Learning A New Language

Tweet

I taught Coversational Spanish and English as a Second Language for 14 years. All my students were adults and learned the new language within six weeks and surprised themselves when they were able to hold debates in that language. My trick to teaching the beginners was to nver let them pick up a writing instrument during the beginning lessons. I always revolved the classes around individual occupations or interests and I never used a text book for beginners, only a dictionary. Learning a new language has to be in pictures never translation from one word to another. Think of how you learned your own language. When you bagan uttering the syllables 'Mama' or 'Dada' your parents didn't hand you a book and tell you not to speak to them again until you had mastered all the grammatical rules. The same applies to a foreign language. When someone says 'dog' or 'tree' or 'car' to you, you immediately have a mental picture of the item. Not another word. The same should apply to the language you are learning. So get those post-it notes out and begin labeling things in your house. You'll be surprised at how much vocabulary you can learn in week. If anyone is interested in more tips, write to me.