What is the specific effect of writing a diary in English?
Tags: Language Exchange, English Learning, How To Learn English, Japanese, Language Learning

＊This is an article written by a Japanese who has become able to speak English with an English diary. Japanese learners can expect the same effect by writing a Japanese diary.

What is the specific effect of writing a diary in English?

I kept writing a diary in English almost every day for a year between my sophomore and junior year of college and while I was working in Canada (2017–2018). As a result, the TOEIC score, which was about 650 points in my sophomore year of college, had grown to 860 in my junior year, and then to 955 points after I finished working in Canada.

Of course, this wasn’t the only thing that helped me improve my English, but I’m sure that the practice of writing a diary in English made a significant contribution to improving my English. This time, I will explain more specifically what kind of effect it has and how I wrote my diary in English.

The beginning of the English diary

I started writing a diary in English when I was in my sophomore year of college. This started when I was taking a lecture on English writing at college, but I couldn’t write at all at that time. The teacher (British) at that time introduced that “It’s better to write a simple diary first” in the lecture, and that is when I started. Also, when I was living in Canada, I was looking for a good way to improve my speaking ability, and after watching a video explaining the effectiveness of the English diary by Jun of Hapa Eikaiwa, I decided to restart.(Reference URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VySCeL63SeU）

As you can see, the diary is a method recommended by native speakers, and is a method I would definitely recommend to anyone who wants to improve their English skills but don’t know what to do.

From here, I will explain in due course of the specific study methods.

Gathering information

The first important thing is to collect information on how to write a diary. Probably without any knowledge, even if you suddenly try to write a good diary, it will not last long. So first of all, let’s research how to write a diary online or in a book.

Nowadays, there are many introductions about diaries both online and in books. It’s a good idea to take a look at what method is right for you.

Actually write an English diary

Once you have an image to some extent, then let’s start to write actually. At first, a short sentence is OK. Writing in English is very difficult, and even if you try to write a lot from the beginning, you will probably get frustrated. So at first, let’s be conscious of writing simple contents in simple sentences. For example,

Today, I went to a shopping mall with my friend. After spending two hours there, we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant close to the mall. I didn’t buy anything, but it was fun.

What do you think? These are simple sentences, but do you think you can write it into English instantly? It’s good to try and write at least three simple sentences like that as a quota.

When writing, the first thing to be aware of is to look back on the day and write in Japanese what you did. This time, it was “I went to a shopping mall with my friends.” Next, let’s be cautious about the flow of the writing, starting from how we felt, the details, and the summary of the day regarding the action.

Once the flow of these three sentences are mostly decided, you will be able to continue without taking much time.

If you get used to it

Once you get used to the simple sentences, let’s move on to the next step. In my case, I used to incorporate what I had output and learned in advance into my diary. In particular, I referred to Hapa Eikaiwa’s podcast.

By intentionally incorporating the phrases I learned from the podcast into my diary, I was able to acquire natural English phrases. Or, if I wanted to learn academic expressions, I would read BBC news in advance and use the input expressions. Academic expressions are difficult to write simply in the contents of the diary. As you become more accustomed to everyday expressions, it may be a good practice to decide on a specific theme and write a brief opinion about it.

Review after writing

If you write a diary and read it aloud afterwards, the effect will be doubled. Try to read aloud at least 5–10 of the written English sentences. By reading aloud the English sentences you wrote yourself, you will start to absorb it as phrases you can use.

Also, if the pronunciation is ambiguous when reading, look it up and try to pronounce it with the correct pronunciation. Even if you understand the meaning, if you don’t understand the pronunciation, you can’t use it in conversations. That is very wasteful, so be sure to read aloud with the correct pronunciation in mind.

Also, be sure to review the English text you wrote. For example, read aloud together with what you wrote the previous day. Or, if you write for a week, read aloud the whole week and practice. The effect will increase by practicing repeatedly.

What is the actual effect?

At the beginning, I gave an example of the TOEIC score, but writing a diary in English will improve your English ability itself, and you can expect the following effects.

Speaking ability

The task of writing a diary in English is directly linked to your speaking ability. This is because writing English in a diary is exactly the same as speaking.

Have you ever wondered, “How do you say this in English?” and when looking it up later you find out, “Oh it was such an easy expression”. This is the key point of speaking, and in speaking, it is most important to express in a simple and easy-to-understand manner. Perhaps most of the people who have learned English in Japan have the minimum vocabulary and grammar required for conversation.

However, when it comes to conversation, it suddenly stops coming out because the frequency of expressing is overwhelmingly low. But you can practice this by yourself in the diary. In a diary, simply telling what happened today is the same as telling someone else through a conversation. The phrases you write in your diary will remain as phrases that you can use as your own words, and your speaking ability will definitely improve.

Vocabulary

Next is vocabulary, which can be improved quite a lot by studying with a diary. When writing an English sentence, start writing with a simple English sentence first. So you shouldn’t have to research too much, but you may still run into the question, “How should I express this?”

For example, in the previous example, surprisingly the word shopping mall may not come out. In this way, writing a diary will steadily increase the number of words that can be used.

Also, as you write your diary, you will find words and sentence structures that you often use. For example, you may oftenly use “it is very important〜”. This awareness is also essential for improving vocabulary. This is because rephrasing frequently used words and sentence structures will lead to further improvement in vocabulary. For example, for the word important, there are several adjectives with similar meanings, such as significant, vital, essential, and crucial.

By replacing your frequently used phrases with different words and sentence structures in this way, you will be able to improve your vocabulary dramatically. Also, if you grasp the difference in each nuance when replacing the words, your knowledge will be firmly established.

Grammar ability

Next is grammar, but needless to say it will be mastered. To actually output and check whether your grammar is correct is the most effective way. The difference from speaking and diary, it is possible to output the correct grammar while looking it up. So, if you get used to outputting it in your diary, your grammar mistakes will be greatly reduced in speaking.

Spelling

One of the strengths of keeping a diary in English is spelling. Nowadays, digitalization has developed so much that we don’t have a chance to learn spelling. Also, TOEIC, which is a major English test in Japan, does not require writing words, so it may not be necessary for some people.

But of course, it is never better than to be able to write the correct spelling. Above all, there are writing tests for Eiken, IELTS, TOEFL, etc., and spelling retention will be a great advantage.

Pronunciation

You may think, english diaries improve pronunciation? However, as mentioned above, the English diary will also help improve pronunciation by incorporating reading aloud. Actually, as a result of writing a diary and reading aloud as a set, my understanding of pronunciation became very clear.

This is because every time I find a word that I can’t pronounce well, I always look up the phonetic symbols in the dictionary and listen to the actual voice. In this way, the English diary is not just about writing skills, but it can also improve pronunciation depending on how you practice.

Summary

These are the methods and experiences I learned in my English diary. Please refer!

Interchao will correct your Japanese diary every day

Interchao is a free, interactive language learning application for Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean learners. Your journal entry will be read and marked by native speakers. Let’s mark others’ diary as a native teacher as a return!

Interchao: http://interchao.app/