Learning English can be hugely rewarding. The process requires discipline and practice, but when you start to see (and speak) the results, it all feels worthwhile. Yet to ensure that you recognize, celebrate, and maintain your progress, you have to track how you improve in English.

Progress tracking refers to how you assess your English proficiency and learning. It involves regularly monitoring how you speak, listen, read, and write in English, as well as how your vocabulary and grammar develop. Tracking can take the form of self evaluations, teacher reviews, language learning apps, and gamified platforms. What’s more, research shows that people who track their progress toward a goal are more likely to succeed in achieving it. 

Here’s why progress tracking can help you improve in English. 

Increased motivation will help you improve in English 

Staying motivated is essential to move forward in your English journey. With progress tracking, you become more deeply invested in your learning because you can see how you’re improving your language skills. Many learners experience a positive feedback loop, where they witness their results get better and feel reinforced to continue studying. It’s why there’s a correlation between progress tracking and better motivation. 

Elsewhere, you may find that progress tracking heightens the standards you have for yourself. For example, if tracking shows that you’ve understood auxiliary verbs, you’re then ready to start learning phrasal verbs. This self-competition pushes you to stay committed to English, particularly with challenging areas of the language. It means that you’re less likely to lose momentum when learning. So, you’ll reach your English goals faster and more effectively.

Set attainable goals with progress tracking

Defining realistic benchmarks is important to improve your English. Without monitoring your progress, there’s no way of knowing how far you’ve come, which areas you’re good at, and where you need to improve in English. This information is essential for creating goals that match with your individual learning style and capabilities.

Having goals that are tailored to you allows you to concentrate on material that will best help you meet these goals. You then feel a bigger sense of accomplishment when you reach these targets, plus there’s a higher chance that you’ll get your head down and study because you know that you are working towards your own personal language goal – and the reward feels more deserved! 

At the same time, setting attainable goals gives you a good long-term perspective on English learning. Tracking your progress lets you see language acquisition as a gradual endeavor, and you can be more patient with yourself and enjoy a manageable language learning experience.

Stay accountable for your progress

Independent language learners have a big responsibility to continuously practice and advance in their English efforts. Whereas group learners may have a teacher leading their curriculum and feedback, independent learners have to take on these tasks themselves. Progress tracking can boost accountability because it gives you details about your performance and highlights what you should be proud of, and where you need to improve in English. 

If you’re learning professional English, progress tracking can equip you with information that you can share with your manager to demonstrate that you’re taking English seriously.

Likewise, tracking your progress can facilitate how you deal with plateaus. Often, language learning involves slow periods, where you may feel like you’re not advancing. These are natural, but by keeping on top of your progress and being accountable, you can persevere and find your upward streak again.

Adapt your learning 

Adaptive learning refers to personalized and flexible strategies that enable you to learn in the most optimized way. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to language learning, and so you should welcome learning processes that are tailored specifically to you. Progress tracking matters because it gives you the data to adapt how you learn.

For instance, progress tracking could reveal that your English grammar is great, but your pronunciation needs improvement. You could subsequently decide to incorporate more speaking activities into your study. Alternatively, progress tracking may show that you perform well when completing tasks that involve role playing, so you might choose to design more of your learning journey around this structure.

Use AI tools to track your progress 

In the digital age, AI goes hand-in-hand (or algorithm-in-algorithm) with language learning. Specifically for progress tracking, AI tutors like ELSA can generate in-depth, personalized feedback that gives you a clear idea of your English level. These AI-powered resources can automatically evaluate your skills ranging from listening, reading, writing, and more. They additionally apply Natural Language Processing (NPL) to assess your pronunciation, intonation, and fluency in English.

Beyond granular monitoring, ELSA AI delivers feedback that actively helps you to improve. For example, giving tips to speak more clearly, identifying common errors that you might make, explaining rules and links between concepts, and recommending next steps to evolve your English. Using AI to learn English also comes with predictive analytics. By analyzing your historical data and performance trends, AI tools can make predictions about your future progress – such as when you’ll reach a certain proficiency level. 

With ELSA AI, you receive real-time feedback about your English proficiency, including analysis of your pronunciation, intonation, fluency, grammar, and vocabulary. Your personal dashboard also displays your learning progress, achievements, and rewards tracking. Not to mention, you can get English test score predictions for IELTS, TOEFL, CEFR, PTE, and TOEIC exams. Along the way, the AI tutor can recommend sentence paraphrasing and vocabulary suggestions to make sure you keep improving in English.