"Study!" - That is my short answer before giving some tips for learning English. I even once prepared a document with simple guidance for those who wants to improve their English on their own. But it doesn't work much. After my friends' "thank you", I never receive updates of their learning English.
"How's your English now?" - I ask when seeing someone around.
"Still bad. I am too busy. And actually English makes me bored and sleepy! I cannot get along well with it." - they reply.
Aw... I understand. So, their problem is not just that they don't know how to learn English effectively. Their problem is that they don't like English. Perhaps they need English for their work, but they don't really need it for themselves.
So, how to make people like English? - I asked myself. If a person does not like English, how can s/he learn English? This used to be a difficult question to me. How do I like English? I don't know. I just like it!
But one day, or more exactly, this morning, I don't remember what I was thinking about, but suddenly I found out the answer for that question.
How to like English? Go find an interesting teacher of English!
I'm sure about that. Only an interesting teacher can inspire their students and make them love what they teach! I myself was totally lucky to have a great teacher of English who taught a group of about 5 students like me for 5 years since we was at the 8th grade. He is from Switzerland but studied in England to become a teacher of English. He taught us only one session a week, each session lasted for one hour and a half only, but he followed us during 5 years until we enrolled universities. Although I already liked English before I joined his class, he was the most important one who helped nuture my interest in learning English and, of course, gave me a firm foundation so that I can continue learning English on my own since then. He's a great teacher who knows how to encourage us to speak up and write down what we think and like in English. We played funny games, wrote stories and discussed millions of things in class. That's how we got familiar and feeling at ease with using English.
As a matter of fact, I think Mr Thomas Friedman agreed with my point as he wrote in his book "The world is flat" like this: (not exactly in words as I have to translate it back from Vietnamese to English)
After my talk, a young boy raised his hand, introducing that he was at the 9th grade, and asked: "Mr Friedman, if learning the learning methods is that much important, so how did you learn them? What classes should I attend?"
That was a logical question. At that time, I didn't have enough time for careful thinking, but I think I gave a suitable answer "Go to your friends and ask them: 'who are your favourite teachers?'. After that, make a list of those favourable teachers and attend their classes no matter what they are going to teach you." Because when I remind myself of my favourite teachers, I don't really remember what they taught me, but I do remember the inspiration for learning they gave me. What remains with me is not the knowledge transferred by my teachers, but the desire to learn. In order to learn the learning methods, you got to love to learn, or at least, to like it, because the key thing of learning is the learning motivation. When some people are born with this motivation, others can create it or receive it from their teachers or parents.
So, go find an interesting teacher who can show you how interesting English is!
No comments:
Post a Comment