This is the fifth lesson from the language course. I learned a lot of new thing in this course, and hope my readers will get a good information too. Enjoy yourself...
Part 5 - Motivation for language learning
Why do most people fail in their quest to learn a foreignlanguage?
It's certainly not because they lack the ability to speak aforeign tongue.
It is most likely because they give up far too soon.
This is the single most detrimental act you can do to preventyourself from achieving your language learning goals.
There is no need to give up too soon. You have the ability tolearn a foreign language, you just need to know how to go aboutit.
The second most dangerous thing you can do, almost as costly asgiving up altogether, is to take a break. This is deadly tolanguage learners.
I have seen it happens hundreds of time. A learner takes a break,only for a few days they convince themseleves. They have otherthings to take care of, other commitments, or they simply needa break.
What happens next is that, the break of a few days turns into aweek, that turns into two weeks, eventually a month elapsesbefore they pull out the books again and find that they haveforgotten plenty of what has been learned.
Language learning is cumulative, and a break will put you backmany weeks. You will have to make up those weeks by redoing whatyou have already learned. Unfortunately our uncommitted languagelearner has had enough now and doesn't want to go back and relearnmaterial he has gone over once. That short break, like the vastmajority of shorts breaks do, eventually leads into the givingup syndrome.
Either way, the learner gives up and their goals, which are sorealistically obtainable, are never achieved.
------------------------------------------------------------------
"How to learn any language, on your own, as quickly and easily aspossible"
The definitive guide to learning any foreign language.
Click here -------> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
------------------------------------------------------------------
So how do you stop your motivation from flagging in the long run?
Here a few tips on keeping your motivation going, long term.
1. Have a goal
If you don't have a goal then you can never achieve a success.Make sure you have something to aim for. You may have to pass anexam for college or to forward your career. Make your goal passingthat exam.
Of course you may not have an exam to pass. Set your own goals andset a date to reach them by. Find a text you can't yet read or a TVprogram you can't yet understand and aim to read/understand it bya certain date.
If you have a goal to aim for then you will be far more motivatedto get there.
2. Learn about the culture behind the language
Languages don't exist on their own. They have an entire culturebehind them and just about every culture on earth is fascinatingin one way or another.
There is a great amount of satisfaction to be obtained in notjust learning the language in question, but learning about the lifebehind the language.
If you are learning Russian for example you can read about Russianhistory, contemporary Russia, Russian sport, Russian television,travel in Russia and anything else about the country you desire.
This is something you will quickly become obsessed with and willonly make the language learning process far more enjoyable.
3. Plan a trip
The most useful thing you can do with any language is visit acountry where it is spoken. So set a date by which you will haveachieved a standard in your language whereby you will be able tosurvive in a foreign country.
You can then start planning the trip for that date. You don't haveto commit to anything, just research places to go, things to see,hotel and travel arrangements etc.
If you are approaching your set date and find that you areadvanced enough to make your trip, then go! There is no bettermotivation for improving your language skills than using it inaction.
4. Learn in an enjoyable way
Learn in a way that is enjoyable for you. Don't just stick tothe learning materials that you find in the bookshop. Findsomething that stirs up excitement in yourself.
If you are a sports fan get your hands on foreign sports showsand magazines. If you like cookery get a hold of some foreigncookery books and make some fine overseas cuisine. If you enjoyliterature, obtain some of the best literary pieces in thelanguage you are learning. The choices are literally endless.
If you learn in this fashion, I don't see anyway that you canlose interest in your language.
Another example of this is choosing to learn a language based onan interest you already have. If you like Karate learn Japanese.If you like calligraphy learn Chinese. If you enjoy French foodand wine, learn French. If you enjoy Hans Christian Andersennovels, learn Danish!
Always try and have a vibrant interest and passion in everythingyou do.
5. Learn the right way
Something is always more enjoyable if you do it the right way.If you learn a language in the right way it will be far moreenjoyable, and you will learn quicker to boot, increasing yourmotivation further.
I'm going to use the swimmer as a parody here. Notice theswimmer whose technique is poor. He will be fighting with thewater, ever struggling, tired and slow across the pool. Incomparison the swimmer with good technique moves with ease,speed, grace and energy.
If you learn a language with poor technique it will be hard. Itwill be a struggle. And the chances are your motivation will wane.
If you learn the right way, it will be far easier and far moreenjoyable and your motivation will always be at its peak.
This mini-course will have given you some valuable techniqueson how to learn a language. If you want to know more than visitmy website.
=====> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
My e-book ‘How to learn any language... on your own, as quicklyand easily as possible' sets out exactly how you should goabout learning any language so failure is not a possibility.
I hope this edition of the mini course helps you with findingmotivation to learn a language. There is no reason why anyonecan't learn any language they choose.
I wish you good luck and every success in your language learning.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Congratulations on completing the ‘How to learn any languagemini-course'.
I hope I have given you some valuable insights into languagelearning and made the journey somewhat easier for you.
If you want more tips like those in the mini-course, click herenow to get your copy of my ebook!
=====> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
I hope to hear from you soon.
All the best,David
http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
davidfisher@iespana.es
P.S. Please feel free to forward this report to your friends andcolleagues. If you have received a forwarded copy you can get thecomplete course by clicking the following link.www.languagepassion.com/popup
(c) David Fisher - all rights reserved.
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Language Course - Lesson Four
Did you enjoy reading this course? For me, I had some experience learning and teaching foreign language , and the tips from the course help me a lot. In the fourth lesson, the author will talk about using the Internet as a method to learn foreign language, and I prove it by myself. Last year I cannot write a single paragraph. Today I can write most of the thing I want in the 'simple' English. I hope next year I can write anything I want in the 'intermediate' skill... this improvement come from my time on-line, reading and writing...
So, here is the part 4 from the course...
Part 4 - Using the internet in language learning
Welcome to part 4 of your language learning mini-course. Today weare going to discuss how to use the internet to help you learn aforeign language.
The internet boom in the mid-nineties was supposed to be a greatevent for language learning. Instant access to vast amounts ofinformation would be available at the click of a button. Inshort, the face of language learning would be changed forever.
Fast forward a few years and do you get the impression that thepredicted boom never quite happened? Here we are, in a time wheninternet access is ubiquitous across the majority of homes inthe US and UK, yet still 99% of people looking to learn aforeign language will head down to the bookstore to buy a paperor audio cassette/CD course rather than log onto the web.
The fact of the matter is, the revolution of the internet hasactually done very little at all to change the face of languagelearning.
------------------------------------------------------------------"How to learn any language, on your own, as quickly and easily aspossible"
The definitive guide to learning any foreign language.
Click here -------> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage------------------------------------------------------------------
So what are the reasons for this?
Well most of the language learning information that appears on thenet is not very good for a start. Many are hobbyist sites whichdisplay little information whilst larger sites on the net areoften inadequate to help you learn a language. These sites nevercontain enough audio or visual material and are nearly alwaysinferior to good, book-based, courses.
The second reason is the mass saturation of the web with uselesswebsites. There are good sites out there for language learning.There are brilliant sites that can teach you to how increase yourFrench vocabulary, or learn Chinese characters, or understand themany slang words in Spanish.
Unfortunately however, there are millions and millions of siteson the web, all vying for your attention, and the good sitescan often get lost in a sea of rubbish. Sites such as internetmalls, sites with just pages of links to other sites, are a primeexample of the sort of site which can push useful sites to thebottom of the search engines.
With thousands more sites being added everyday, the web isbecoming ever more saturated, and finding that elusive usefulsite, is becoming an ever harder task.
Why don't you go and try it out right now? Go to one of the mainsearch engines such as Google or Yahoo and try to find somesites which have some useful information about what you wantto learn. Hard isn't it?
I wouldn't be surprised if you were just swamped with poor sitesthat had absolutely no relevance to what you were actuallylooking for.
After reading this far you may begin to think that using theinternet to help you with your language learning is a completelyuseless and unproductive use of your time. You'd be mistakenhowever. Whilst the web is unlikely to ever become the top mediumfor language learning, it can provide a valuable tool to add toyour other methods of learning if you use it in the right way.
The way you use the internet for language learning is not to lookfor information, but to find foreign language materials. Thiscontradicts one of the main focal points of the net. The internetis supposed to be the information medium, a place where you cango to find out anything, at any time.
Unfortunately the saturation scenario mentioned above has madethis unrealistic, and searching for information on any topic, notjust language learning, is now an arduous and frustratingprocedure.
The correct way to use the web, is to find materials that helpyou to learn, as opposed to information. This mean authenticmaterials such as books and videos in the language you are tryingto learn. The internet provides an indispensable medium fortracking down these items.
There are two ways of going about this.
1. The first way is to actually browse the web for websites inthe language you want to learn, or you could alternatively lookfor radio stations or audio clips. This provides learningmaterials on demand, whenever, and wherever, you need them.
2. The second way is to use the web to buy books, video etc.,items you may have difficulty tracking down in your home town.The global nature of huge sites such as Amazon and Ebay, as wellas a multitude of minor internet stores, means you can find justabout anything you would ever need to learn a foreign language.
Use the internet smart and efficiently and you'll find itbecomes a powerful tool to add to your language learningrepertoire.
Want more tips like this?
Click here now to get your copy of our ebook!=====> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
-----------------------------------------------------------------
We've only got one more part to go now in the language learningmini-course.
In part 5 we'll discuss how to continue with your studies in thelong term, and how to never lose motivation for learning alanguage.
See you in part 5
All the best,David
http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
davidfisher@iespana.es
P.S. Please feel free to forward this report to your friends andcolleagues. If you have received a forwarded copy you can get thecomplete course by clicking the following link.www.languagepassion.com/popup
(c) David Fisher - all rights reserved
So, here is the part 4 from the course...
Part 4 - Using the internet in language learning
Welcome to part 4 of your language learning mini-course. Today weare going to discuss how to use the internet to help you learn aforeign language.
The internet boom in the mid-nineties was supposed to be a greatevent for language learning. Instant access to vast amounts ofinformation would be available at the click of a button. Inshort, the face of language learning would be changed forever.
Fast forward a few years and do you get the impression that thepredicted boom never quite happened? Here we are, in a time wheninternet access is ubiquitous across the majority of homes inthe US and UK, yet still 99% of people looking to learn aforeign language will head down to the bookstore to buy a paperor audio cassette/CD course rather than log onto the web.
The fact of the matter is, the revolution of the internet hasactually done very little at all to change the face of languagelearning.
------------------------------------------------------------------"How to learn any language, on your own, as quickly and easily aspossible"
The definitive guide to learning any foreign language.
Click here -------> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage------------------------------------------------------------------
So what are the reasons for this?
Well most of the language learning information that appears on thenet is not very good for a start. Many are hobbyist sites whichdisplay little information whilst larger sites on the net areoften inadequate to help you learn a language. These sites nevercontain enough audio or visual material and are nearly alwaysinferior to good, book-based, courses.
The second reason is the mass saturation of the web with uselesswebsites. There are good sites out there for language learning.There are brilliant sites that can teach you to how increase yourFrench vocabulary, or learn Chinese characters, or understand themany slang words in Spanish.
Unfortunately however, there are millions and millions of siteson the web, all vying for your attention, and the good sitescan often get lost in a sea of rubbish. Sites such as internetmalls, sites with just pages of links to other sites, are a primeexample of the sort of site which can push useful sites to thebottom of the search engines.
With thousands more sites being added everyday, the web isbecoming ever more saturated, and finding that elusive usefulsite, is becoming an ever harder task.
Why don't you go and try it out right now? Go to one of the mainsearch engines such as Google or Yahoo and try to find somesites which have some useful information about what you wantto learn. Hard isn't it?
I wouldn't be surprised if you were just swamped with poor sitesthat had absolutely no relevance to what you were actuallylooking for.
After reading this far you may begin to think that using theinternet to help you with your language learning is a completelyuseless and unproductive use of your time. You'd be mistakenhowever. Whilst the web is unlikely to ever become the top mediumfor language learning, it can provide a valuable tool to add toyour other methods of learning if you use it in the right way.
The way you use the internet for language learning is not to lookfor information, but to find foreign language materials. Thiscontradicts one of the main focal points of the net. The internetis supposed to be the information medium, a place where you cango to find out anything, at any time.
Unfortunately the saturation scenario mentioned above has madethis unrealistic, and searching for information on any topic, notjust language learning, is now an arduous and frustratingprocedure.
The correct way to use the web, is to find materials that helpyou to learn, as opposed to information. This mean authenticmaterials such as books and videos in the language you are tryingto learn. The internet provides an indispensable medium fortracking down these items.
There are two ways of going about this.
1. The first way is to actually browse the web for websites inthe language you want to learn, or you could alternatively lookfor radio stations or audio clips. This provides learningmaterials on demand, whenever, and wherever, you need them.
2. The second way is to use the web to buy books, video etc.,items you may have difficulty tracking down in your home town.The global nature of huge sites such as Amazon and Ebay, as wellas a multitude of minor internet stores, means you can find justabout anything you would ever need to learn a foreign language.
Use the internet smart and efficiently and you'll find itbecomes a powerful tool to add to your language learningrepertoire.
Want more tips like this?
Click here now to get your copy of our ebook!=====> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
-----------------------------------------------------------------
We've only got one more part to go now in the language learningmini-course.
In part 5 we'll discuss how to continue with your studies in thelong term, and how to never lose motivation for learning alanguage.
See you in part 5
All the best,David
http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
davidfisher@iespana.es
P.S. Please feel free to forward this report to your friends andcolleagues. If you have received a forwarded copy you can get thecomplete course by clicking the following link.www.languagepassion.com/popup
(c) David Fisher - all rights reserved
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Language Course
Here is lesson three from the Language Course, hope you will enjoy it like me...
Part 3 - Finding the time to learn a foreign language
Let me guess. One of your biggest concerns about learning aforeign language is that you simply won't be able to find the timeto do so.
Your schedule is already busy enough without spending hours a dayon language learning. You have a job to go to or a business to run,you have to put food on the table after all. You have to spendtime with the family, go to the gym and keep in shape and find afew precious moments in the day in which to relax. I would bet thatyour schedule is already jam-packed as it is.
Finding the time to learn a foreign language is not hard however,you just need to put a few simple steps into practice and findingthe time to learn will be a piece of cake.
I could of course take the rude approach here and suggest that yousimply spend a little less time watching the idiot box. I won't bethat discourteous however. Learning a language should not requireany major adjustments to your current schedule and that includes TVtime.
You do have to be smart however, about where you find that timefrom and how you can put it to maximum use. This part of your mini-course discusses how you can find time to put your languagelearning skills into practice and how to achieve maximum benefitfrom that time.
------------------------------------------------------------------"How to learn any language, on your own, as quickly and easily aspossible"
The definitive guide to learning any foreign language.
Click here -------> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage------------------------------------------------------------------
First thing to get out of the way is the amount of time needed tolearn a language, or how much time you should put in per day. Youdo not need to put in hours of study a day. Some people may tellyou that you need to study for a couple of hours every day butthese people obviously don't know how to learn a language. Ifyou do study for two hours a day you will quite clearly learnquicker than the person who studies for just half an hour a daybut you can learn quite satisfactorily if you do study for justhalf an hour a day.
I would probably describe the optimum amount of learning time asone hour per day. If you can manage an hour a day then you willlearn a language very quickly, and finding an hours study time isvery easy to do.
There are three key points that you should keep in mind about thetime you spend studying that are far more crucial to successfullearning than spending endless hours with your head buried in thebooks.
1. Learn something everyday - This is absolutely critical. Youcan achieve considerable success if you study for just 30-60minutes a day but you will never achieve anything if you don'tstudy every day.
Language skills are cumulative, they build on what has beenpreviously learned. If you take regular days off your learningwill be stunted quite severely. Therefore it is essential that youstudy for some amount of time, even if it is very small, everysingle day, or at the very, very least, six days a week.
2. Break study time up into small sessions - The humanconcentration span is very short. Less than 30 minutes in mostpeople. If you carry out hard study for greater than 30 minutesthen the information you are studying at the end of the sessionis unlikely to be learned adequately. You will have burned outyour powers of concentration and you will not be able to absorbanything else without a break.
This is critical for any type of learning by especially essentialfor language learning. Never, ever, study for more than half anhour at a time. Any longer than that and your are just wastingyour time and effort.
You may think the logical thing to do would be to break down anhours study into two half hour blocks a day, but you can take itmuch further than this. Language learning sessions can easily bebroken down into 15, 10 or even 5 minute sessions. You just needto have a piece of text to read or an extract of audio to listento and you can have a simple five minute session wherever you are.
This is why it is not hard to find time to learn a language.Simply carry some materials around with you and when you havesome spare moments, on your tea break or on the commute home forexample, you can pull them out and get cracking on a veryproductive 5-10 minute language learning session.
A good tactic to use is to put in half an hour of concerted effortto learn at home in the evening and use these 5-10 minute sessionswhenever you get chance throughout the day. See? It's not hard tofind time to learn a language at all.
3. Do something productive - Ensure that you make productive useof every minute of your time when language learning. If you wastetime on poor and ineffective activities you won't learnefficiently.
If you have a good book and some good exercises as set out in part2 of this mini-course then you can put every five minutes of yourlanguage learning time to good use. Make sure that every activityyou undertake is both productive and useful in achieving yourlearning goals.
In summary finding the time to learn a language is simple. 60minutes a day is sufficient, split up into small session thattake up hardly any time whatsoever. Make sure you learn somethingevery single day and put your learning sessions to constructiveuse and speaking a foreign language is not going to be difficultat all.
Want more tips like this? Want to acquire methods on how to putevery minute of your language learning time to good use?
Click here now to get your copy of our ebook!=====> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
-----------------------------------------------------------------
We've still got much more coming up in the next few days on yourlanguage learning mini-course.
In part 4 we'll discuss how to use the internet to help youlearn a foreign language.
See you in part 4
All the best,David
http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
davidfisher@iespana.es
Part 3 - Finding the time to learn a foreign language
Let me guess. One of your biggest concerns about learning aforeign language is that you simply won't be able to find the timeto do so.
Your schedule is already busy enough without spending hours a dayon language learning. You have a job to go to or a business to run,you have to put food on the table after all. You have to spendtime with the family, go to the gym and keep in shape and find afew precious moments in the day in which to relax. I would bet thatyour schedule is already jam-packed as it is.
Finding the time to learn a foreign language is not hard however,you just need to put a few simple steps into practice and findingthe time to learn will be a piece of cake.
I could of course take the rude approach here and suggest that yousimply spend a little less time watching the idiot box. I won't bethat discourteous however. Learning a language should not requireany major adjustments to your current schedule and that includes TVtime.
You do have to be smart however, about where you find that timefrom and how you can put it to maximum use. This part of your mini-course discusses how you can find time to put your languagelearning skills into practice and how to achieve maximum benefitfrom that time.
------------------------------------------------------------------"How to learn any language, on your own, as quickly and easily aspossible"
The definitive guide to learning any foreign language.
Click here -------> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage------------------------------------------------------------------
First thing to get out of the way is the amount of time needed tolearn a language, or how much time you should put in per day. Youdo not need to put in hours of study a day. Some people may tellyou that you need to study for a couple of hours every day butthese people obviously don't know how to learn a language. Ifyou do study for two hours a day you will quite clearly learnquicker than the person who studies for just half an hour a daybut you can learn quite satisfactorily if you do study for justhalf an hour a day.
I would probably describe the optimum amount of learning time asone hour per day. If you can manage an hour a day then you willlearn a language very quickly, and finding an hours study time isvery easy to do.
There are three key points that you should keep in mind about thetime you spend studying that are far more crucial to successfullearning than spending endless hours with your head buried in thebooks.
1. Learn something everyday - This is absolutely critical. Youcan achieve considerable success if you study for just 30-60minutes a day but you will never achieve anything if you don'tstudy every day.
Language skills are cumulative, they build on what has beenpreviously learned. If you take regular days off your learningwill be stunted quite severely. Therefore it is essential that youstudy for some amount of time, even if it is very small, everysingle day, or at the very, very least, six days a week.
2. Break study time up into small sessions - The humanconcentration span is very short. Less than 30 minutes in mostpeople. If you carry out hard study for greater than 30 minutesthen the information you are studying at the end of the sessionis unlikely to be learned adequately. You will have burned outyour powers of concentration and you will not be able to absorbanything else without a break.
This is critical for any type of learning by especially essentialfor language learning. Never, ever, study for more than half anhour at a time. Any longer than that and your are just wastingyour time and effort.
You may think the logical thing to do would be to break down anhours study into two half hour blocks a day, but you can take itmuch further than this. Language learning sessions can easily bebroken down into 15, 10 or even 5 minute sessions. You just needto have a piece of text to read or an extract of audio to listento and you can have a simple five minute session wherever you are.
This is why it is not hard to find time to learn a language.Simply carry some materials around with you and when you havesome spare moments, on your tea break or on the commute home forexample, you can pull them out and get cracking on a veryproductive 5-10 minute language learning session.
A good tactic to use is to put in half an hour of concerted effortto learn at home in the evening and use these 5-10 minute sessionswhenever you get chance throughout the day. See? It's not hard tofind time to learn a language at all.
3. Do something productive - Ensure that you make productive useof every minute of your time when language learning. If you wastetime on poor and ineffective activities you won't learnefficiently.
If you have a good book and some good exercises as set out in part2 of this mini-course then you can put every five minutes of yourlanguage learning time to good use. Make sure that every activityyou undertake is both productive and useful in achieving yourlearning goals.
In summary finding the time to learn a language is simple. 60minutes a day is sufficient, split up into small session thattake up hardly any time whatsoever. Make sure you learn somethingevery single day and put your learning sessions to constructiveuse and speaking a foreign language is not going to be difficultat all.
Want more tips like this? Want to acquire methods on how to putevery minute of your language learning time to good use?
Click here now to get your copy of our ebook!=====> http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
-----------------------------------------------------------------
We've still got much more coming up in the next few days on yourlanguage learning mini-course.
In part 4 we'll discuss how to use the internet to help youlearn a foreign language.
See you in part 4
All the best,David
http://www.freewebs.com/anylanguage
davidfisher@iespana.es
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Language Course - Part Two
Here are the second lesson from the language course, hope you will enjoy reading it...
Go into a bookstore or browse around the internet and you will
more than likely be inundated with dozens of books and courses
on the language you want to learn.
They will all make huge promises to entice you to part with your
cash to get your hands on their products.
‘Speak fluent French in just three months!'
‘Learn Italian in 15 minutes a day!'
‘Speak Spanish with no effort whatsoever'
is what they will no doubt say.
It's an unfortunate state of affairs that 99% of the books and
courses on the foreign language learning market are simply poor.
There is no other way of putting it.
Go into your local book shop and pick up one of the items you
see there. Go home put it into action and months later it will
be unlikely that you will have learned anything in the foreign
language you have chose to learn.
Cue frustrated failure, and the inevitable ‘giving up syndrome'.
There are any number of reasons why the quality of foreign
language learning materials are so poor. Developers who don't
understand the needs of the language learner, Producers more
concerned with style rather than content. Course designers using
outdated or unproductive methods.
Whatever the reasons, I am not here to discuss those. What I do
intend to do however is put you on the right track to choosing a
language learning course that is suitable for you.
If you choose a good book or course to learn a foreign language
then your success is practically assured. Indeed choosing the
correct course is just as critical as putting it into action.
There are a number of criteria that any language course that you
are intending on buying should meet. When you look at, or test any
course, you should ask yourself if it meets the crucial criteria
set out below.
If the book or course you are looking at fails to meet the
criteria then you should move on and look for something else.
If you choose a bad course you are making an error that could
prove terminal to your language learning goals.
------------------------------
"How to learn any language, on your own, as quickly and easily as
possible"
The definitive guide to learning any foreign language.
Click here -------> http://www.freewebs.com/
Criteria 1 - Audio content and lots of it
The most basic flaw that any language learning course makes is to
include next to no audio whatsoever.
Next time you are around the shops in your local area go into a
bookstore and look around at the language learning books and
tapes.
Count how many tapes are included with all the books available.
Not many I would wager.
Most course include a couple of tapes or CDs, some may include
a few more, and very bad courses will include non at all.
It amazes me how so called experts in the field of language
learning believe people can learn a foreign language without
even hearing it in action, let alone putting it into use.
It is also a fact that foreign languages are best learned using
the audial skills of speaking and listening. In the vast majority
of languages, reading and writing follow the rules set out by the
spoken language, and can be learned easily once the basics of
the spoken language have been learned.
You should always strive to learn the basics of the spoken
language before moving onto the written language.
Ensure that any course you buy includes lots and lots of tapes or
CDs, and that the main emphasis of the course is on the spoken
component of the language.
If a course expects you to learn a language by reading a book and
listening to minimal dialogue, leave it alone. After you have
finished you may know all of the grammar rules in the language but
you won't be able to understand a word when you meet a foreigner or complete a comprehensive sentence in return.
Criteria 2 - Active User Involvement
How active will you be when using the course you are considering?
Will you just be reading grammar rules and extracts of text or
will you just be listening to foreign dialogues?
If that is all what you will be doing, put the course back on the
shelf in haste. This will do you no good whatsoever.
Any course worth its salt should induce much active involvement
on the part of the learner.
Going back to the earlier theme of spoken skills being the most
crucial in any foreign language, the course you are using should
include active spoken practice, and an abundance of it.
In the best format, this will involve the audio component of your
course either prompting you to translate sentences, or allowing
you to take part in a staged conversation. After you have
responded to each question the audio will ideally present the
answer for you, so you have a reference as to how accurate your
replies were.
If you find a course which does this then you are on to a winner.
Snap it up immediately and never look back. You are going to
learn your language, and fast.
Criteria 3 - A good ending
You should always consider where you will be when you finish the
course you are examining before you invest your hard earned money
on it.
Ignore the title for a moment. That ‘Learn French in three
months' on the cover with its bright picture and glossy
presentation is a sales pitch and completely inaccurate as to what
you will find inside the covers.
You should instead look through the books and consider what you
will have learned by the time you have finished the course.
Look at the exercises and reading extracts later in the book and
see what sort of level they are at. Would you be able to read
real life material if you can read the book exercises?
Listen to the last section of audio on the course. How fast and
complex is the reading? Is it at a level which you want to
attain? Would it be enough to allow you to understand a
foreign speaker?
Browse through the later exercises, written and audio. How
advanced does this book expect you to be? Are you happy with
that?
Check the word list or dictionary at the back of the book. How
many words does that course expect you to learn? Once you know
2000 foreign words you will be able to understand 90% of spoken
material and 80% of written material in the foreign language.
Will the course give you this foundation of words in the foreign
language?
Always consider where you are likely to be once you have finished
the course. Ideally you should be advanced enough to have a
conversation, albeit simple one, with a foreigner and be able to
get the gist of TV shows and newspapers even if you don't know
every word.
If the course will not take you to this level, or you are not
happy with what you will achieve, look elsewhere.
Meet the criteria set out above and you are going to learn a
foreign language and learn it fast. The search may be quite tough
to find a quality course. Don't give up. There is quality out
there and once found your learning won't ever be the same again.
------------------------------
There is still much more coming up in the rest of the course
including, how to find the time in your busy schedule to learn a
foreign language, and how to use the internet to help you learn
a language.
See you in part 3
All the best,
David
http://www.freewebs.com/
davidfisher@iespana.es
P.S. Please feel free to forward this report to your friends and
colleagues. If you have received a forwarded copy you can get the
complete course by clicking the following link.
www.languagepassion.com/popup
(c) David Fisher - all rights reserved.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
New Experience
Last night was my first experience as a private Arabic teacher. In fact that was the second night, but the first one just to introduce myself and to present my teaching method. I was invited to teach Arabic language a small group of ‘high class people’. I have enough experience teaching the students in the class, couple experience teaching the adults, but this is my first experience teaching high educated people who of course have a high expectation.
The class went quite well, started with the listening program. I think this is the first step to learn the new language, like a baby who spent his listening from his parent. The listening class took about an hour. I spend another half of an hour talking and sharing the experience in Arabic grammar (Nahu and Sarf) .
Beside teaching ( I prefer using sharing my experience ) Arabic language, I’m also learning the English language. All of them are fluent in English, and I use this opportunity using my ‘bad’ English to translate whatever word need to be translated, so again I kill two birds with a stone.
The main question about learning a new language is : do you want to learn language or grammar? I see lot of people who learn language do not learn the language but learn the grammar. Of course grammar is very useful, especially in writing, but if we want our grammar to be perfect before we start to speak and write, I think we are in the wrong way. I think we must use our language despite to the ‘bad’ grammar, because the major purpose from the language is to communicate with others. If you can understand what I write or what I talk, I can say that I get that language in my opinion. Of course learning the grammar will make our language perfect, but we must start it by using it.
The class went quite well, started with the listening program. I think this is the first step to learn the new language, like a baby who spent his listening from his parent. The listening class took about an hour. I spend another half of an hour talking and sharing the experience in Arabic grammar (Nahu and Sarf) .
Beside teaching ( I prefer using sharing my experience ) Arabic language, I’m also learning the English language. All of them are fluent in English, and I use this opportunity using my ‘bad’ English to translate whatever word need to be translated, so again I kill two birds with a stone.
The main question about learning a new language is : do you want to learn language or grammar? I see lot of people who learn language do not learn the language but learn the grammar. Of course grammar is very useful, especially in writing, but if we want our grammar to be perfect before we start to speak and write, I think we are in the wrong way. I think we must use our language despite to the ‘bad’ grammar, because the major purpose from the language is to communicate with others. If you can understand what I write or what I talk, I can say that I get that language in my opinion. Of course learning the grammar will make our language perfect, but we must start it by using it.
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