Do you want to improve your English?

[Torsten]

You will certainly agree that in order to learn English you have to change your daily habits. You need to create an English language environment that surrounds you every day. Any conventional English class (by conventional I mean any English course provided by language schools like Berlitz, Wallstreet Institute, Inlingua, etc.) is rather ineffective because you are able to spend only a few hours there and most of that time you will hear how other 'students' are trying to build correct English sentences. What you can't get in most English classes is something that is absolutely essential to learning a second language: Dialogs and conversations by native speakers. You need authentic 'input', you have to be exposed to the way native speakers interact in daily situations.

If you want to improve your English you don't need any English teacher. All you need is a system that helps you change your daily habits. We can create that system together one step a time. First, you should analyze how you spend your time. Take a look at the following questions and write down the answers. Maybe, you have some questions you would like to add?

• How much time per week do you spend watching TV?
  
• How much time per week do you spend in your car?
  
• How much time do you spend reading a newspaper or magazine?
  
• How many emails do you write per day/week?
  
• How much time per week do you spend on the Internet?
  
• How much time do you spend eating breakfast?
  
• How often do you go to the cinema?
  

I'm convinced that even in the best English course you can only pick up a few tips and ideas as to how you might improve your English. Learning English in an English class is almost impossible, though. We have been running classes one of which is called Improving your English every day? and I'd be quite interested to hear what the participants are doing now. How much have they learned in the three week course? Have they learned to learn or just refreshed their grammar? What about you? What type of learner are you? Do you need English classes or can you learn on your own?
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Fan Of Arabian Horses]

Hi Torsten!

What I always was wonderring is whether you recommend your site to your students and whether they follow your suggestions? I mean one can?t learn a language in a three weeks lesson. I myself have been here now for more than two month and learn with every post I read or write as there are native speaker and also non native speaker. In addition I get corrected by administrators and moderators, learn terms and idioms and often have a look into my dictionary, which is a very good one. Only to get in mind what my dictionary suggests I would need still lots of time. So you?re right to mention that in an English class one could learn some grammar only and if one don?t practise, his/her skills would keep poorly only.

Michael

[Torsten]

Hi Michael,

As you said, if you want to improve your English, you simply have to change some of your daily habits. Your level of English largely depends on the percentage of time you spend in an English language environment. That's why I have put up those questions. I know that it is possible to adjust your daily routines in such a way that allows you to incorporate English. For example, if you spend one hour reading newspapers or magazines, simply start spending some of that time reading articles in English. You can still read about the same topics, the only difference is that you now read texts in English rather than your mother tongue.

As for 'my students' (I'm not too fond of the words 'my' and 'students' in this context), it really depends on their individual situation. Some of them are used to being taught the conventional way with lesson plans, set class times, groups, etc. For them, it takes some time and some thinking to adopt new learning techniques and start assuming more responsibility for their learning success. If a person asks many questions their motivation and willingness to change their habits is high. If a person waits for the 'teacher' (how do you define teacher anyway?) to tell them what to do, it will take much longer for them to make progress.

I used to have a lot of contracts with state funded and government run organizations. If this was the case, I had not direct contract with the 'clients' and the clients had no direct influence on the course contents and structure.
For a number of reasons I would not mention our website in any of those courses. If somebody really wanted to find and use our site they easily would have been able to do so...

By the way, there is this term blended learning which has become a buzzword. Now mind you, it's called blended learning not blended teaching.
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Fan Of Arabian Horses]

Hi Torsten!

First I?d like to mention that your students and you as the teacher for me are accepted expressions i.e. for me that are common expressions, I think. Of course you might more like to say trainees and trainer or something else.

As you are training adults, how do you experience their willing to learn? I mean your reply sounds like you often experienced that many of your trainees aren?t ready to learn and visit your classes (sorry, a common expression too) under governments pressure only. That way you?re right with your advice to the blended learning. And I didn?t want to offend you when I ask you whether you refer to your site. Although I?m not a teacher, I have worked as a sport trainer and leaded some employees and know that not everyone is interested in learning and it could really be difficult to teach or train them.

Back to my experience with the learning English, I?m sorry having to admit that I don?t often do hear English or speak it. So this morning I thought I could hear the English broadcasting station at Frequenz 103 and had to experience that it is probably the broadcasting station from London as it sounded really strange although I?m capable to understand a standard English. But the speaker was babbling quick and in a dialekt that sounded as it where a bit London dialekt. Or is the British English sounding that?

Perhaps you know the broadcasting station I mentioned and are able to tell me whether that is standard British.

Hope to see you

Michael

[Englishuser]

Hi Torsten,

I definitely agree with you when you say that we need to work on our own in order to learn a new language. However, I think that Berlitz and inlingua are bad examples of language schools where students learn "slowly": at schools like this many (if not a majority) of students study individually with a native fluent teacher, and emphasis is laid on oral skills. Also, both of the schools mentioned are known as schools where you study entirely in the new language. (Which tends to be more efficient than a contrastive approach to language learning.)

I think that the best way to improve one's English is to read English texts (novels, newspapers, poems, magazines...) and to listen to English speech (TV, films, talking to English-speaking friends if possible). This can be done relatively easily and inexpensively anywhere in the world. You also need to write and to speak English, of course. A great way of enhancing one's English skills is, in my opinion, to spend some time in English speaking countries. There are many language educators that offer trips to English speaking countries including accommodation (preferably in a local family), language training, etc. Tourist trips tend to give you less in terms of language training so I would, in general, avoid them for the specific purpose of improving my languge skills.

[Jan]

Hi,
I do not believe in a story like we may learn English
every day just eating breakfast , driving car ,watching movies etc...
English is hard and completely unprepare to international
standards, it is a full developed natural language and to track ways of using it may be easy like spending the rest of your life learning, learning and doing funny mistakes.
If you achieve some intermidiete level or advace level and than stop learning it couses in a matter of few months the reduction
in the half and later with time something like ten years it will make neseccery to start again from beginning or almost from beginning.
Desparation and human's character is pressing you to
learn and learn and learn ...
,even if conditions are not good enough to manage to master this you still would push and push.
The language which have been not learnt by somebody as a child is never ending story.
Exellent news for English teaching industry ,isn' it.
If somebody wants to learn English needs to go for at least three years to an English school in an English spoken
country.
At that time he would be able to shut down any comments by some extra examples and any exams would be in the reach of his hands.
Is it really funny to snore every time if this or that is more correct or less correct or not correct at all ???
40 % of vocabulary used in dictionary (Collins dictionary) is unknown by natives , even more is unknow due to spelling
and something like 5% is unknown because is not their English but somebody's like New Zealand e.g.
English had no Martin Luther and it stayes awfull natural
with much to much hard Latin and French.
Nobody from natives have even a slight hope that somebody may be able to manage to learn that "trush" in full.
Now they used to pacifiy a problem by meaning that International English and English are different and first vary between pidgtin and school English second between native many many different interpretation of the same language.
Do you want to improve your improve by an improve and finally confirm that the improve in an improve was again totaly lack of any improve.

What about to create next to Heathrow a pronounciation University for English and any native without certification wouldn't be allowed to go out due to a shame and damage done to Queen and Country.
Scots may be expelled it would be hopeless and impossible so and so.

Regards
Pacific Voyager
Jan

[Torsten]

Hi Jan,

Many thanks for your comments. I hope it will be OK with you if I ask you some questions:

Do you think you can improve your English by writing shorter (simpler) sentences that are grammatically correct?

Do you think you can express your thoughts more clearly by using simpler sentence structures?

What about using a spell checker? (Would using a spell checker improve your English?)

Do you think you can improve your English by listening to authentic resources?

Do you think that surrounding yourself by English every increases your language skills and gives you access to new knowledge and information?

Does living in an English speaking country mean you will learn the language automatically? How many people in English speaking countries use their mother tongue (which is not English) on a daily basis?

Is it possible to create an English speaking environment in a non-English speaking country?

How did you learn your native language and are you still improving your skills in this language? If so, how do you improve your native language skills?

What do you need English or any other language for? Do you want to improve your English and if so, why?

Finally, I'd like to you ask you how you think you can improve your English and how you measure your progress.
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Torsten]

[Jan]

Hi,
first of all I don't improve my mothertoungue ,because same as you with German I feel it by heart and instinctly I know if it is something wrong or very wrong.
About English I wish I do not need to speak English I really sometimes for fun was trying to convience some English friends to use German,Russian or French instead but no native English speakers is able to speak these languages.
(exept maybe French) rarly.
,and even if they were able they were not interesting deeply in subject just to be polite saying the honest way.
(English maniers)

You speak now to multinational society with permanet deviation towards English language and they are happe to participate but native typical English speakers are different.
VERY DIFFERENT
They are very very hard to understand , they are unable to imagine what it is to listen to them and they don't know anything about studing something foreign but are happy like this.
They knowledge about the world is with learned with English eyes and they don't want to change this.

Surely building sentences is important but it is to late something like twenty years to late for any improvment.
The Sea English is much worse and reallty you shouldn't complain about my poor structure.
Always be welcomed to correct I have open heart to all critic.
I HAVE A QUESTION
Do you really want to live in your own English society to achive the goal to master English.

Do you want to drink tea with milk???
Eat fried fish and pommes or curry ??
Drink Schotch or something like this
I is important for you as a teacher but to propose that to everybody to people to teenagers??

Doing so you will kill a pit of yourself of course I understand
you are an English teacher but we free people are different
,we want to have gourges friends not just English.
ha ha

What English man may say about bear bruno ??
They don't have any bears there

using Computer corrector would be very usefull but I promise to be different from Natives English Writers in my presence they correct every thing that way.

Don't reply it was just for fun.
Bruno Fun Jan
By the way,it is written even in the Bible that no Native English would reach the paradise.

[Conchita]

[Englishuser]

Hi Torsten,

What I mean by saying that students at schools like Berlitz study individually with a native fluent teacher is that the student studies takes private classes with a teacher. That is, no fellow students trying to build sentences will be there to retard your process of learning. When it comes to dialogues, I'm happy to tell you that even that can be arranged at Berlitz: you can book two Berlitz instructors for your class, and some people really choose to do this. The only drawback with studying English with Berlitz is the cost. Very few of us can afford classes like this. Therefore, I agree with you when you say that we can't really learn a language at a language school (it simply gets too expensive).

I must say that I'm a bit surprised to note that an English teacher like you have such an attitude when it comes to English classes. I mean, learning English in a classroom setting is better than learning no English at all, isn't it? Only very motivated students find it important to achieve native-like skills in a second language. Not all people need so advanced language skills: people will understand people with a more modest command of a language.

All the best.

[Englishuser]

Hi all,

I feel obliged to share my opinion with you when it comes to how good people, in general, are at their native languages. Jan recently claimed that he instantly knows when a sentence in German, his native tongue, is correct or not. I think that most of us know the grammar of our native languages pretty well, but what about our word bank? I mean, I would claim that no one knows all the words in the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, for example, no matter have native a speaker is. So, one could say that we can all build our vocabulary. Also, we can enhance e.g. our writing skills by learning how to write in a more elegant way. And many of us need elocution classess...

[Torsten]

[Conchita]

[Torsten]

Hi Conchita, I'm also interested in hearing Jussi's proposals on this. I remember we once ran a writing workshop here on the forum called How can I improve my writing skills? and I suggest we continue it.

We actually could start a writing blog: One person writes an essay or any type of text and then other writers give their feedback and make suggestions as what should be improved. There could be an experienced auther and editor such as Alan, Amy, Charles or Linda who run this workshop. It's really up to us to start and manage this project.

What do you think?
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary