I hope everybody is having a good weekend..In Alberta you have to get outside when the weather is good. I walked about 6km with my girlfriends this morning, then we all went to Kathy's house for coffee and muffins.
I've been thinking about the survey we did the other day about learning a new language. Just to remind you about some of the points we talked about.
- Most people feel shy when learning a new language but everybody feels they are getting smarter. My comment: If you are shy by nature you have to make sure you speak whenever you can. Some people feel that they learn a lot in their first 2 months of class and that they don't learn much after that. The higher your benchmarks are, the longer it takes you to move to the next one, so you may not move up a Benchmark in Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing in one 16 week term - in fact you probably won't, but just keep working.
- Most people felt that they were strong in reading and speaking in class but weak in learning vocabulary and pronunciation. My comment: Reading and retention of vocabulary are very much related. The more you read, the more vocabulary you will remember, so read, read, read. We will be spending time reviewing the vocabulary that comes up in class. As for pronunciation, we will explore both online material and materials in the language labs. As well, I will continue to point out various aspects of pronunciation as they come up in class.
- Iqbal feels that learning a language is like or can be compared to playing chess or solving a puzzle. He learns parts of the language and then puts them together. I, on the other hand, feel it is more like learning a dance or learning to swim. I can learn the steps or techniques and then I just swim or dance and my body learns how to do it. So, we see learning a language differently, but we can try to learn in many ways.
Thank you for sharing your experience,and being our teacher.I appreciate the afford you put into the class.
ReplyDeleteJessica
Thank you for the advice Linda. I recently found out that doing something that you enjoy
ReplyDelete(while learning english) is also a key to improving your english. I enjoy watching TV, so i watch TV and learn new words on TV and then look them up in the dictionary.You can either watch comedies or news. This works for me and many other people, i dont know if it will work for my fellow students.
There are different ways to get the goal of learning english.For example, passengers in a train spend their time in different ways like listening to music, sleeping, eating, gossiping etc. with same destination.So we, as the student of linc school,are learning english at our own pace with the same destination. I think ,independent study is good way to learn for every student at their own pace of learning and then working in class with other students is better to improve our communication.
ReplyDeleteWe're learning a lot of interesting things with u Linda, Thanks a lot.
ReplyDelete