Grammar or Vocabulary: Why You Should Priorotize Part 1

English is a complex language. There are many different parts of it you must learn to attain mastery of the language. While each part is important and necessary to becoming a fluent speaker/writer of English, there are certain parts that are more crucial than others. For example, I would say that knowing that the noun typically comes before the verb in a sentence is more important than knowing that a colon is used when the second part of the sentence is more important than the first part and a semi-colon is used when both parts are equally important.

This is why it is important to prioritize which areas of English you need to work on. 

You may remember that when setting goals you should be as explicit as possible. If you need a refresher on that post you can read it here. Once you have clearly defined your goal and broken it down into smaller parts, you should figure out which parts are the most important. In other words, which parts need to be completed first to ensure you reach your goal?

Continuing with the example above: is it more important to know how to write a coherent sentence or know which grammatical marker to use?

Of course, they are both important but knowing how to write a clear, concise sentence is a bit more important because, without that skill, grammatical markers don't mean as much.

So how can you prioritize what you need to do or learn?

Start by making a list of all areas you need to improve and all elements that you still need to learn. For example, 1.) Past/Present/Future Tense 2.) New Vocabulary Words 3.) Noun-Verb Agreement.

Next, reorganize the list based on what you think is most practical. For example, 1.) Noun-Verb Agreement 2.) Past/Present/Future Tense 3.) New Vocabulary words. After you reorganize your list write one or two sentences explaining why you feel each skill is more practical or less practical. For example, 1.) Noun-verb agreement is the most important element on the list because if I don't work on structuring my sentences correctly nothing else on the list will matter 2.) Past/present/future tense is important because it helps the reader understand when my writing takes place. It is not as important as noun-verb agreement because, most of the time, it will still be possible to understand a sentence even if I use the wrong tense 3.) Learning new vocabulary words is fun and will show I have an advanced grasp of the language, however they are not crucial for others to understand my writing.

Prioritizing is extremely useful when learning or improving your English, but it can also be helpful in virtually any aspect of life. Whether you're in school or in the professional world, you are given different assignments all the time. It may even feel overwhelming. The trick is to prioritize your assigned tasks by first focusing on those you need to get done first.

Again, begin by writing down all your tasks; in other words, make a goals list as mentioned in our post linked above. Then rank each task on a scale of one to five depending on how important the task is. 

For example, here is my most recent daily goals list:

-Continue annotated bibliography (4/5)
-Begin reading chapters (4/5)
-Look over Source (1/5)
- Finish Post (5/5)   Share to page (5/5)
-Go for walk (1/5)

As you can see, my top priority today was to finish this post and share it to Level-Up Proficiency's Facebook page. This is because I have committed to posting once each week on Tuesday, so basically this goal had to be completed today whereas the other ones didn't. Next, Continue annotated bibliography and being reading chapters were my next priorities because they both pertain to my final exam which is next Thursday. 

You can probably tell that I often prioritize things based on how soon each one has to be completed. It's good to get into the habit of finishing what needs to be completed earliest first. 

So whether you're working on improving your English fluency or just organizing your daily goals, it is crucial that you prioritize what you need to get done. It will help you stay on track and ensure that you don't get overly stressed. 

Do you already prioritize what you need to do? If so, how do you feel after prioritizing compared to if you don't? Let us know in the comments. If you have any questions or concerns about prioritizing or would like to schedule a preliminary consultation, send us an email at levelupproficiency@gmail.com or send us a message on our Facebook page.

Ryan M. Shea, English Proficiency Specialist 
www.levelupproficiency.com