7 Weekly Habits for English Fluency | English Listening Practice

Do these 7 Habits Weekly to Become Fluent in English

Welcome back to another episode of the Peach Teach English Podcast! In this solo episode, I’m sharing the exact weekly habits that helped me become fluent in Spanish and Portuguese — and can help you move from intermediate English (B1/B2) to advanced fluency (C1+).

We’ll start with a quick self-assessment exercise called the GAP Paper, then I’ll walk you through 7 simple habits that you can build into your week. These are practical, flexible, and proven to help you make consistent progress without feeling overwhelmed.

This episode is perfect for intermediate learners who want to improve listening comprehension, build vocabulary, and develop better study habits that actually work. Whether you’re learning English for work, school, or personal goals, this episode will help you feel more confident, organized, and fluent in your daily practice.

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📝 Episode 32 Transcript:

00:00 – Why You Feel Stuck at the Intermediate Level

Welcome back to the Peach Teach English podcast. I'm Frankie Memer, your host, and if you are an intermediate-level English learner trying to reach the advanced level, you are in the right place today, 'cause we're going to be looking at seven habits that you can add into your week to help you achieve English fluency.

Have you ever felt like you just don't have enough vocabulary? It can be really hard to understand native speakers. And you often lack confidence because you don't have enough experience speaking English, or you're super worried about making mistakes. That's completely normal. But the tips I'm gonna give you today are going to help you overcome these obstacles so that you can be truly fluent in English.

I've actually used these habits weekly in my own foreign language studies to become fluent in. Spanish and Portuguese. So they worked for me, and I really trust that they can help you.

01:02 – The Gap Paper Exercise

But before we even get started, I want us to do an exercise that I call the GAP paper. Because you're already intermediate level, you have a strong base, you understand a lot, you have a lot of vocabulary, but there are gaps, which means holes in your knowledge, and we need to find what they are.

So what you need is a piece of paper. A pen. What I want you to do is draw a line vertically down the center of the paper, and on the left side, you're going to write skills I need, and on the right side, you're going to write. Vocabulary gaps. Okay, so on the left we have skills I need, okay, these could be things that you need for work, your social life, travel, or whatever you need.

English, for example, give feedback, make sales, small talk with clients, interview prep, asking for directions. Then the vocabulary gaps. So these are basically those holes in your knowledge where you know that you need to enhance your English vocabulary. Those could be things like the bank, doctor, cars, taxes, legal.

Vocabulary. But I want you to do this gap page exercise, 'cause this is really going to help you do the seven steps that I'm about to show you.

02:33 – Habit 1: Listen to English Weekly

So now that you've done your gap paper exercise, we can go ahead and dive into tip number one, which really is gonna be tip number one and two, and that is consume English content every day.

And so tip one. Make sure you're listening to English every week, and make sure you are reading English every week. If you can do both every day, great, but try to at least consume something in English every day for a minimum of 10 minutes. And if you can do 15, 20, 30, an hour, even better, but minimum, 10 minutes.

And I want you to refer back to that gap paper. What skills do you need? What are your vocabulary gaps? And consume listening content like podcasts, YouTube videos, and courses that will help you build the skills and vocabulary you need to take your English to the next level. If you already understand like 90 to a hundred percent of what you're watching, that's a great, but you might not be improving your fluency.

So the key is to really challenge yourself to learn something new and improve your skills every day.

04:07 – Habit 2: Read English Weekly

And tip number two in terms of reading, right? You could read books, you could read articles based on that gap exercise. And what I really recommend here, guys, is also look on LinkedIn. What other professionals are out there?

What tips are they giving? What are they talking about? What vocabulary are they using? And. Interact with that content and really try to learn from other professionals, 'cause that's really gonna help you improve your English for work.

And really, my biggest tip here to do number one: listening and number two: reading every week, is something I used in my own studies, and basically, I found a podcast that had the listening audio. Also, the reading transcript so that I could use the same material to practice listening and reading. This helped me reinforce the vocabulary. It helped me develop both my listening and reading skills, and I made sure I chose a podcast that I really enjoyed. So this could be a really nice trick to help you include that listening and reading in your weekly English studies.

05:31 – Habit 3: Message Someone in English Every Day

Let's look at Tip number three, the habit that I want you to include in your daily life is message someone in English every day. This could be a friend, a language partner, a tutor, a family member, someone that speaks English, but you can message them every single day.

This could be on social media, WhatsApp, whatever messaging resource you have. The idea is to talk to someone every day, communicate with someone every day. This will help you develop your writing skills, your reading skills, and if you're sending voice messages, you could even be practicing your listening and speaking all at the same time every day. And the best part is it's a hundred percent natural.

The question might be, though, teacher, where do I find someone to message every day? First of all, I have an online community at peachteachenglish.com, and it's a completely free community. You can join there. You make a profile, and every day I am posting something there to help you study English, and you can leave a comment and interact with other people, but at the same time, you can also download apps like Tandem or Hello Talk. And there you will find people that are most likely learning your native language, and you can help them practice your native language, and they will help you practice English.

And the idea is just to message them every day. Hello, how are you? How was your weekend? What are you working on this week? Have small talk. And grow your vocabulary. Be intentional. The skills you need to build, do that with your language, partner, tutor, or friend. But it's simple. Message someone every day. And even better, you can message multiple people every day.

07:41 – Habit 4: Speak English Weekly

And so, guys, number four, and this is probably one of the most important things, if you really wanna build your fluency.

Because reality is, you cannot be fluent in English if you never practice speaking the language. Now, I recommended apps like Hello Talk, Tandem. And there are a lot of online platforms where you can practice speaking English. I highly recommend doing it with a tutor like me because we are qualified and experts in helping you.

In terms of grammar, correcting your mistakes, and we can explain these things to you. But at the end of the day, as long as you are practicing speaking and receiving feedback on those mistakes, you can become more fluent. And my big tip here is at least practice speaking English with someone once a week. That's what I did in my own studies, and I was able to develop quite a high level in the languages I've studied just speaking with someone like once or twice a week.

So if you would like to practice with me as your tutor, you can go to peachteachenglish.com and schedule one FREE consultation. We will identify your level. Talk about your goals and create the best plan for you to help you achieve English fluency.

09:19 – Habit 5: Write in English Weekly

Let's go ahead and look at tip number five, which is writing in English. Minimum at least write in English once a week, and doing that exercise of messaging a partner every day. You're already gonna be writing.

But we should be more intentional with our writing skills because having good writing skills is part of being fluent in English. And so what I recommend is at least once a week, sitting down and writing minimum one page in English, you could just write down whatever's ever in your head to help you think naturally in English.

Or you could go off of a writing prompt, but the idea is to challenge yourself to write at least one page in English every week.

10:13 – Habit 6: Keep an English Notebook

So tip number six, and remembering that gap page exercise. This is really helpful so that you can see that you are starting to fill those gaps. So what do you need? An English notebook.

Keeping. An English notebook. Okay. This will help you measure your progress because sometimes when we're at intermediate level, we feel like we have plateaued. We are not increasing our skills. So when you have this notebook, you can go back and be like, Wow! Look at everything I've learned and realize you're not actually at a plateau.

So what are you gonna do with this notebook? You're going to write down any new vocabulary that you learn from those listening exercises, from those reading exercises, from those conversations through messaging on LinkedIn. With your tutor, but you're gonna write down all those new words here in the notebook, okay?

And you're not only gonna do that, you're going to review it, okay? At least once a week, you need to go back and review all of the new things you learned, because what good is all this new knowledge if it doesn't become part of your long-term knowledge? So what I recommend is actually trying to use that in your writing exercises.

When you're having conversations with your tutor or your language partners, try to make examples. Try to think with these new words; this is how you're really going to become advanced in English and reach that fluency that you are striving for.

12:06 – Habit 7: Build a Strong Mindset

And tip number seven. Which is probably the most important one, and that is keeping a strong mindset.

And what does that mean? First, it means trusting the process. Some people might tell you that you can become fluent in three or six months. Um, they're probably just trying to sell you something. Fluency takes time. Most children don't even start making full sentences until they're like two or three years old.

So what makes us think that in just six months we're gonna be able to have all this knowledge and fluency even in a year? Uh, that can be very hard to achieve. So achieve just trust the process, be patient, and focus on learning something new every day. Right now, I am reading a book, and it says that we actually start learning much faster when we become comfortable being uncomfortable. So don't worry about making those mistakes. Stop trying to be perfect. That's actually slowing down your progress. Instead, embrace your mistakes. Know that with everyone, you are going to learn something, and try not to repeat those same mistakes again.

Also, keeping that positive mindset. The book I'm reading is also explaining that when people enjoy what they study, they enjoy what they're trying to build skills at. They are able to actually achieve expertise because they're not focused on studying. They're focused on enjoying the process, enjoying the fact that they're learning something. And so that's really the big tip here is be patient with yourself, make mistakes, and choose study methods that you enjoy. Watch videos or listen to podcasts that you like. Read books and articles that interest you. Have conversations with real people that you enjoy speaking to. Really, if you enjoy the process of learning English. You will become fluent so much faster.

And please remember that fluency or learning English has no finish line. We can always learn more. You can always be more fluent. Even as a native speaker, I learned a new English word from one of my students last week in class. So, we always have more to learn, so be excited to learn new things.

15:34 – Recap of All 7 Habits & Farewell

And please follow these seven habits. We don't have to say daily, we could say weekly habits. So remember weekly, listen to content in English, read content in English, message someone every day. Weekly practice having an English conversation with someone. Write at least one page in English every week, and keep that English notebook, taking notes of everything that you're learning, and remember to review it and keep that strong mindset.

And I know that you will become fluent in English one day. Thanks so much for listening to this episode, and remember, if you would like a supportive English tutor on your journey, you can go to the description and click FREE consultation, and I will talk to you about how I can help you achieve English fluency and confidence in speaking English.

See you in the next episode.

✅ Fluency Habit Checklist

💬 Practice Question for Learners:

Which of these 7 habits do you already do? Which one will you start this week?

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