Better Your English Online

3. Train your ear

One of the most frustrating things about language learning is that when you have practiced and practiced your dialogues and get to test them on a real live native, you don’t understand a bloody word they say to you. In the past this was one of the hardest areas to resolve because if you didn’t live in a country where your chosen language was spoken it was almost impossible to have any contact with it. Consequently a student could come to understand their teacher but nobody else.

Fortunately digital content and delivery has removed this problem with a plethora of podcasts, dvd’s, online videos etc. But you still have to train your ear. A typical person studying English decides to watch, say, Billy Elliot. After 5 minutes they are completely lost and frustrated and have decided they will never learn the language. It is incredibly difficult to begin to understand a film in a different tongue – invariably there will be accents you’ve never heard, slang you’ve never learned, twists & turns and lots of wordplay and cultural references that mean nothing to you. (By the way, Billy Elliot was subtitled in the USA because the Americans couldn’t understand it).

I always recommend my students to begin by listening to something everyday, and not necessarily concentrating on it either. What is important is to accustom the ear to different sounds and accents. Think about how you pick up a song – by repetition, hearing it over and over again in your car or on the radio. Before you know it you are humming the tune or singing along – but unless you are a musician it is unlikely that you sit down and actually learn it. Podcasts and other digital content give you the ability to do exactly the same thing. Just start by listening while doing the dishes or walking the dog or whatever. Your journey to & from work can be a perfect time to work on your listening skills. If you persevere you’ll begin to pick out words, then phrases and little by little to start really understanding.

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2. Consistency

A year in the study of English of a typical Spanish student:

• January – resolve to really learn English this year – enrollment in English course
• Champions League games inconveniently take place on weekday nights making it difficult to study
• League games/weddings/ski-ing trips etc inconveniently take place on weekends making it difficult to study
• Easter holidays
• Longer days and warmer weather inconveniently mean that having a drink on a terraza makes it difficult to study
• Hot weather means visits to the beach and English books get wet and full of sand
• 23rd June – San Juan fiesta means that studying is over until after the summer holidays
• August – holidays in foreign country produce panic as student realises they can’t communicate
• September – enrollment in English course
• October – English course begins as does the football season
• 6th December – National holiday, begins holiday season which ends on January 7th – English course finishes until next year

Of course this is a slight exaggeration but it is one of the reasons why people studying English for 20 years is not that uncommon.

The only way to learn a language is to be consistent – it is far better to study only five minutes a day if that’s the only time you have, than to stop and start. Work out how much time you can dedicate to the goal that you have set yourself and stick to it by making a realistic plan. With the rise of internet based learning, mp3, dvd etc you should always be able to find some time and remember that learning a language is not a race, it’s an ongoing project that never stops.

Technorati Tags: goals, how to, language learning, New Years Resolutions, Spanish, Typically Spanish