Teach English in Wangyin Zhen - Tianshui Shi

I learned Czech I only listened and read, and then gradually started speaking. I stepped up the speaking prior to going to Prague and I could understand everything the locals said to me when I got there. My speaking, which was already call it a low intermediate level, stepped up to maybe a middle intermediate level while I was there. You have to continue speaking, of course, but I was able to do all of that because I had a sound basis in the language and that sound basis came from a lot of listening and reading. Number two, it?s easy. You can do it anywhere. You can do it while driving, washing the dishes ? as I do ? or exercising. Similarly with reading, particularly now. There is a LingQ iPad app, so if you?re studying on LingQ you can do so on your iPad. You can also print content and read it. You don?t have to go to a classroom and spend half an hour to get there and half an hour to come back. Also, in terms of effective language learning, if you?re listening or reading, you?re 100% with the language. In a classroom, half of the time you?re having to listen to other students who may not use the language as well as you do and so, to my mind, it?s much less effective than time you spend alone with the language. The third reason that input-based learning is effective is that you?re not making mistakes. A lot of people are afraid to make mistakes. If you?re forced to speak, you?ll make mistakes. You?re listening; you can?t make a mistake when you?re listening. You might misunderstand something or your understanding might be a little fuzzy at times. You may have the wrong interpretation when there are words you don?t understand. None of that matters. That?s part of the process and things that are unclear and fuzzy at an early stage will eventually start to become clearer. So you?re not really making mistakes, but you?re in that stage of your learning where the brain is gradually becoming more and more familiar with the language. You?re learning more and more words and, of course, things are going to be unclear to you. So that?s an advantage. effective language learning listening and reading A fourth advantage of listening and reading is you can choose what you want to listen to and read. Obviously, the first month or so you?re stuck with beginner material which is often not very interesting, but I encourage people to move beyond the beginner material as soon as possible to get into things of interest. I certainly find that if I find something of interest, even if there are a lot of unknown words, I?ll work hard with that text because it?s of interest to me. When I was learning Czech I was able to learn so much about Czech history, the history of Central Europe and the political situation in the Czech Republic. When I got to Prague I had all this wonderful background. Finally, learning via an input-based approach is cheaper. You don?t have to spend anything. You can go to the library or find content on the Internet. There are systems like LingQ, which is much cheaper than going to class. It may be that someone else is paying for the class, but that doesn?t change the fact that the class is expensive. Inherently, because you have a trained professional there in front of students, someone has got to pay for that. I?m not saying you shouldn?t go to class, but if you do, I believe the main emphasis should be on input-based learning. Input-based learning has a drawback, and that is for it to be effective you have to be motivated, disciplined, a self-starter. You have to be curious about things and go out and find content of interest. You have to have the confidence that you can succeed. This is often the problem with inexperienced language learners who have never really become fluent in another language. They can?t visualize themselves as fluent, so they kind of half defeat it before they start. They think they?ll never get there, and if you think that then probably you won?t. You have to be a positive, confident, motivated, independent learner. However, if you go to a class and you aren?t a confident, motivated, independent learner, you won?t learn either. I mentioned in my Chinese video that they did a study of Chinese immigrants to Canada and found that in seven years (they followed about 3,000 immigrants who were taking ESL classes at government-sponsored schools) there was essentially no improvement, statistically no improvement. Those who spoke well when they arrived spoke well and continued to speak well, and those who didn?t speak when they arrived still couldn?t speak very well. That?s just to say that very often in a classroom environment if the learner is not motivated, in other words doesn?t have all the qualities required to be an independent learner and to take advantage of listening, reading and input-based learning, they won?t be successful in the classroom either. So the classroom can provide a lot of social benefits and feedback and so forth, but even if you?re in a classroom, make sure that your main emphasis is on listening and reading, as well as building up your vocabulary. I just learned Polish and Russian at LingQ. Join us at LingQ.com to power up your language learning. Related posts: 4 Steps to Self-Empowerment Through Learning Can Reading And Listening Help Your Career? The power of listening Listening Comprehension ? An Important Language Skill EffectiveInputLanguage learningLearning MethodslisteningReading You may also like 11 Jul 2017 Italki Review: Get the Most Out of the Language Learning Resource 4 Jul 2017 Thank You, Ukraine! How to Get the Most out of Language Immersion 13 Jun 2017 How to Get the Most out of Language Immersion 24 comments on ?Effective Language Learning: Listening and Reading? Wojtek November 21, 2012 at 12:26 pm Reply Dear Steve, I want to share a though that has occurred to me recently. Not particularly related to these videos. I?m 27 and though it is not common to respect older people these days (as it used to be), I think the other way around.You, David Allen (the creator of the GTD method), Brain Tracy (very influential business and personal couch, a millionaire if I remember correctly) are all at the age of 66-67.It is very interesting that you all have much in common: successful, happy and robust men. It must be awesome to be so energetic being 66.I want to be like you when I?m your age ? not sitting in front of the telly and watching stupid soaps that make you dumb and obtuse.That?s it! Just a personal kudos! Andrew Lassota November 21, 2012 at 5:38 pm Reply Dear Mr.Kaufmann! At last I have dared to write to you! Thank you so much for your great work on demystification of the language learning process.As many of my friends I have been unsuccessfully trying to learn English all of my conscious life (for more than 20 years). For me this process was always ?a long and winding road? of endless grammar rules and drills, without even a slight hope of achiving a level of fluent understanding and enjoying the language in the future.But everything changed about a year ago, when I discovered for myself Lingq and your YouTube channel. In fact it was one phrase from your book, that made a Revolution in my mind. In the beginning of the book you simply advice everybody to read it, even it would be the first serious English book in their life. I followed your advise, though I didn?t believe that I could do it. I have read the book and several times listened the audiobook. And it was like a breakthrough for me. I have suddenly felt that I CAN DO IT!Since that I have listened to all of your audios and videos, I began listen to different audiobooks and podcasts that interested me. Now I am interested in different approaches to language learning, especially in such prominent authors as M.Brown, S.Krashen, J.Asher. Especially I am fascinated by the ALG-method of Dr. J.-M.Brown. In fact it is a first practical academic application of Dr. S.Krashen?s ideas about input-based method of language learning. I think the ideas of this method is quite similar to your?s. In the past you have devoted several of your videos to the different aspects of Dr. S.Krashen?s method.Could you devote some of your future videos to the analysis of the ALG-method (www.algworld.com). By the way there is several fine YouTube videos on this topic performed by David Long (www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vg2Eh2LOSE).Thank you so much and waiting for your responseAndrew Lassota, Poland Steve Kaufmann November 22, 2012 at 4:05 am Reply Andrew,Thank you for your interesting comment. I don?t know the details of the ALG method,but a lot of what David Long says, I agree with. Understanding is the foundation, drills and exercises are boring and not necessary, and mot adults in language classes do very poorly. I also think that LingQ is an application of this approach.Cheers.Steve Andrew November 22, 2012 at 8:08 pm Reply I generally agree, but one thing that I would add (that I suspect you may disagree with) is that I definitely encourage people to start talking with native speakers (generally via skype with people you find via language exchange sites like italki and the mixxer) as soon as possible, and I also disagree with people who claim that doing so is somehow damaging or will hurt you. Take the Spanish, for example, that you just spent the last hour learning during your first ever lesson and get on a skype call with a native speaker who?s already at a somewhat advanced level with their English (so that they?re perfectly happy with 98% of the call being in English, which it inevitably will be) and use it on them! Get feedback from them, they?ll tell you about your pronunciation, they?ll tell you about related phrases and alternate ways of saying what you said (e.g. you say \"buenos dias, como estás?\" because that?s all you know, and they teach you about \"qué tal\" and \"qué onda\" and \"en qué andas\" and \"buenas tardes\" and \"buenas noches\" etc., etc., etc.): you?ll learn all sorts of things and it?ll be fun and interesting because you?re interacting with a real life native speaker and you?re learning about their culture and their language and this little session will give you a huge reason (massive motivation, so important in language learning!) to go back and learn more Spanish before your next session so that you can impress them with what you?ve learned in the meantime and are better able to communicate with your new friend!Definitely speak from day one if possible, preferably with a native speaker, but yes most of what you?ll be doing will and probably should be input, and the more of a beginner you are the more this will be the case. I find that, as an advanced Spanish learner, at this point the great majority of my Spanish learning takes place during skype calls with language partners, not while I?m watching Spanish-language TV shows or reading an article in Spanish.Cheers,Andrew Steve Kaufmann November 23, 2012 at 2:35 am Reply I prefer meaningful activities with any language.I do not enjoy talking to people in a language where I have very limited vocabulary and very limited ability to say anything or understand anything. Once I have a sound basis in the language my ability to speak will improve with speaking. Until that point these painful attempts at discussion are largely a waste of time for me.Even at an intermediate level, I prefer reading and listening to speaking unless the conversation is meaningful to me. In other words I like meaningful activities, in my own language and in the language that I am learning. Andrew November 23, 2012 at 8:47 pm Reply Oh I completely agree that it should be meaningful, I guess we just disagree on what qualifies as \"meaningful\