Part 13
Let's assume there are 6 students in your group. This is supposed to be a small group -- I have worked with groups that consisted of 16 and more participants. Now, how much time do you get to speak English if there are three or more other people in the same class? It's a fact that in a conventional English class you have very little opportunity to practice your English. What's worse, English classes can actually damage your English and slow down your learning process. Yes, that's right. Most of the time you spend in an English class, you are exposed to unnatural "ESL English". Think about it: You and the other people in your group are trying to learn English. So when you speak, you are bound to make grammar mistakes and of course you speak in your own accent and intonation. An English class consists of one person who speaks correct English (the teacher if they are good) and three or more people who speak incorrect English. It's one against many. So in an English class you hear much more incorrect English than you hear authentic English.
Even if your English teacher tries their best to correct all the mistakes their students make, it's almost impossible for them to create an environment in which you get only 'original English input'. An English teacher might correct some of the grammar mistakes their students make. However, they will rarely correct any pronunciation mistakes of their students simply because they are overwhelmed with this task. An English teacher who has 4, 6, 8 or even more students in their class, is happy when those students get at least some of the grammar and vocabulary exercises right -- they normally don't have the time and energy to bother with their students' pronunciation. Although it might sound strange, an English class is not a good place to learn English. You can check it out for yourself -- try to find a person who speaks very good English.
Ask them where and how they learned English. I'm sure they won't say 'at school' or 'in an English class'. Here is another reason why English classes are not effective learning systems: If you sign up for a private English course you usually have 2 or 3 'lessons' per week. That's about 4% of an average work week. Now, what results do you expect from investing 4% of your into learning English? Oh, you can't afford to pay for more than 2 or 3 English lessons per month? Well, you don't have to. You already have your own English language learning system inside your head. All you need to do is find out how you can put it to use effectively. The first towards this goal is getting a clear understanding of how exactly language works:
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