Insights on Learning English Part I, Take the Ride

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Learning English is a little bit intimidating when you do not know how to start. In this post, we will give you some insights to learn English even outside the classroom.

Many have been asking me, "Teacher, can I learn English in 3 months?" I would answer most of the time, "It depends". Some will tell you, YES immediately on this matter. It is really variable. If you really want to acquire the language very quickly, you have to consider the following actions:

1.  Identify the purpose - Why do you want to learn ENGLISH in the first place? Would it be for travel, for a promotion at work, to use it in your college or university admission, for your career, etc?  It is very crucial to have a goal in mind before starting your journey.  

2.  Have the willingness and open-mindedness to learn new things.

3.  Have the timeline - When do you want to acquire it? Set a specific date or month that you want to have it as your second or foreign language.

4.  Where do you want to learn it? Choose a place to get started. It could be a special English Academy, tutorials, regular schools, or university, etc.

5.   Understand how you would like to learn the language.  This is the one that chokes most of the learners. They do not know how to do it. 

The last point is something that we have to reflect on since it will impact the WHEN part.  The very basic is to know the four competencies that you have to embark on to make sure that it would be holistic.  The competencies are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. They come in order in such a way that you have to give priority to listening well in many aspects. This is the normal process of learning a new language. 

When you were a child, you started listening to sounds, words, and phrases from your parents. That is the beginning of acquiring your target language. In retrospect, you have been already listening to a lot of sounds even when you were inside the womb of your mother. So, you have to find a way of listening to many resources in English. I highly suggest that you listen to some music, talks, forums, podcasts, watch movies, and the likes. It is the key, to begin with, your speaking part. At the initial part, you may just be mimicking the speakers. Take note that we have the accent as a general part of it and broken down to pronunciation, intonation, and connection of the words. I call those three elements of ACCENT the three musketeers. "One for all, All for one", they said. They are inseparable from one another when you speak. To be good in this, you need constant practice, you would like it and enjoy it along the way. Passion is an addition to the concoction of this learning process. In my experience, practicing at least thirty minutes a day helped me a lot on this.

Another competency that you have to consider is reading. Reading a lot helps you grow your vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, techniques and many more in expressing yourself. It nourishes your mind like a bank.  It deposits treasures that can be mined at a later time when you most need them. Take for instance, you are inclined to science, then read a lot of books that are talking about the field that you chose. Then, expand in other areas as you will need them too. As suggested, you may begin with a favorite novel of your liking (Harry Potter , Percy Jackson as examples), newspapers, magazines, quotations and proverbs or anything that awakes your being but in the target language. You may not understand every word in the text, it is not important. As you go along you will understand. A dictionary would be a great ally in this case. It could be digital or in print. Whatever is your choice, it should be functional. 

What about writing?  Indeed writing is very important also. It is part of the civilization that made humans the greatest creation of the world. This is the most difficult part for many learners, however, it can be achieved with dedication and focus.  This is one of the competencies, that externalizes your thoughts. Writing gives you the prowess to communicate with high regard specifically in your career. You may have the gift to transfer your ideas into letters.  Novelist, a poet that you may be in the future. Time will tell. 

More on the specifics of every competency will be discussed in the next posts. Just remember, Learn with PASSION and PERSEVERANCE. You will gain whatever you want in the course.