Advice for self-study for work

DRAFT

Despite there being tens of magic methods that promise to teach you English in 6 weeks or 6 months for that matter, I regret to say that this is just very unrealistic. That’s why we’ve compiled some tips and recommendations to help you make the most of your self-study, in a realistic way, provided you are self-driven, motivated and disciplined. Expect no miracles but reward guaranteed!

I am sure you’ve heard and seen all over the notion that in order to master anything, you need around 10,000 hours of doing it. For some people it’ll be more and for other a bit less, but that’s seems to be a fairly accurate number, according to experts. That means no quick methods. However, this also depends on your goals. When it comes to learning English, let’s first think a couple of things through:

-       Do you want to be accurate and fluent? Accurate meaning: no or very few grammar mistakes and fluent meaning that you aim at making yourself understood despite grammar mistakes

-       Will you be communicating with native speakers who are not used to speaking to non-native speakers, to native speakers who usually deal with non-native speakers, or to non-native speakers of various levels of command of command of the language?

-        How much of my time I am willing to spend exposed to English, with an active approach to learning out of this exposure? Watching a film in English for the sake of learning English won’t be very productive unless you are active in your learning (I’ll expand on this later)

-       How different is your mother tongue from English? What bad habits you have when it comes to communicating in English? – it’s often important to unlearn what you think you know and break this habit by bombarding the brain with the right expression / grammar structure / whatever you want to learn/...

-       What do I want to focus on: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, understanding native speakers of different nationalities?

-        

It’s never been easier to learn than now. With opportunities to spend time in countries where the target language is spoken, with mobile learning (apps, the ubiquitous availability of Wi-Fi, photo cameras to take photos of material and sheets and handouts, free online courses, free language exchanges online, online magazines, radios in English online and a longer list of options). Consequently, provided you’re motivated and disciplined, learning is at the palm of your hand and just one or two clicks away.

The way I interpret language learning is holistic. That means that ideally, when you’re learning a new vocabulary item, a new structure, it’s good to learn it as a whole, as a chunk and focus on pronunciation, connecting the words if they have to be connected, learning the words it usually is combined with. Like this, you’ll be easier to understand and you’ll understand others far more easily, you’ll be more efficient and gain fluency. English is complex in ways that you may never have been shown or told. That shouldn’t be a problem or put you off studying it, however, it’s good to be aware of that.  Yet again, this depends on your mother tongue in many ways and how you’ve learned whatever English you know.

The problem for many is that nowadays most people have learned a bit of English, most can perform at work with varying levels of fluency or accuracy but if you really want to improve and ... that’s hard work, when you can already communicate, ...

Failure to see that you learn a language not only to speak but also to be spoken, to understand others is crucial, too. It’s a two way thing. Don’t just set your goals like : I want to speak better English. Speaking is just one area you want to learn. To speak better English, we need to know what exactly you’ll be speaking about, you need vocabulary, this vocabulary maybe associated to a certain grammar and register, etc.  Learning a foreign language involves speaking and being spoken, so understanding and being understood. Also, be specific and realistic and invest time in learning the basics well as this will make it easier for you to pick up a bit more complex grammar. It’s key to understand the have as an auxiliary verb for example, to succeed at higher levels.

. Tip: watch videos giving you advice on how to learn and study. They’ll help you understand why it’s helpful to follow their advice

My favourites are:

Some people focus their teaching in themes, as it has always been done, the way I see it this method has pros and cons, ..experiment and find a way that resonates with you, that you identify that you learn the best..and by this I don’t mean identifying if you are visual, kinaestheic or audio learner, it’s beyond this. 

Repetition is key, go over exercises, videos, podcasts, a few times. You’re learning English, learning is exposure, you learn a word when you’ve seen it a meaningful, relevant context a number of times. Meaningful, relavant to you. You’re brain is lazy, help it learn by exposing yourself to what you want to learn. 

Get into the habit of using your resources actively, that is, if you’re at a PC, by default, open your howjsay (I’ll explain this later) google translate or equivalent and wordreference or any other online dictionary of your choice. Use their pronunciation icon, type and listen to words and expressions.  

Podcasts

Radios

Video channels on youtube

Pronunciation and fluency

Reading newspapers, watching short videos,

Youtube speed and subtitles, ted talks speed and subtitles,

Tips for learning vocabulary: https://edition.englishclub.com/articles/7-tips-for-learning-english-vocabulary/

+ videos

Recommended apps vary from website to website, from teacher to teacher so here is a list but do find out what you like best, go and explore itunes and google store to find others you might like. Some are for Android only, other of iOS, some are free others are not,... the list here if for free ones.  Apps: https://edition.englishclub.com/articles/top-10-apps-for-learning-english/

Common needs I have identified:

Improving email writing style

Insisting on present perfect for and since

lo único que puedo recomendarte para aprender rápido es motivación para estudiar, (usa métodos tradicionales con nuevos (apps, videos, podcasts, etc - experimenta hasta encontrar uno o varios métodos que te gusten) - y disciplina y que estés abierta a replantearte ideas / significados etc. Submérgete en la lengua que quieras aprender. Encuentra tu manera de aprender.
Pero no hay nada como motivación real (y que de te la creas tu des de dentro de tus entrañas - ya sea realmente querer x trabajo, querer ganar más dinero, viaje, necesitar comunicarte con una persona en tu vida)  y disciplina.

ramdom thoughts

Random thoughts
Today I was going to do modals in the past. You know, could have, should have + participle focussing on regrets. I started off with a quick personal story and asked about what they understood as "regret". We elicited a few ideas and then they asked about how to use the word regret, and I found myself explaining verb patters instead of modal auxiliaries. Bad class management or one more example of how interraleted things are in English? of how hard it is to teach certain things in isolation regret as a grammar word with a certain pattern and regret as a human feeling and how to talk about past events you are not happy about?
of how easily we can divert focus onto sth else because you can't learn x outside/without y when learners can already speak English and have been exposed to a lot of English and acquired bad habits ?
Then, this same class (two mums and two childless women) steered into giving advice. Great! modals! One of the mums asked for advice about her eldest daughter. But what happened was that advice was given but not a single modal verb used, no woulds, shoulds, or coulds...
It's true that I've left it drift this way today, intentionally, aware of what I was doing but to me, this shows that even if you insist on the uses of modals, try to create fairly authentic conversations in which they should try to use the target language, natural communication prevails , more than the willingness to learn. Therefore, what I teach feels a bit theoretical, to be understood more than to be used when spoken to, when they read. It's hard to deconstruct, to break word by word ways translation in front of fluent students (as  opposed to accurate ones).

Pronunciation

Good pronunciation channels:

Christina Rebuffet - some videos on pronunciation - fab!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtWyH1MB_A3OggdzoGtkeQA

 engvid
http://www.engvid.com/english-lessons/ - choose the pronunciation ones

Oxford Online English  -
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD6t6ckHsrubLp8Ia8duzu5fN4riM2-Bl

Rachel's English - American, but very useful and good stuff!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvn_XCl_mgQmt3sD753zdJA

engfluent (two videos on pronunciation to date, but more on listening, etc)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiDuxHgWdcgyGRifUg0RaFG6Q1CPG1XrT

Doing English with Julian - long and blah blah but good advice on how to become more fluent
https://www.youtube.com/user/doingenglishDOTcom

How to gain fluency

 How to gain fluency -- written three years ago

What do they need to be fluent in another language? The one million dollar question many would like answered. Doing so is not as easy as providing an answer to it. We teachers have reeled off ways and tools and methods, etc that should and would help students gain fluency. Haven't we? But do they? Well yes. But it takes a while.
We have all said that it's as little difficult as trying not to think in your own language and translating word by word! No need to say that in the first place would be having vocabulary enough and the speed to retrieve and use this when you need it. And if they are not quick enough to use what they know you know, having enough strategies, resources to keep speaking coherently while they are digging for the right expression/word. Yes! expression: it's much effective to learn in chunks. I always tell them to try no to learn one word at a time, but the word with the preposition it goes with or the word it usually goes with, ...i'll give you examples later.
In my opinion, unless they have an ok command of the language, exposure to real life, authentic and native speed delivery is usually frustrating! Exposure to stuff they feel you understand most of it, it's pointless to have lots of native input if they have no idea of the words used, pronunciation and the effect of mispronunciation!
It's true that much as pronunciation is important we will all agree that it's not a matter of sounding like a native speaker, as long as what they produce is understandable, it should be fine! there's really no need to speak native-like! specially if they communicate with other non-native speakers. Plus students would certainly agree that it's a lot more encouraging if you speak to other learners with slightly higher levels than you.

More later...

And how do you evaluate speaking?
- with the range of structure and vocabulary they use now as opposed to xyz ago.You can record conversations and months later record a similar one and compare. Alternatively, take notes of the students strengths and weaknesses.
- how quickly they understand what's being said/asked and if they respond accordingly
- how fluent they've become
- what mistakes have been addressed/ corrected
- how much self-correction there is / awareness of mistakes, confidence.


how to become more fluent:
- speak more, listen to real english, meet native speakers and good users (and get corrected). listen and write to help you remember things. take a notebook with you to write down words.
-listen to what native do..: insert expressions, stress words / patterns..
-think in english
-speak to yourself in english
-read out loud
-the more vocab you know and pronounce correctly (therefore can identify at normal speed delivery) the more quickly you'll learn it. the more confident they'll get and as a result eventually more fluent.
-have very clear patterns of use of confusing words (ie. manage to / sth)
-dictations and write expressions they hear.

What linguists and experts and many others often say that the ability to improve your skills at speaking a certain language is gained by speaking may be true for some but I'd dare to say that with the right feedback and corrections and motivation from the teacher (to me, there's nothing like having a teacher up to a certain level). Correction and understanding why structures are the way they are, having the right word or expression for the right context so as long as there is relevant previous exposure to English and correction, in this case ... Many adults want to know and understand their mistakes, both those accuracy- and fluency-oriented students.
Yet some learn to speak by taking a very active role in listening. (it worked well as just by listening for contexts in which a certain word that caught their attention - even if they had never came across the word or expression - you learned it. From my experience, those accuracy-oriented students find dictations a good way of learning to speak, reading out loud may be too, although i am in the process of testing this.

It also helps being familiar with sth, I think it's important to develop an awareness of the process, first being made aware of words, discourse markers, etc, knowing sth exists or sth is said this way or that, and being reminded of it (often). Then identifying it in a utterance, spotting it again and again (as a word, an expression, a phrasal verb..) and associating this words with a meaning according to context (be quick enough to put together the words and the meaning according to where it appears in and the final stages of learning (and at last acquiring it hopefully) using it, and being corrected if not used appropiately.