Reading outside class time

Student sitting and reading

In class, you read instructions, articles, examples of writing, and other students’ work. What do you read outside class time?

You may have never read in English in your free time. That must change. Now. To successfully improve your English and pass your courses, you must read in English every day. Every. Day. But how can you do it?

  1. Look at your day: when do you have time? Maybe while you’re eating breakfast; or, when you take the bus to the campus; or while you’re waiting for your next class, or when you’re going to bed. It doesn’t have to be hours of time. It can be a few minutes. Maybe five, maybe fifteen. Start small but fill your day with short times of reading in English.
  2. Look at how you read: do you want to read a book? Where can you get one? Can you carry it around with you or you’d rather have it on your mobile device?
  3. Think of all the things you can read: it doesn’t have to be books! Maybe an article on your phone, or news on our computer, or a website on your laptop. Or you can even read signs around you on campus and in the city. Read everything around you!
  4. Read what you want: don’t like the book from the lending library? You don’t have to finish it! Read an article about cooking, or your favorite sport, or beauty or health or politics! Everything counts!

No matter what level your English, the students who read a lot are usually more successful than those who do not. If you ever find out that a Saturday passed without you reading anything, that is a bad sign—you should quickly pick up a book or your phone and find a chapter or a few paragraphs to read.