Last time we mastered the English (or it could be any other language) material the way that we are able to understand it perfectly, immediately, we are familiar with sounds of all words and their connections (sentences) It means that we understand well English spoken by native speaker. And it is not any kind of simplistic, excuse me, „idiotic“ type of language we used to learn at school. It is „full-blooded“ English. So, we could congratulate ourselves! But it is just a beginning. It is foundation for other skills. Maybe you could say, why not start and build these foundations from READING? I will tell you why: imagine yourself reading... If you read a normal way (we do not take into consideration speed-reading techniques and so on...) you can usually „hear in your head“ the voice that is talking what you are reading. In English and in other languages it could be quite different from what is written on the paper (pronunciation differs from spelling). It is not unusual. What does it mean? It goes without saying, you need to be familiar first with sound of the language – otherwise you would „create“ for yourself your own version of it and it would prevent you from proper understanding and of course to be understand by others too. Such repetition of bad pronunciation leads to habit which can be very hardly broken in the future (For example, it is similar with swimming after all. If you are a beginner, start with good form, do not rush, the speed, strength and fitness will come later. Maybe it is this way with everything :-) ) So, what is the next step? READ! You can read the material you have listened so far. Instead of reading the index text you can read now the foreign one. You can read it while listening native narrator or listening yourself without player on. You can compare. Now you can actually do it already. It is kind of self correction which has been created inside of your mind. I will talk about it in more details in some my later post on this BLOG. Read, listen at the same time, imagine what you are reading (engage your „right brain hemisphere“ and because of you have done a good preparation by previous phase, it is quite easy for you and enjoyable, so ENJOY! It will make you feel good and it supports you towards this activity again (it is in the direct contradiction with classical school approach which leads only to frustration, struggling, aversion and ultimately abandoning the learning process completely. Isn't it the reason why people stop learning language after some time, then „restart“ again and the circle repeats itself over and over? (the language schools like it of course ;-) ) And what about WRITING? In principle it is to some extent similar to reading, as far as necessity of proper pronunciation is concerned. In addition to it you need to know spelling. And how you can learn the spelling? Fist of all by reading! You can see it while reading, it becomes familiar to you and by writing you practise it. To imprint it into your mind (and "hand or fingers") How to do it? First you can use your material you have listened like a dictation. Listen and write, stop the player from time to time (to be able to keep with it) Second possibility is to listen (or read) part of that text and then you can write about it, say it the same or similar way, use vocabulary and expressions from that material – what you remember or just say it using your own words. Then return and compare with original text. Self-reflect. You will see that a lot of new vocabulary was somehow „stored“ inside of you without learning separate words explicitly. It is exciting again! The self-learning matrix, or MOSAIC, of language based on solid unforgettable foundations is being formed inside of you! Congratulation!
To be continued …
Meantime you can participate in our finishing Easter Contest. Hurry! Last chance to get the free ebook and be the winner and famous for you! ;-)
To be continued …
Meantime you can participate in our finishing Easter Contest. Hurry! Last chance to get the free ebook and be the winner and famous for you! ;-)