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 :-)
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:
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.
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 ...
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