It was supposed to be easy. Just write what I knew about. I was an 'expert' so writing should be easy. And they made it sound even easier: if you can talk, you can write, they said. So what was the problem? Why were my articles so limp and weak? Then I found an online course for article writing. The problem? The cost. It was far beyond my budget.

But I bit the bullet. If this course could ...

...make me write good articles, then it was worth it. So, I paid for the course. But that was just the beginning. That was when the real work started. Was I smart to shell out so much money for a course? Or would the free one have been smarter?.

Online English Free: learn what you can. What is necessary? What we're going cover is what REALLY matters. Because in the end it isn't about how much you pay. It is how free and paid courses work, and what your attitude is to a free course. In the article writing course I took, I learnt how important and valuable these qualities were:

1. Frequency
2. Feedback and progress measures
3. Accountability

Let me explain why I found these qualities so invaluable, and why I believe you should look for these same qualities when you are interested in a free English Online course.

Frequency

Any course, online or off, needs to be studied frequently. This is often the weak point in a free course. It is free, so you don't lose anything if you stop working on it, or take a break, right? Wrong. Many students who study free courses feel this way. The truth is you do lose a lot: your time.

If you do not work regularly through the course, you forget valuable ideas and information. The skills you are building grow weak again. Regular study is vital, and many students do not study regularly enough in free courses.

Feedback and Progress Measures

As you study, you need to get feeback. You need to know when you make mistakes. If you don't know where and what your mistakes are, you are not learning. Any course you take needs to give you some kind of feedback so you can re-study the areas you are weak at, and move on past the areas you are strong in.

Progress measures are similar to feedback, but they have one small difference. They motivate you in a realistic way. You can see what you have accomplished, and you can see what you need to work on. An important note to remember is to look back at all your successes to motivate yourself well. A good course should help you do this.

Accountability

Finally, a quality course will make you accountable. That means, when you get lazy or feel like resting too much, there will be some pressure from outside you to push you to study again. This must be done carefully. Too much pressure is stressful. But many free courses have zero pressure.

You have to motivate yourself 100%. That is great for a few days or a few weeks, but not very good to learn something enormous like a language. Gentle guiding pressure from outside can help us be the great students that we want to be.

I Know How to Motivate Myself

How do you know that you know how to motivate yourself? Is this just becuabecause get up every morning and go to work? Most people are good at motivating themselves to do enough. But enough is not good enough to learn a whole language. You need a lot of motivation. This usually comes with help from outside. In my article writing course, I got a lot of help from outside to pressure me to keep writing and practicing. I am still getting better today. Does your free course give this support?

Summary

A high quality English course, free or not, needs to be studied regularly. There needs to be some feedback to show you what you need to study more and what you do not need to study more. And progress reports to hellp motivate you. Plus the best courses will gently pressure you to study since you are probably like most of the rest of us and need a bit of help from time to time.

Next Step

Check the course (free or paid) that you are taking to see if it has these three factors in it to help you learn English as good and as fast as you really can.