How to Study When English Is Not Your First Language

Quick answer: If English is not your first language, you lose marks on wording, not on knowledge. Read every topic twice, once for vocabulary and once for meaning, keep technical nouns in the exam language only, and practise saying three-mark answers out loud in English every day. Mark schemes reward precision, not fluency.

My school teaches in English and my family does not speak English at home. English is my strongest subject now, but that took years, and I still catch myself writing a history sentence that is grammatically perfect and worth zero marks, because I translated a phrase from home instead of using the word the mark scheme wants. Nobody told me this for two years: examiners in biology, physics and history are not marking your English. They are checking whether specific words appear. Once I understood that, my science grades moved before my English did.

The marks go missing in the last ten words

Open any mark scheme, whether Cambridge IGCSE, AQA, Edexcel, OCR, CBSE or WAEC, and the marks sit on nouns and verbs, not on sentences. A 3-mark explain question has three mark points, and each is roughly one technical noun plus one precise verb.

Second-language students almost always get the first half right. You write "the water goes out of the cell" when the examiner needs "water leaves the cell by osmosis". Same understanding, one mark instead of two. The gap is not comprehension. You translated the everyday verb from your first language and stopped there, because in your head the meaning was already complete.

So the revision question is not "do I understand this?" It is "can I say this in the words the mark scheme uses?" Two different skills, and the second has to be trained on purpose.

The two-pass method, and why one pass is slower

The instinct is to read a chapter once, stopping at every unknown word. That is the slowest method, because each stop wipes out the sentence you were holding in your head. Split the job instead.

1. Pass one, vocabulary only. Read with a pencil and underline every word you cannot define in one breath. Do not look anything up. Do not try to understand the science. About 8 minutes for a 2,500-word chapter.
2. Look up the marked words, in the exam language. Not a translation, a one-line English definition. If that is still too hard, put the term into /explain and ask for a simpler reading level. About 12 minutes for 15 words.
3. Pass two, meaning only. Read straight through with no stops. About 15 minutes.

That is about 35 minutes, against the 45-plus the one-pass method cost me for a chapter I then could not answer questions on. The order matters more than the timings: finish the language problem before the content problem.

Worked example: the same answer at 0, 1 and 3 marks

Question: explain why sweating cools the body. 3 marks.

The mark points are: sweat is mostly water; the water evaporates from the skin; evaporation transfers heat energy away from the body.

Version A, 0 marks. "When you are hot your body makes water and then you become cold because the water goes away." The thought is right. But "makes water" is not sweat produced, "goes away" is not evaporation, and heat energy is missing.

Version B, 1 mark. "The body produces sweat and the sweat dries, so the body cools down." "Produces sweat" scores. "Dries" is not evaporation and there is no energy transfer, so the other two points fail.

Version C, 3 marks. "Sweat is mostly water. The water evaporates from the surface of the skin. Evaporation transfers heat energy away from the body, so body temperature falls."

Version C is not better English than version A. It is shorter, flatter and more boring. Three sentences, three mark points, one technical verb each. If English is your second language that is good news: you never need elegant sentences, only the right nouns and verbs in short ones.

The drill: count your sentences, then count the marks. If a question is worth 4 and you wrote one long sentence, you have probably merged two mark points and lost one.

Kill the five vague verbs

These five are the biggest silent mark-killers for bilingual students, because each is the direct translation of the verb you use at home:

• goes: replace with moves, travels, diffuses, evaporates, flows, transfers
• makes: replace with produces, forms, releases, generates
• gets: replace with becomes, absorbs, increases, decreases
• does: replace with reacts, functions, acts on
• happens: replace with occurs, takes place

My test: if a verb would work in a text message about lunch, it will not score in a mark scheme.

Essay subjects have their own list. In history, "the situation was bad for the people" scores nothing, while "unemployment rose, so support for the government fell" scores, because it names a change and a consequence. In English literature, "the writer uses good words" is dead and "the writer repeats the verb to build tension" is alive. More on that in the English subject hub.

Build a glossary of 10 terms per topic, not 400

A whole-book vocabulary list is unusable. Cap yourself at 8 to 12 terms per topic, the ones that appear in past mark schemes. Across a full IGCSE science course that is about 120 terms, and maybe 40 decide most of your marks.

Write each entry in this order, strictly:

1. The term in the exam language.
2. A one-line definition in the exam language.
3. Optionally, the word in your first language in brackets.

Never write the definition only in your home language. If your home language sits first on the card, your brain learns to route through it, and that routing costs seconds under time pressure. Exam language first, always. Put the list into /flashcards so the terms come back at intervals.

Output practice: the two-minute rule

Reading English all day does not teach you to produce exam English in 45 seconds under pressure. Input and output are separate skills, and almost all second-language study is input only. That is why fluent readers still freeze on a 6-mark question.

After every session, close the book and explain the topic out loud, in the exam language, for two minutes. Record it, play it back, and count how many times you said goes, makes, gets, does or happens. That number is your real score. Then write one timed answer a day and get the wording checked: /grade marks against mark-scheme style rather than grammar.

Reading speed in the exam room

Most people read a second language 30 to 40 per cent slower, so a 900-word source costs you about 5.6 minutes instead of 3.6. Two fixes. Read the questions before the source, so you read it once hunting for specific things instead of twice. And do not translate the question in your head: translate the single word you are stuck on, then carry on in the exam language.

Test yourself

1. A question is worth 4 marks. Roughly how many separate sentences should your answer have, and why?
2. Rewrite this so it scores: "The gas goes up and makes the temperature get higher."
3. Why should the exam-language term come before your home-language word on a glossary card?

FAQ

Should I translate all my notes into my first language?

No. Translate the reasoning if it helps you understand, but never the technical terms. If a term only lives in your first language, you have to translate under exam pressure, which is exactly when translation fails. Keep the nouns in the exam language from day one.

Is it cheating to think in my first language during the exam?

No, and nobody can mark your thinking. Think in whichever language reaches the idea fastest. The one rule is that the sentence you write must be assembled in the exam language, so rehearse that step during revision rather than inventing it in the hall.

Will I lose marks for grammar mistakes in science and maths?

Usually no. Examiners mark content points, and small article or tense slips are ignored. Two exceptions: essay subjects where written communication carries marks, and any error that changes the meaning. "The temperature increases the reaction" and "increasing the temperature increases the rate of reaction" are not the same claim, and only one scores.

How long until this stops feeling slow?

About one term of daily output practice, for me. Two-pass reading felt faster within two weeks. The speaking drill took longer, because it is uncomfortable at first and easy to skip.

In short: you are not behind on knowledge, you are behind on wording, and wording is the more fixable of the two. Separate the vocabulary pass from the meaning pass, cap your glossary at ten terms per topic with the exam language first, hunt the five vague verbs in everything you write, and say answers out loud before you write one for marks. Short, precise sentences beat fluent ones in every mark scheme.