Thursday 4 October 2012

How To Learn English Effectively

By Mark Spolsky


Effective English learning requires focus on English conversation. The most successful students attempt first to master the spoken English before they concentrate on the written language.

Unfortunately, many learners try to do the opposite. They use classroom lectures, textbooks and grammar books to learn English. They use their eyes instead of their ears. That is the conventional method used in most of the "normal" schools.

The key to fluency, to speak like a native speaker and to develop a clear accent is listening to easy and understandable English conversation. In order to master the spoken English students must spend more than 80% of their study time on listening activities.

In order to learn effectively students must listen to specific materials. They should concentrate on "easy" English and use materials that they mostly understand. To get most from their learning students should understand about 95% of the material they are learning from.

Understanding is not enough. Students must also have a lot of repetitions. If they hear a new word only once, they will soon forget it. If they hear it 5 times, they will still probably forget it! They must hear new words and new grammar many times before they will understand them instantly and absorbs the language into his or her subconscious. In most cases two hours a day of listening is sufficient to achieve English fluency in short time.

Lastly, before attempting formal speech or written English students should first focus on casual "real English conversation". This kind of English varies from language textbooks and classrooms. Studying this way, students have an opportunity to learn components of real English speech such as slang, idioms, filler words, sentence fragments, and interruptions. These components are very common and necessary for understanding native speakers and for having proper conversations with them.

To sum up, English students must concentrate on natural English conversation to develop complete mastery of the English language.




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