3 posts tagged “english”
I've been thinking a lot recently about the interplay of reading and listening. How should each be used when learning a language?
After some experimenting, I've concluded that the combination of intensive listening and extensive reading is the best. Intensive, in this case, means listening to a small amount of material many many times. In my case, I'm listening to one Spanish language CD. I listen to it almost every day-- which takes about an hour. I try to listen actively-- in other words, I concentrate, listen carefully, and keep my mind focused on the material. As I mentioned earlier, I stay interested in the material by using it in a variety of ways.
Intensive listening in this way is probably the best way to develop an intuitive feel for the grammar, speech, and pronunciation of the language. Of course, its also the best way to improve listening comprehension.
But one weakness of this intensive approach is that it doesn't allow for a huge amount of vocabulary acquisition. That's where extensive reading comes in. In this case, extensive means "a lot"-- as in, a lot of pages and a lot of different books. When reading extensively, its best to read something that seems fairly easy, but just a little challenging-- and its best to read a lot-- I'm talking about books. I'm also talking about reading quickly-- without using a dictionary.
As native speakers, extensive reading is where we get most of our new vocabulary. Of course we get our basic conversational vocabulary from listening-- but beyond those first 2000-3000 words, most of it comes from reading.
One thing that is important for both listening and reading is to choose authentic materials. By this I mean, do NOT focus on textbooks. I'm convinced that the single biggest problem most English learners have is that they spend 90% of their time (or more) focused on textbooks & "learner English". A student may have studied English for 5 years-- but most have spent those 5 years doing nothing but textbooks, school exercises, and textbook tapes. The average English learner, in fact, has had very little contact with interesting, authentic English.
The best way to cure this problem is to choose 1 hour's worth of English (audio articles, audio books, movie scenes, speeches, etc) and listen to them every day until they become a part of you. At the same time, buy an English language novel-- perhaps a novel for middle school children-- and read it everyday. Don't "study" the language-- dance with it. Enjoy it. Join with it.
If you do each of these things every day (1 hour of intensive listening, 30 minutes of reading novels)-- in 6 months you will notice a big improvement in your English ability.
I hate to say it, but teachers are boring. It suddenly hit me this month as I read various teaching websites, articles, and books. The vast majority are filled with nonsensical jargon and nit-picking arguments that only teachers care about.
Based on my many experiences as a student and as a fellow-teacher, I must say that the VAST MAJORITY of teachers are-- whatever their other faults-- boring and uninspiring. They have no soul, no anima, no mojo. In an essay, Tom Peters once gave his definition of the "perfect" manager. He said that the best managers are the people who, when they walk in the room, immediately lift people's energy, enthusiasm, and motivation. They might not have the best technical skills, or perfect management techniques... but they have to have that intangible human quality.
How many teachers have even a modicum of that quality? Very very VERY few. I think back on elementary school (1 had it), middle school (none), high school (1), undergrad (1), and grad school (1) and I'm amazed at the overwhelming mediocrity of spirit. My gut impression of most teachers is that they are small people with small feelings, leading small lives.
No wonder schools and societies go to such herculean efforts to build up the authority of the teacher. That effort and propaganda is necessary-- because without it, the students would soon see through the windbags and abandon ship.
The utter lack of soul found in teachers is all the more obvious when one discovers awe inspiring students like one finds at Effortless English and The Linguist. Now THESE are people who have that magic. Five minutes into a Linguist discussion I'm stoked about learning languages. The members immediately and dramatically lift my spirits because they are energetic, enthusiastic, motivated, inspiring, successful and alive (more or less the polar opposite of the average teacher). They are interesting. They have spirit and soul.
Steve Kaufman has that quality too. One 30 minute chat with him is enough to energize me for a whole month of Spanish study. Not surprisingly, Steve never refers to himself as a teacher. First and foremost, he is an avid language learner. He's a language learning maniac, in fact... and a little of that mania rubs off on you when you talk to him.
Which brings me to the point: Teaching is dead. The wise student will never place his/her trust in a teacher or a school. That is a dead end road that ends in boredom, disappointment, humiliation, and failure.
The wise student knows that the fast track to success lies with energized learning communities. The motivated student seeks out enthusiastic peers, role models, coaches, and team members. S/he bands together with interesting, energized, successful, and motivated people. This smart student feeds off the energy and enthusiasm of the community and learns from their successful strategies.
This new kind of student has seen through the lies and failures of traditional schools and teachers-- and no longer places trust in them. This new kind of student takes full responsibility for his/her own learning.
These students-- independent, motivated, enthusiastic, and intelligent-- band together and create a community that is light years ahead of any traditional school on the planet.
These students are the future.
Teachers are extinct.
Today I had my first conversation exchange with Spanish (with my student Angelina). I must admit, I was nervous before doing it. I'd never tried to chat in Spanish before and figured it would be a disaster.
But, in fact, it was great. We talked about 40 minutes. At the end of the chat, I felt fantastic. I felt a huge surge of confidence... and a feeling of real accomplishment. Wow-- I communicated in Spanish for 40 minutes!
Was my grammar perfect? No... far from it. Was my pronunciation great? No... far from it.
In fact, I'd say Angelina spoke about 80% of the time. She was great about using very easy Spanish. But that's fine. I'm a low level Spanish learner. What's important is that we communicated.
In fact, that was lesson number one about this experience-- once I relaxed and focused on communication-- everything went great. When I didn't know a word I needed, I used a similar word. I often found it difficult to speak full sentences, so I spoke in short phrases and single words. I asked a lot of questions, and kept her talking... since my speaking was low (but my listening is better). And it worked. We had a nice chat about her home country of Paraguay.
As I think about it now, I see two big benefits I gained from this chat:
1. Confidence
There is nothing like actually communicating with a native speaker in the language-- even if you make a lot of mistakes. This is the big goal for most of us, isn't it-- real communication. After the chat, I was very enthusiastic and my motivation is now much higher. As a result, I'll definitely be doing more Spanish study this month than I did last month. Connecting with real people with the language is the biggest motivator of all.
2. Input
Using my bad Spanish was not really the best benefit. The best part of the conversation was hearing Angelina use Spanish phrases I needed... and then copying her. For example, if I didn't know whether to use "sobre" or "para" or "por" in a certain sentence.. I just guessed.. then let her finish the sentence using the correct word. Then I repeated what she said. In this way, I got correct input from her and picked up some useful phrases (and grammar by the way).
This suggests that when we chat, we should probably be a lot more focused on the phrases that the native speaker is using instead of worrying so much about ourselves. They are a great source of correct and useful phrases, we should pay attention as they talk and try to remember how they communicate certain ideas. This is very helpful.
