that you want to accomplish or a physical / mental activity that you want to excel at, you need daily discipline. An hour a day every day of the week will put you on the right track more so than just an hour per week total. If you would rather binge watch Netflix or play games on your smart phone, then that’s the choice you make, but if you want to really excel at more things in your life, you’re going to need serious discipline and it’s going to have to be daily discipline. Good luck.