--- title: "Studying at Pines Academy in Baguio (3/10 Weeks) - Finding a Way to Learn English That Suits Me" description: "These are my class notes from studying English at Pines Academy in Baguio, Philippines, summarizing the language learning principles shared by a substitute teacher: the forgetting cycle, repetitive practice, and finding a learning method that suits your personal interests." canonical_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/find-a-away-to-learn-english" author: "Mark Ku" author_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku" site: "Mark Ku's Tech Notes" date_published: "2025-02-28 01:01:02 +0800" category: "Learning" tags: ["english learning", "language", "study abroad", "philippines", "baguio", "toeic", "learning method"] language: "en" license: "CC BY 4.0" license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" attribution: "when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original" --- # Studying at Pines Academy in Baguio (3/10 Weeks) - Finding a Way to Learn English That Suits Me ## Introduction Our group class teacher was on leave today, so we had a substitute teacher (Wil). He's a teacher who taught us "how to learn English" and inspired us to learn English in a better way. ## Common Sense Typically, it takes an average person three years to learn English. Even if you study very hard for 12 hours every day, it will still take at least 6 months. No language school is a magic school, so they can't cast a spell that will instantly make you fluent. ## The Forgetting Cycle Study -> Learn -> Rarely use -> Go back to your country -> Forget it all ## The Basics of Language Learning You must understand how your brain learns. See -> Say -> Hear -> See -> Say -> Hear... Learning any language requires constant repetition. ## Is Studying Enough? When we were children, we spent 20% of our time studying and 80% practicing. For adults, it's the opposite. That doesn’t make sense! ## What's Important in Learning English? The most important thing is to "Find what works for you!" How do you find what works for you? You must find something you are interested in. Have you ever been in a restaurant and heard a couple fighting amidst the buzz of the crowd? I think in that moment, you gain a superpower of listening. Even though it's very noisy, you can hear everything because you're so interested in it. Actually, when you're interested in something, you learn it quickly. So, doing something related to your hobbies in English is a good approach. ## My Personal Case I really love writing for my blog, and I spend a lot of time watching talk show videos. I usually go jogging twice a week. ### **Actions** I thought, "That's right. I have to change my methods for learning English." - Practice writing articles in English. - Improve listening skills by watching talk shows. - Set all system languages on my phone and PC to English. - Listen to English audio regularly. - Watch movies with captions. The most important thing is: If you leave your country to learn English, don’t rely on the same methods you used in your home country. Otherwise, the experience will be similar to studying in your own country. ### **Teacher's Suggestions** #### **How to Prepare for the TOEIC** - Increase your listening speed. - Familiarize yourself with different accents. #### **Should You Turn Off Captions When Watching Movies?** If your English level is still low and you only understand a few words, watching without captions might be too challenging. In this case, **turning on captions** is more effective. Watching **50 short videos (5 minutes each) per week** is a great way to improve. #### **How to Memorize Vocabulary** As a child, memorizing vocabulary was easy, but now it can take much longer to remember just one word. Even in our native language, we don’t memorize vocabulary; we learn it naturally through use. #### **How to Improve Listening and Pronunciation (Linking Sounds)** Listen to music, especially Disney songs, and try to sing along. This will help you improve faster. ### **Useful Learning Websites** - [Daily Dictation](https://dailydictation.com/#google_vignette) - [PlayPhrase](https://www.playphrase.me/#/search?language=en) - [LinkSound](https://www.evaeaston.com/linking-1/) - [Lesson 16 – Word blending](https://www.aepronunciation.com/lessons/lesson-16/) --- ## About this article and its author Originally published on [Mark Ku's Tech Notes](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/find-a-away-to-learn-english) License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original ### About the author **[Mark Ku](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku)** — Software Solution Provider - 10+ years senior software engineer, now an AI Builder - Focused on large-platform architecture — North-American e-commerce, AI SaaS subscription billing - Combining AI Agents and automation to build evolvable product foundations ### Free tools built by the author All of these are free to use: - [Free PDF Sign Tool](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/pdf-sign): Online PDF sign tool — draw, type, or upload a signature, then drag, resize, and download. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded. - [VS Code Refactory](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/refactory): Refactory is a VS Code refactoring extension: 34 actions plus a 37-rule code-smell inspection layer with a Code Health dashboard, across 18 languages, backed by 534 tests. It learns your repo's conventions: where interfaces live, where DI is registered, whether 'use client' belongs. It ranks files by git churn × complexity so you know what to fix first, and hands any smell to the Claude Code already on your machine. Free to use, and your source never leaves your computer. - [DB-Kit Database Manager](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/db-kit): DB-Kit is a lightweight, cross-platform database manager built with Tauri + Rust + React. Manage MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, SQLite, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka, Elasticsearch and RabbitMQ from one consistent interface: passwords encrypted in the OS keychain, SSH tunnels, full CRUD, a visual query builder, stacked multi-statement result sets, cross-connection data transfer and compare/sync, Excel / CSV import & export, visualized execution plans, ER diagrams, scheduled backups, SQL stress testing with p50–p99 latency percentiles, a 15-rule SQL review engine, Kafka message browsing with monitoring & alerts, a bilingual UI (Traditional Chinese / English), a built-in AI assistant (natural-language SQL, AI review and tuning advice) and the dbk CLI. Free and open source (MIT), with installers for Windows, macOS and Linux. - [VS Code Super Mermaid](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/super-mermaid): Super Mermaid is a VS Code extension for beautiful Mermaid diagrams out of the box: auto-colored live preview, mouse pan & zoom, high-res PNG / SVG export, 21 templates and multiple themes. Free and open source (MIT). - [React Super Mermaid](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-super-mermaid): react-super-mermaid is an open-source React component library: render beautiful Mermaid diagrams with a single , with built-in colorful / sketch themes, pan & zoom, in-diagram search, and high-res SVG / PNG export. Lightweight, SSR-safe, fully typed. Free and open source (MIT). - [Jira / Confluence Super Mermaid](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/jira-super-mermaid): An Atlassian Forge app: write Mermaid syntax directly inside a Jira issue or a Confluence page and get flowcharts, sequence diagrams, state machines and Gantt charts. 11 diagram types, SVG / PNG export, light and dark themes, full CJK support. Runs on Atlassian: your diagrams live in your own site and the app calls no third-party service. Free, coming soon to the Atlassian Marketplace. - [Mermaid Live Preview](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/mermaid-preview): Write Mermaid in your browser, see it render instantly, and share the whole diagram as a single link. No sign-up, nothing uploaded to a server, and mermaid.live share links work as-is. - [React Intl Phone Number](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-intl-phone-number): react-intl-phone-number is an open-source React component: framework-agnostic and antd-free, with E.164 in/out, a searchable flag / country-code dropdown, configurable validation levels (strict / mobile-strict / loose), themeable CSS, and i18n — phone logic powered by google-libphonenumber. Lightweight and fully typed. Free and open source (MIT). - [Uptime Kuma Cluster](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/uptime-kuma-cluster): Turn single-node Uptime Kuma into a highly available cluster: OpenResty + Lua smart load balancing, shared MariaDB state, health checks and automatic failover, plus cluster-management REST APIs. One Docker Compose command to start. 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