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Do you want to learn new words and grammar faster, and to remember more of what you learn without needing to revise?

Of course you do! Who wouldn’t want that?

The great news is that the secret to better learning isn’t to spend an extra five hours staring at your textbook. In fact, it is very simple. You have to enjoy yourself while you’re learning!

Scientists have discovered that laughing is one of the best ways to improve learning and memory. This is for two reasons.

Firstly, it makes your body release something called dopamine. This is the “happiness hormone” and it makes your brain feel like it’s getting a reward for something. That means your brain makes a connection between this great feeling and the new information you learned while you were happy and laughing. To explain this in a very simple way, your brain is able to remember the information much more easily because it reminds you of the great feeling you had when you were learning.

The second reason is that laughing makes you feel relaxed and reduces stress. Stress is terrible for learning because it makes it so hard to concentrate. When we are very worried or stressed about something, it is very difficult to take in new information.

It’s a little bit like your computer when you have lots of different programs running at once – everything goes slower until eventually the whole thing crashes. When you are stressed, your brain is already working so hard to cope with all the negative thoughts and feelings that there is no space for new information!

If you are happy and laughing while you are learning, you can’t be stressed. You aren’t worrying the whole time that you aren’t clever enough, or that you don’t understand, or that your pronunciation isn’t perfect, or that you will forget an important word. Instead, you are just enjoying the experience of learning a new language and your brain is making the important connections that will help you to remember better later.

So, how can you make learning a language more fun?

It helps to think of learning a language in the same way you would if you were playing a game. For example, why don’t you team up with a friend from class and challenge each other to remember as many new words as possible in 30 seconds or a minute? Or you could play at writing a funny conversation between two characters that uses the new vocabulary and grammar you have learned. Relax, laugh at yourselves and and don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

Another great way to learn is to think of funny ways to remember new words. For example, you could create an action that reminds you of the English word, or think of a joke or a silly word in your own language that sounds similar. Repeat this every time you practise saying the new word in English and it will help you to remember it in a way that is fun and doesn’t make you feel stressed.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t need to study or practise at all. The more times you go back to revisit what you have learned, the better it will stay in your memory! But you will make it much easier for yourself if you have fun when you learn it the first time around.

Source: Eurocenters.com