Dear Friends,
Let's talk about nine, accepted by many, 'most useful' methods of learning English.
Starting from the least effective, here's my list.
1. Watching American movies with subtitles.
2. Learning vocabulary in city transport on the way to and from work.
3. Reading books, underlining unknown words, finding them in dictionaries and later...(see point 2)
4. Listening to American music
5. Exchanging messages with English-speaking forums' participants
6. Listening to educational CDs in a car.
7. Having free online lessons.
8. Learning English in groups.
9. Watching video lessons.
1. Watching American movies with subtitles.
I have never met one person who had not advocated this method of learning English.
Well, as in many areas of human life, we like living in the world of nice dreams, fantasies and illusions.
Watching American movies with subtitles is one of our most pleasant learning English fantasies.
Most of my students believe that the fact of seeing an American movie will automatically and inevitably bring them to a higher level of their English.
This just not true and here is why:
We go to movies, don't we, to spend good time, to enjoy a nice work of movie-makers, esp. if their film had received movie awards. Popcorn, coca-cola, and other attributes of movie-trips multiply the enjoyment.
Now, imagine an English learner who is at a start of her endeavor of developing English speaking skills, watches the movie, tries to grasp a few words of English speech and simultaneously reads the lines of translated sentences.
(sometimes a far cry from what it is in English).
After a few minutes she finds herself in the position of neither spectacle nor learner.
Do you agree?
About the next point, #2, tomorrow.
Till then, bye-bye
George
Let's talk about nine, accepted by many, 'most useful' methods of learning English.
Starting from the least effective, here's my list.
1. Watching American movies with subtitles.
2. Learning vocabulary in city transport on the way to and from work.
3. Reading books, underlining unknown words, finding them in dictionaries and later...(see point 2)
4. Listening to American music
5. Exchanging messages with English-speaking forums' participants
6. Listening to educational CDs in a car.
7. Having free online lessons.
8. Learning English in groups.
9. Watching video lessons.
1. Watching American movies with subtitles.
I have never met one person who had not advocated this method of learning English.
Well, as in many areas of human life, we like living in the world of nice dreams, fantasies and illusions.
Watching American movies with subtitles is one of our most pleasant learning English fantasies.
Most of my students believe that the fact of seeing an American movie will automatically and inevitably bring them to a higher level of their English.
This just not true and here is why:
We go to movies, don't we, to spend good time, to enjoy a nice work of movie-makers, esp. if their film had received movie awards. Popcorn, coca-cola, and other attributes of movie-trips multiply the enjoyment.
Now, imagine an English learner who is at a start of her endeavor of developing English speaking skills, watches the movie, tries to grasp a few words of English speech and simultaneously reads the lines of translated sentences.
(sometimes a far cry from what it is in English).
After a few minutes she finds herself in the position of neither spectacle nor learner.
Do you agree?
About the next point, #2, tomorrow.
Till then, bye-bye
George
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