Learning English, How to Make It Easier.

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Learning the English language is challenging to say the least. There are some things you can do to make it easier. I have been teaching English for more than ten years now. I have been watching my students struggle and have been sick at heart when I realized how difficult it was and how little progress they were making. As a result I had to take a very close look at how I was teaching. I was doing it all wrong and had to change the way I taught. My students had to change how they learned. There is no way to address the problem of learning English without first talking about the dreaded G word. Grammar, there is nothing more boring than trying to learn basic grammar of any language. You do not have to learn enough grammar that you can pass a college level entrance exam to learn to speak English. Think of learning English like you would think of learning a sport. If you want to learn a sport one of the first things you have to learn are the rules of the game. You don't have to memorize the rulebook but you do have to know the basics. The same can be said of grammar. You don't need to know it all but you do need some understanding of how it works. You don't need to be able to define a noun or verb but you do need to know what they are and how they work. As a teacher it is almost impossible for me to actually teach conversation. The only way to learn to speak English is to speak it. Even before you speak it you must learn to listen to it. When first encountering English it sounds like so much white noise. The words run together almost like water running in a river. Learn to listen. At every opportunity expose your self to English. When you have a chance to watch an English or American movie watch the soundtrack version, don’t watch the dubbed version and if you can turn the subtitles off. Listen to the words and try to figure out how they relate to what is happening on the screen. At first it will be difficult and will not make much sense to you but if you keep at it the words will start to fall into place and become make sense. As a teacher I cannot teach vocabulary effectively. It is something you have to learn on your own. Learn it by listening to English, learn it by reading. Set yourself a target of reading at least one page a day about something that you are interested in. Look up the words you don't understand. This is one of the quickest ways to build vocabulary. Another thing you can do is write. Try writing at least 100 words a day. Write about something that you are interested in and again, when you need a word look it up. If you do this every day you'll be amazed at how quickly your vocabulary grows. When you have finished writing and are happy with what you have written take it to someone who speaks English and asked them to look it over. Ask them to be brutal in their criticism of it ask them to help you make it better. Now the most difficult part, speak English every day and at every opportunity. Do not be shy. Try to speak it with people who speak English as a native language but if there are no native English speakers available to you speak it with your friends and your fellow students. You will never learn to speak English if you confine your learning to the classroom. If you want to learn English you must make it a part of your everyday life, there is no other way. I know I said at the beginning of this that I would help you make it easier to learn English; I did not say that I would make it easy. There is no bit of magic I can give you to help you to speak English overnight. If you're one of my students I can't even teach you English. I can teach you the basic mechanics of English and I can open the door for you to learn but you must walk through that door on your own. Good luck, you can do it if you work at.