It happened again recently.

I heard an expression in a song and thought:

“When did THAT become a thing?” 😂

It's one of the interesting challenges of being a native English teacher who has lived outside the UK for many years.

Because English doesn't stand still.

And being a native speaker doesn't mean you automatically know all the English people are using today.

So I make a conscious effort to keep listening.

I speak English every day with friends and family.

I read.

I watch British and American series.

And I listen to music all the time.

This is part of my job, of course.

But it's also something I genuinely enjoy.

I love noticing how language changes — new words, new expressions, new ways of saying things.

And music is a fantastic way of keeping my ear tuned in to what younger generations are listening to and saying.

My current playlist includes artists like Myles Smith, Megan Moroney, Ella Langley, Lainey Wilson and Shaboozey. 🎶

But there's another piece of advice I give to English learners: read things that are written for your language level, but don't necessarily choose a book written specifically for language learners.

When I first came to France to study, many years ago, one of my professors told me that my French was roughly at the level of a 13-year-old native French child.

It was actually fantastic advice.

She suggested that I look for books written for that age group rather than trying to struggle through adult literature.

It helped me enormously.

And it meant I had a huge choice of books to discover — and quite a lot of fun stuff too!

So if you're an adult learning English and graded readers aren't really your thing, why not try a teen novel?

📖 The Hunger Games, for example.

The prose is generally more accessible, the vocabulary is naturally controlled by the intended age group, and you're reading a real story written for real readers, rather than a book created specifically for language learners.

You might find yourself enjoying it much more.

So, when you're learning English:

📚 READ things that interest you 📺 WATCH things you enjoy 🎧 LISTEN to English music 💬 TALK whenever you can

And don't worry about understanding every single word.

Listen.

Notice.

Look things up.

And sing along.

Sing it out loud like nobody is listening! 🎤

Because learning a language isn't just about studying it.

It's about living alongside it.

And that's one of the things I love most about teaching English.

Vicki McBurney 

18/09/2026