They say that nobody is PERFECT and hardly anybody is PRESENT. And actually there is somebody who fulfills both these two criteria perfectly and it is our dear Mr. PRESENT PERFECT. Yes, it is true that “he” seems to be a little bit TENSE, I would even say rather SENTENCE. So let's look at „him“ closer.

I found this video, which maybe some of you have seen already, very instrumental. Plus I created a sophisticated Mind Map of this phenomenon but oops! Nothing is perfect and my software is not any exception – something went wrong, so after about 2 hours of work I have only this picture (see down). That „sophisticated“ Mind Map will be some other day (note of the author-already ready to use:-) ) . But I have an excuse ;-) for not to do it again – I have swum 2 km in pool and now I need to go to the bed (take, please, into consideration that it is half past 1 a. m.) So, as you can see, the human mind can always find some „more or less relevant“ excuse for everything and to use the present perfect at the same time, at this time (is it correct?)

So, at least this way. Enjoy this instrumental video:

And here is the promissed Mind Map (note of the author - repaired next day):

Maybe you have already noticed that some of my posts, probably majority of them, contain some kind of strange picture or even more of such pictures. These are pictures of Mind Maps which are the graphical representation of the content of that particular blog post (usually). Not at all times.

I found the Mind Maps very useful. I think that this tool, which is available on Internet in many cases for free (in my case I paid some small amount of money to be able to offer you some additional funcionality). They can be valuable tool also for our language learning. I can imagine a lot of applications – for example:

To use them for our “loved” grammar – to make it visible, obvious, not hidden behind the veil of strange foreign terminology. Yes, the grammar is valuable to learn too. Yes, later ;-)

Other application of Mind Maps for language learning could be so called „vocabulary trees“. I only hope that such term exists. If not, I invented that just now ;-) Imagine for example the tree of FOOD, one branch could be MEAT, other FRUITS, DIARY PRODUCTS … and the „leaves“ are examples of appropriate food.

Or kind of „associative trees“. Make some word or expression, use it as the central topic and try to recall from your memory the relative expressions to it, somehove associated with that term. Create new main branches and sub-branches as long as you are able to do it... By the way, I think that the training of the associative memory is in case of language learning one of the most important activities. Our BrainSpeakActivator program puts a big attention to this kind of ativities.

You can use Mind Maps to „catch the meaning“ of some article or speech instead of making classical notes, just use the schematic Mind Map with main lexical units (words), draw the connections between them, some picture :-) ... – then you can use it to try reconstruct the speech (or reading) as your active exercise (practicing the speaking or writing).

You can use the Mind Maps to prepare your own speech or writing. In this case I do not have any such preparation though (and it is my disadvantage new, the writing is not so easy)

So, these are some of the possible applications of Mind Mapping (by the way invented by Tony Buzan) which go to my mind now, probably there are much more of them... you can, if you want, suggest to me and to the other readers some in the comment of this post.

But today I would like to ANNOUNCE you a new feature of this BLOG! I noticed and maybe some of you too, that it is getting to be a little chaotic, unstructured, such kind of mix of posts. In reality is it not, is has some logic, but it is obscured by my inherent „sense of mess“ ;-) So, I decided to make it a little bit structured by creating this MIND MAP OF THE BLOG – the bigger picture of it you can see above and the smaller one, which will be there „for ever“ on the right side of the screen. This Mind Map will be up to date all the time and will show the entire structure of my blog. Its global picture. You will be able to see, what is connected together, in which order, what it contains and you could chose what you want. You will see the logic of this blog and will be able to navigate through it with ease. (At least it was my intention)

On some branches of that map (or tree if you want) you can see the symbol of the „link“, a small chain – it is this one:

If you click that, the appropriate post will be open and you can read it.  Down the open Mind Map you will see another possibilities - what you can do with that Mind Map. I will not describe it here. Play with it – it is not too complex thing :-)

You can use also your mouse to move the map here and there, you can click the “–„ and „+” to collapse and expand the branches, you can use mouse wheel to zoom it “IN“ or “OUT“… Yes, it is fun. Play with it. Enjoy it. The game is the best way to learn. Not only to learn the languages.

IS THAT SO?

I was doing my Qigong exercise today (I do it twice a day) and suddenly I realized that I was thinking, my mind was producing a stream of thoughts. I, at that moment in the role of an observer of my thoughts, realized that these were not in my native Czech language but in English. It was nothing special in my case. But …

And I would like to share this “but” with you. Originally I wanted to do something else today, not to write, but I would forget it, so only shortly.

They say that we have thousands of thoughts during the day and the majority (maybe 99%) of them are useless, repetitive thoughts.

I agree, but what if we could do this thinking in English? This way we could be able to learn the language, better to say let ourselves to be „learned“.  And I tell you, it is doable! I do it. Not all the time. Maybe it is the result of extensive listening of English (I use mp3 player) or because of doing our BrainSpeakActivator exercises every day. It learns me spontaneously express myself. I like it and I enjoy it!

I also realized, that when I speak (and it is valid not only for English but for my Czech language too) I practically „think aloud“. I just say what comes to my mind and I do it aloud, using my vocal cords, tongue, mouse... you know, what I mean. But in case of my English it was not always this way. And at that time my speaking was in trouble. I tried to translate from my mother Czech to English first and then to say it. It was not working of course. In most cases I wanted to translate something for which I had not proper vocabulary yet...

So, I have a question for you - because I do not know, if I am right. That question is:

„IS SPEAKING REALLY = THINKING ALOUD?”

If it is, and I will assume for now that it is, then hardly anybody who learns English at school really speaks English. The speaking is NOT translating, it is NOT reading a text aloud... So, what is that? THINKING ALOUD!

Maybe you will be able to persuade me that it is not. BUT at least for now I THINK so.

there was a king* and that king had a son*. That young prince was very brave, he was learning English. And that prince was me :-) Actually that prince was not so very young already, he was in his early forties and actually he was not any prince. That king was not any king too. He was an elderly, already retired man, my father.

I can remember a short story that can be interesting more for me then for you. But I will write it anyway. We were sitting in my car, the radio was playing and my father asked me: “You are listening the BBS radio?” He was a little surprised.
I replied: “No, I am learning English. It is from CD”
He was surprised even more. “But this is not an English course, it sounds like a real English”
I replied:”Of course, I am learning English, I told you, REAL English, what else?”
My father is kind of macho man, so he laughed out loud (LOL) and said: “This way you cannot learn anything! If you want to learn English, go to a language school”
It made me laugh too a bit, remembering our last dialog concerning English which took place about 30 year ago. I told: “I was there in such school, don't you remember anymore?“ He stayed silent.
I continued: „The result was not so bad, I became the best chess-player in the chess-club I attended“
Maybe he also remembered because he did not argue and said: „H'm, but you cannot understand anything, it is too quick, there is not Czech language there, just English. Maybe you can catch one word here and there. It is only a waste of time and effort what you are doing“
I expected his opinion. So, I tried to explain to him the situation: „This way I am just listening what I already understand after a short but intensive preparation at home. This is called a passive phase of my listening. At home it was an active one. As you can see, I have a headphone in my ear too. I listen all day long. But most of that time I do not pay any conscious attention to it.“
He started to be somehow nervous, not very at ease. It was obvious that this activity, I do, makes him irritated. He said that it is all nonsense and what I remember word by word was: „You should go abroad to  lean foreign language, there is no way“
I agreed with him this time, but I replayed: „I can create the English surrounding for me here without moving abroad. It goes without saying that this cannot fully substitute the longer dwelling in some English speaking country but it is the best possible thing I can do for it now and here“. I saw that he was not very convinced, he wanted to say something, something probably not very pleasant to me, but he stayed silent. After while he continued: “You will see that I am right, this way you will never be able to speak English well“
 
And maybe he was right. I really was not able to speak English to much this way. You can read about it here. But I was able to understand native speakers well, BBC, CNN, audio-books and different kinds of courses I was interested in... It was my goal at that time. And the other language activities? The reading was not so big problem. It is in reality very similar to listening - only it goes to your head the different way – and there is more time to „perform it“.  And the speaking, my father was talking about? It needed some „special care“ I was writing about it in some of my previous posts. Yes, maybe here is a good opportunity for me to mention our BrainSpeakActivator exercises you can download for free (7 day version) and our new VIP inner circle coaching program which begins these days. You can ask at the end „And what about the WRITING? You forgot to mention it somehow!“

AND WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM DOING NOW!? :-)

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* The characters in this post are non fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is not coincidental at all.

I see it quite relevant to learning languages now. Everybody agrees that children are super effective language learners (especially in comparison with adults). Why is it this way?

I would start by clarifying that I am not a believer and on the other hand I am not any unbeliever in God. I think that both are the same, but from other side – one believe in existence of God and the others believe in non-existence of God. But is not the topic of my post - So, what Jesus wanted to say to us? And how it is connected with our inability to learn effectively foreign languages?

From my perspective, Jesus sees children as innocent beings, still free of stuff we (adults) put on them, free of conditioning, prejudices and judgments … They are spontaneous beings, they have a courage and vitality (maybe because they do not carry all of that mentioned stuff with them). They overflow with activity, they are able to play and experiment, they are willing to make mistakes and learn from them without any gilt or shame, they are very flexible ... to name just a few. Such attributes are unfortunately lacking in us as adults (partially or completely) and it strongly influences our learning processes (language learning included) and needless to say that the influence is negative.

First of all, we are conditioned to speak with some language already (our mother language) and it is not easy to get rid of it (to give it away form our head) while using the other language we are learning.

Second, we are afraid to make mistakes and teachers support us in such approach. If you make a lot of mistakes, you are considered to be a bad student and you are “punished” by bad grades, of course… In such situation could be better not to be very initiative. The children, on the contrary, are eager to do things, to speak, they make mistakes, fall down while learning to walk, but they jump on their feet again and are able to learn very quickly this way :-)

Spontaneity was lost – we think to much before using our language - even our native language - but in case of the foreign languages it is even worse – we have grammar rules* on top of it! In his post on my blog, Jarne from Finland said that we should had special language kinder-gardens for adults (similar to those for children, where they learn foreign languages very early, before school) Would it be helpful? Would not it be kind of business meeting there anyway? Long faces and uneasy silence most of the time.

We somehow lost a fantasy, we tend to do things repeatedly over and over again, once learned. We fight against new approaches, ideas. And we struggle, because, everything is changing anyway. The lack of openness, tolerance and acceptance keeps us stuck on spot. No progress means no joy and it leads to quiting such an activity very quickly – in our case the language learning activity.

To say just a few.

So, was Jesus right? Did Jesus know the truth? I think so. He also used to say: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free”

  Let's break free! :-)

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*We think that children do not learn the grammar rules because they are too small to understand them – and we are not. We think that we, as adults, should learn simple sentences like children first. Isn't it perplexed a bit? We are adults, we do not need to learn such simple sentences, and at the same time we do not need to learn those complex grammar rules as children do not learn them explicitly. Yes, we can, but later - children learn them later too. (Excuse me for this, if you are a „Grammar Lover“ - you can do it
now ;-) Everybody is unique)

   

1. English is a skill not a knowledge. The skill needs practice. It is similar with the driving a car
   
   
2. The traditional methods bring traditional (average) results (if you make a lot of effort)
   
   
3. Nothing against grammar, do it, if you like it. Only not first but last.
   
   
4. Learning the language takes time. Not necessary big effort.
   
   
5. A teacher is helpful, not necessary. What is necessary are models to imitate (in case of your native language your parents for example)
   
   
6. I want from you not to think about English every day, I want from you to think IN English every day
   
   
7. EFL (Foreign? Forget about such term) ESL (Second? Third, …or x. It does not matter) I would only add 'N' into it to create ExNL where 'N' stands for 'Natural'
   
   
8. Learning languages is more play than serious business
   
   
9. There is no quick-fix to gain it, just regular activity
   
   
10. The language is about communication, the communication is about understanding, the understanding is about listening – so, start here (children do it always, naturally and successfully)
    
    
11. Learning languages brings joy. Is that so? (in your case)
    
    

Do hormones support language learning?

I am a bit tired today, physically. I was biking to our neighbor state Germany and it was 67 km bike trip. Yes, not too long but my first one  this year. My body needs to accommedate after the winter rest. So, I will finish my „search for English“ today – but the blog will continue, of course – there will come other posts (some of you were able to recognize the certain similarity with the name of that well known book by Viktor Frankl „Man's search for meaning” :-) Does the concentration camp have anything in common with language schools? No, actually it is not so bad. This book was just one of my favorite audio-books to listen. I will have to refresh it again!

So, I will just finish this (last) part of my story and the „BIG ANNOUNCEMENT“  I promised to some of you via email is postponed till tomorrow. Be patient. Meantime you can download the 7 day version of BrainSpeakActivator course for free (if have not done already) and become familiar with it a bit.

Let's continue. The second course, the course with native speaker, was here. He, RF and me! Just 3 protagonists. I was rather nervous. My friend RF is easy going girl and I hoped that she will help me if necessary. And it was NOT necessary at that time at all! I was able to understand the native teacher and I was able to communicate with him and my friend quite well. My English significantly improved, my speaking abilities in comparison with that previous course boosted! I was very happy about it! And it encouraged me to continue the way I set to myself.

Next year (2010) we were with Jane on holiday in Mediterranean island Rhodes. I started to use my English practically and it worked qute well! I can remember the beautiful receptionist at beach bar I was able to chat with about half an hour every day – kind of English lessons! :-) She was also foreigner working there,she was in her early twenties, blond, slim… good at English. I noticed at that time that communication is about two things (at least) 1. form (language) and 2. content (what to say, the message itself). We, as language learners, pay too much of our attention (and perhaps brain resources) to the first, to the language itself and somehow there is not so much energy for the second. The consequence is poor communication. I found that in my case it was not so bad. We both entertained, the girl included ;-) She was also glad to be able to chat with somebody in English. I enjoyed that learning experience and practiced my English speaking well with the support of my hormones which seems to be instrumental in the language learning process! ;-)

In my opinion the most important thing to keep in mind it to be proactive. To create opportunity for learning, to surround yourself with the language you are learning (I notice that even Jane by living with me and by being exposed to that English is able to understand enough even she does not learn it intentionally, nearly against her will) Use the language on daily basis in different forms. Use every possibility to practice it!

So, I continued and I still continue writing emails with R.F. She moved to other part of our country farer form here. Kate, on the contrary, moved nearer, so we are able to meet each other about once a week for 0,5 – 1 hour English coffee chat which is very helpful and pleasant. I read, I listen and I use English for writing this blog to share my experiences with you. I do of the course BrainSpeakActivator, those exercises every day. Actually I managed to persuade the author of this method that it could be good to make the English version of his method available for public (he stopped to offer it a few years ago and was selling only Czech version in book (paper) form. I completed the English version and made some changes in it. This method is not any quick fix or any gimmick. And it is not the easy method at all. To quote Jarno: „One thing I have noticed during my way, there are no shortcuts for learning language!“ - See more at: http://www.brainspeakactivator.com/1/post/2013/04/self-teaching-mosaic-part-4-speaking-last-but-not-least-overcoming-difficulties.html#comments

I fully agree with him. Some methods work better some not so well. But what is crucial – keep going! Day in, day out. The beginning is usually the most difficult, kind of a rocket overcoming gravity of the Earth, then you create a habit (it takes 21-30 days) and you are able to continue and you will improve (I will too, I need it). English is beautiful languages worth to be learned! Let's learn! Read this blog tomorrow, there will be that BIG ANNOUNCEMENT from me. Similar to this one:
:-)

New Age of my English: from listening to speaking, tragedy turns into comedy

When I was about 40 years old (as you can see, learning languages, and learning in general too, is not about age – so, never is too late) I switched my learning approach to listening. Listening became my main source of English. Not only I listened in my car, but I started to use headphones (better to say only one headphone) and practiced that “unconscious” listening (look at the V.F.B. video below) and actually even nowadays I have that headphone in my ear nearly all day long :-)

I listened that course based on V.F.B. approach, I listened BBC radio in my car, I listened different kind of courses (those courses were not courses intended to be language courses – these courses were self-improving materials in English (the topics in which I was interested), audio-books (here I had sometimes both audio and printed version or PDF – so, reading was also practiced but in lower extend) I started to watch movies with subtitles and I made parts of them into mp3 version for later conscious and unconscious listening (for example the Terminator ;-) - which was my first movie I „worked“ with). I restarted watching the satellite TV – namely CNN and at this time it was not so frustrating. Actually it was joyful for me to be able to understand (most of it). Some programs I recorded and there were transcripts on Internet too for downloading – I printed them, found unknown expressions, marked them and wrote above their Czech equivalent and then I listened them using my mp3 player. At home I let play English talks (and I continue with it even now) often to create kind of English surrounding. It is not necessary to pay attention to it, sometimes I do, but in most cases I do not. It could be rather silent at the background like a radio (the same it is with my listening of mp3 player during the day. I do at the same time my other activities, for example business activities, dealing with clients, solving computer problems or washing up dishes, running, biking… I bought wireless radio headphones too and I am able to listen whatever I want in all my house or in the garden (whether gardening or sunbathing-I prefer second one;-) ).

This way I had continued about for 2 years (I was quite happy about my increasing ability to understand) and then I met my best friend RF for the fist time. She was better in English than me, especially in speaking. She spent some time abroad. I was keen into her ;-) She was and still is really a beautiful girl! We started to write emails together and then I suggested her to write them in English. At that time I had no courage to propose English speaking, of course. And she also had not such need. Actually as I found later that she is not willing to speak English in public here in Czech republic between people speaking Czech. Kate is but I will talk about it later. Sometimes at that time I created my first „plan for English“. See the picture – click to enlarge:

One day she (RF) came with possibility to attend an English course, they has some interesting offer at work and I agreed. I was relatively confident knowing that my English improved. But what happened? It was course of a small group (the group of about 5 people and it was meant to be mainly a conversational course. But it turned that it was such a combination of all activities. By the way, I was there only one man among young women (except a teacher).

Yes, I was a „star“ in listening, average in reading and grammar exercises, but my speaking was… terrible! How to say it, there was NO speaking at all. I was hardly able to say anything and because I was not very outspoken even in my mother tongue it was not very surprising to me. I also noticed that I do not like to speak in English somehow. I did not like to hear myself to speak in different language – it was not natural for me. I did not feel well doing it.  I realized, that I needed some new approach at this stage or to incorporate to my approach some additional components if I would like to speak. V.F.B. calls this „ the activities“ as I notice in that video and there are also some possibilities, I think, described in her book too, but it is all let up to every individual. This stage is not so elaborated in her approach – at least it seems to me.

So, I started to search and I found (YES! „Search and you will find“ It works) two remedies. I do not know which one of them helped me more. First was that I found another best friend (I have two now :-) ) Kate and because she used to live (at that time) in neighbor country (Slovakia) we chatted via Skype every day – and I must say that it was very, very hard for me (at the beginning) Even frustrating and I am glad, and maybe even kind of proud of myself, that I was able to do it for sufficient period of time. Meantime I realized that my talkativeness as such is poor (in my Czech too) and I found the second remedy a METHOD (God bless!) which promised to boost the talkativeness. I found that it existed also English version (even it was kind of unfinished at that time). I bought that method in PDF format and I started to practice it according to instruction every day. At the beginning it was a bit strange for me to do that kind of self-talk but I managed to continue anyway. After while I created a habit and everything went surprisingly well, smooth and forward. I started to speak better with Kate and I become familiar with my voice in English and on the top of it I realized that I was starting to think in English! This „self-talk“ I practiced using that strange method turned into „inner self-talk“ = THINKING. When I think of it now, the goal of everybody who learns some foreign language should be to be able to think in that language. But to return to my story. It was about one year after my first, not very „successful“ course with my friend RF and we decided to attend another one. This time it was conversational course with native teacher. Only we two (students) and the teacher from England who does not speak a word in Czech! I was a little bit nervous about it. I had never met any native English speaker before and never spoken with any one before! And how it went?

I can see now, that this blog post is a bit too long, so I will let the rest of it (and I will rest;-) ) for tomorrow. Although they say that „tomorrow never comes“ I hope that at this case it will come.

to be continued ...

My English started to turn the right way from the time I began to use the kind of approach you can see on this following video. Though it was not exactly this course because it is not for ESL or EFL learners and it is not for my nationality after all. But these principles works. They works mainly (at least in my case it was that way) to make you understand the language you are learning well, directly, without unnecessary and hindering inner translations. So, look at it:

I am sorry, I have to say that  V.F. Birkenbihl is not with us anymore, she has passed away :-( but her method, her approach lives on. Thank you Vera.

I would like to create some program like that, based on V.F.B. approach. I would like it to be an universal program, as far as a language (English will be target languge but mother tongue could differ, and I would like it to be for whatever content you chose (everybody prefers and needs something else) and it should be very cheap at the same time (or for free if possible). So, this is my vision.

 And what really helped me with speaking (I will write about it, among others, in my next post “MEN'S SEARCH FOR ENGLISH – part 3, – probably tomorrow or day after tomorrow) was this method Brain Speak Activator – you can download for free HERE 7 day version. It is very simple, but not very easy to do. Its power comes from one thing I will describe in my next post – part 3. By the way, all three parts (part1, part2, and coming part3) create one whole, but are devided because of lenght (this way it is easier to write for me and easier to read for you too :-) )