My Personal Favourite Posts on the Blog So Far...

As you might notice, I've started to post again.  I've also noticed that there are a few more people visiting the blog.  So to all the new readers - welcome!

If you are new to this blog and you don’t know where to start then I would like to recommend these 10 posts that are my personal favourites.  I think these 10 posts are the most useful and most helpful articles for learners of English.

1. What is Cohesion & Coherence? (Cambridge Testing Explained)

This is a very popular post which explains one of the things that Cambridge examiners are looking for in your speaking and writing.

2. Accent vs Pronunciation

This looks at the difference between the two and provides some advice and links to a wonderful resource for listening.

3. Cudunagonbeda

If you are having problems understanding native speakers with their fast talking, or you would like to improve your speaking, this might be of interest to you.

4. How much time do I need?

How long does it take to learn a language and how much effort do you need to be successful?  It is different for each person, but there are a few general rules here.

5. Anybody having problems with the Present Perfect?

This takes a poem/song to provide a little exercise for listening to examples of the present perfect tense.  You might find it useful, but I've added it here because it was fun to make!

6. Thinking about Superman a.k.a. Imaginary Situations (Conditionals)

Talking about things we wish were true makes up a lot of our conversations, so these grammar points are explained clearly and with lots of written and picture examples.

7. How Green is your Internet (Working with Numbers in English)

This is another very popular post that takes a two minute video and gives you a small listening task to help you practise listening to English numbers.

8. Learning and Forgetting Vocabulary & No Magic Please

Did you know that forgetting vocabulary is actually a very important part of building your vocabulary?  These two posts explain one of the best ways I know to improve vocabulary quickly!

9. Using Tongue Twisters for Your Pronunciation

I honestly feel that practising little tongue twisters is a great way to improve pronunciation in another language.  It is also very impressive to people when you get it right!

10. How Useful is Translation? (University Preparation Tip #1)

I love Google Translate and I think it had become a very useful tool to help language learners.  But it can't replace learning a language.  This article shows the problems of using too much translation.

Learning and Forgetting Vocabulary

Do you see the link on the top bar?  The one that says 1000 Challenge.  It goes to a page that talks about a language learning challenge I did earlier this year.  Learning 1000 new words in a foreign language.  I was quite successful – in one month I memorized 869 new words and phrases.  However, that was in July and now it is October.  After the challenge finished, I had a holiday, I was busy with other projects and I was lazy – I didn’t continue studying and now I probably remember about 200/300 words. :-(

This is not surprising and it is explained very well in this article, 'Do not forget The Forgetting Curve'.  I highly recommend reading the article.  It talks about spaced repetition.  This means, learning something and then going back (meaning ‘returning’) to it a day later, a week later, a month later.  I did not review the words I learned after July 1^st and that is why I do not remember all 869 of my words.  However, I still remember 200/300 new words and phrases - and that is not bad!

How I originally learned all those words and phrases in one month was with note cards.  Aaron Myers wrote a short blog post, 'The Stack', about using note cards to help you put language learning in more parts of your life; on the bus, waiting in a line.  These are perfect moments to continue your language learning.

So I did my challenge to inspire people and to raise money for charity.  Giving my money and time to charity is one of the most enjoyable things I do.  It makes me feel really good about myself and it motivates me to do more things because I am doing those things to help other people, not just me.

So have I convinced any of you to do something similar?  I know that I have one friend who is going to do a similar challenge to improve his Japanese.  However, if you are a learner of English and you are reading this, can I convince you to do your own 1000 Challenge?

Please say yes.  Choose a learning goal, choose a month, choose a charity and then get started.  If you are on Twitter then tell people about your challenge using the hashtags: #educharity and #ellchar.  Have I inspired you to push yourself, to challenge yourself, to do something that will help you and an organization that needs support?

Please say yes.  If you like the idea then suggest it to a friend or suggest it to a family member and give them help.  Suggest it to your teacher, suggest it to your students, suggest it to your boss or whoever.  The idea is do language learning and to help charity.

Please say yes. :-)

Why Do I Like English? - A Guest Post by Maru Talavera

This is a very special post and the first of many, I hope. This is a guest post - this article has not been written by me but by one of my students, Maru Talavera. Maru has been a student of English for a number of years now and recently got the opportunity to use her language skills on a trip to England this summer. I was very interested to know her story about what motivates her in her English studies, so I asked her to write this article to share with all of you. I was very happy when she said yes and this is what she provided. Thank you very much, Maru!

Anyway, here are her opinions and her analysis on her passion and enjoyment of English. There are a couple of her ideas that I thought were so good that I highlighted them!  Please feel free to give Maru your comments.

Why I like English

While being a student you find many people that ask you “Why do you like English?” However, I think the answer to this question only gets complicated when you ask yourself, “Why do I like English?” As an advanced student I guess I should have figured it out much earlier but considering I’m seventeen it (kind of) makes sense that I haven’t yet.

I took up English because my parents thought I would need it at some point in my life.  They were aware of the importance of knowing another language to not only broaden your mind but also push your limits.  However difficult the start was I instantly felt comfortable.  The atmosphere was wonderful, and by atmosphere I mean the warmth of teachers who – I bet – knew how difficult it can be for a little child to start something new.  They made English look like an easy game to play since, as we all know, if you enjoy what you do you give your best.

English also has opened my mind to new perspectives because by reading books or listening to music I realize distances are nothing, we’re all part of the world which turns out to be pretty small as we can feel something similar no matter where we are.  For me, English is that bridge that can lead you to see that there are a lot of people who have felt or are feeling in the same way you feel.

Further to the points I highlighted before, English is considered to be the lingua franca (language people use to communicate when they have different first languages) and companies which are trying to make it to worldwide success are looking for people that have English among their various skills since it’s a great way to enter other markets.

Photo from Wikipedia

Nowadays, English doesn't belong to one place, it’s everybody’s world language.  And I think it would be great if it were taught to children as they’re little because it’s the best time to learn as it’s easy.

Having English as a lingua franca doesn’t mean we have to have an English lifestyle as well.  This is the best of it, we can have a mixture... making our culture evolve in a different way, acquiring new things but preserving out essence.  It’s all about opening our minds and trying to see that others are not that different and that we can get to know them better if we share a common language.

Other ways of learning English

As I grow up (Yes! I’m still at it!) I discover that it’s not always easy to keep on working on my English as I have less time to study but in a way this has helped me realize there are fantastic ways to learn, improve and use your English.

• Watching series or films online: the Internet can be something more than just a way to gossip or keep up with Hollywood trends, it can also be a place to catch up with your favourite series or movie.  At times it’s hard to understand the dialogues so I suggest starting with series you are familiar with, and it’s great when you add the subtitles so that you know exactly what they’re saying.  Free online films and series are available online and you don’t need to be registered.  (Gordon's Note: I agree with this idea and I know there are some free films online but also remember that iTunes is a great and legal way to do this get movies and TV shows.)

• Reading from books to magazines, you will find a wide range of useful vocabulary and phrases.  Although sometimes it seems difficult to get an English book in a country like Argentina it is not impossible, indeed there are several bookshops where you can get them.  There’s also the possibility to download the book you want from the net. (Gordon's Note: I love my Amazon Kindle and you can also get Kindle apps for computers and smartphones.)

• Music: I think this is my favourite way of learning English.  There’s nothing better than listening to a good album with meaningful lyrics.

To sum up, I would say English has a very important place in my life.  Indeed, I can’t imagine my life without it and I think the world helps that.  I like having it in my life since I have developed a kind of love for English because it has made me discover a whole new world that has always been there but I didn’t have the key to enter.  This tool also leads me to independence and sharing my knowledge, feelings and ideas with people from all over the world.  When I went to London this July,  English also helped me to make friends with people who were foreigners just like me, who were also still unsure and adjusting in a different country and we ended up creating a bond which I hope will continue to grow day by day.

During my life I’ve encountered people who encourage me every day to go on in this way, learning around the things I enjoy is certainly the easiest way to progress.  On the other hand, I also find people who try to bring me down, saying that no matter how hard I try it is pointless to try to acquire another culture that’s not mine.  However, as with many things in life, it is important to follow the way you think will make you happy, because none of the people who discouraged you will come to repair the damage of having made a bad choice.  People that think English is boring, unnecessary or just a waste of time is because they don’t know, they have no idea of the vast world that hides beyond their ignorance.

Daily Writing Tips (Blog Recommendation #5)

I think most of us have a secret desire to write novel.  If you think about it, a lot of our lives and conversations are spent telling stories: what you did last night, a funny incident when you were 8 years old, how you met your husband/wife, saying what you bought at the supermarket.  They are not all good or interesting stories but they are all stories.  So I think that most of us have the desire to write a whole novel, a big long story that we hope will become world famous.

If you are one of these people, then the next time you decide to try and do some writing you should take a look at this website.

www.dailywritingtips.com

Oh, and if you want to know how to start and complete a novel then you might want to try Matt Cutts's suggestion.  I showed this video in a previous post but I've put it here again, in case you missed it the first time.

Setting Goals and Realizing Them (Trying to Understand Motivation)

First of all, ‘to realize your goal’ is similar to ‘realizing your dreams’: to have a goal or dream and to do the work so that is actually happens. For example:

One of the many wonderful things
I found in Mexico - a stray dog we
rescued and called Bianca. She's
 now happily living in the USA! :-)

“He realized his dream of living abroad by moving to Mexico.”

“She realized her goal of becoming an artist by quitting her job and taking a course at college.”

What goals have you realized recently?

I'm not very good at realizing goals. Recently, I gave myself the challenge of learning 1000 new words and phrases in Spanish – I managed 869 in 1 month (see video here). I’m happy with this achievement but I know there are lots of other times in the past when I ‘gave up’ (meaning stopped trying) and I didn’t complete a goal that I set (‘setting goals’ means ‘making goals’).

How do we achieve learning goals and why do we sometimes fail?

I talked about this in a previous post and video, SMART Goals. In addition to this, here are two more videos that talk about goals.

I love this video. Matt Cutts’s enthusiasm is inspirational. Although I did my charity challenge before I saw this video, I think that my challenge is a perfect example of something we can achieve if we really try and have a reasonable 'deadline' (meaning a 'time limit').

Thanks to Kylie Barker, I saw this video about setting goals.  According to Derek Sivers, telling everybody about your goals isn’t a great idea because apparently you feel less motivated to realize those goals after telling people.  Do you believe this?

I do!  I think this is true for me sometimes.

Examples of Failure

Before arriving in Argentina I decided that I wanted to do the Buenos Aires Marathon.  I told people about this goal and I asked people where I could go running.  Unfortunately the marathon is in October and I won’t be running in it.  I gave up training about a month after I arrived in Argentina.  I know I can do a marathon but somewhere I lost motivation, maybe because I told everybody about it.

Here is a second example.  After the 1000 Charity Challenge I decided that I wanted to do a more physical challenge.  I told people I would train for 1 month and be able to do 100 push-ups in 2 minutes.  Unfortunately the deadline for that was August 6^th... and I gave up training after about a week.  So obviously, I didn’t complete that challenge.  Maybe I did not have the motivation because I told everybody about my challenge.

Examples of Success

I ran the Brighton Marathon last year.  I trained with some good friends as well as by myself but I didn't tell many people that I was going to run the marathon.  I didn't want everybody to know in case I didn't complete the race.

I scored 87% in the memory challenge for charity.  When I did this challenge I told everybody about it but I told people so I could get help (lots of people gave me words to learn) and start raising money.  My motivation here was to achieve the goal so I could help a charity.  I think this helped me because I knew that if I stopped, I would be disappointing a lot of people.  In this way, my goal was not only for me.

Another thing that helped me was that, as you see in the video, there was a very public event to test me at the end of my month of study.  I didn’t want to look stupid and I couldn’t give up.

You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?

This phrase in English is basically a challenge: you can talk about doing something but can you actually do it?  If we believe Derek Sivers, maybe it is better not to talk about something until after you have finished it.

I am very interested to hear people’s opinions and experiences about this. Please comment below.

SMART Goals for my 1000 Challenge

This is a short video explaining my S.M.A.R.T. goal of learning 1000 new Spanish words and phrases in one month for charity.

Inspired by Arina Nikitina's article.

Have a good weekend!

How much time do I need?

How long is a piece of string?

This is a question that probably every language learner thinks about when they start a new language: ‘How long will it take me?’ or ‘When will I be able to have a conversation?’

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. There is an answer but it is different for each person. Fortunately, we have a phrase in English to reply to questions like this: “How long is a piece of string?”

The answer to both of these questions is ‘It depends’.

What does it depend on?

Many, many things such as opportunity, motivation, how you learn, as well as what the best way is for you to learn personally. However, I will mention one thing specifically: learning doesn't and can’t happen all in class.

1:4 Ratio of Time

First of all, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers. If I spend 1 hour preparing dinner and 1 hour eating dinner that means the relationship between preparing and eating is 1:1. However, if I spend 4 hours preparing dinner and only 2 hours eating it, then the ratio is 4:2 (or better to say 2:1) because 4 hours preparation equals 2 hours eating. (Don’t worry, this is NOT a blog about mathematics.)

Recently I read a post about 10,000 hours on another teacher’s blog: “10,000 hours of hard practice to achieve mastery of one’s given discipline.” This basically means 10,000 hours of practice to be really good at something.

This started me thinking about 10,000 hours to learn a language. Maybe we can ‘break this down’ (divide this) into the four parts of language and communication: speaking, reading, writing and listening. Speaking is chatting with friends, talking to colleagues, speaking on the phone, etc, etc. Listening is also chatting with friends but can also be watching TV, watching youTube, listening to podcasts or audio language lessons, listening to music or listening to the radio. Reading can be done with a website, a blog, Facebook, a newspaper or a book – I recommend trying a book. Writing can also be on Facebook, writing on a blog, posting a comment on a blog (hint, hint, see 'Post a Comment' below), writing emails or even writing a journal.

So 10,000 hours is a lot of time but there are many different ways you can use that time.  Remember, it's not all work - a lot of the time it can be a lot of fun!

Now, I saw an infographic about how many hours of class an native English speaker (like me) needs to learn another world language. The shortest time (for similar European languages) was about 600 class hours. However, the hardest languages for native English speakers (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean for example) need 2200 class hours. These numbers are obviously averages but they give a general idea.

The information did not talk about learning English, but we can assume that English will be between 600-2200 class hours.

So I hope you see the importance of practice outside the classroom. Here is my last piece of mathematics, I promise:

2000 hours of class + 8000 hours of practice outside the classroom = 10000 hours 

This is a 1:4 ratio. For each hour you are learning English in class, you need four more hours of practice outside class… if you want to be proficient.

What do you think? What do you think your ratio of class:outside English work has been this year so far?

Other Things I've Done for Charity

Recognize the guy in these photos? Yes, this is me doing some silly things for charity; specifically, shaving off a long pony-tail and doing a 10k run in a kilt - it's NOT a skirt! :-)

So by now, you have probably seen my video post about my 'sponsored learning'. I just wanted to give you a bit more information about my motivation for this. I've decided to do this to:

• Improve my Spanish.
• Raise money for Asociación Promover in Gualeguaychú, part of the Argentinian Fundación Conin
• Hopefully inspire you with your language learning.
• Maybe inspire you with your fundraising efforts for other charities around the world (a lot of people need help).
• Investigate how effective memorization for language learning can be.
• Share my experiences with memorization as I work on this.
• Show what great progress is possible with a little effort (I hope).
• Improve your English as well (I'll share my difficult words with you so even if you don't speak Spanish, you might learn some new English vocabulary).

I'll post later today or tomorrow to give you a summary of some problem words I'm having and my feelings about the memorization so far.

Remember to share this with your friends.

Gordon

1000 Words & Phrases for Charity in Argentina (#ELLchar)

Does Testing Help You Learn?

What do you think about exams and tests?  Please post your ideas and opinions below.

Many of you who follow this blog probably took IELTS or FCE or one of the other Cambridge exams.  Or perhaps you did the North American testing; TOEFL or TOEIC.

A lot of people learn English because it is the international language and if they want to work for the big companies (and even some of the smaller ones) they need to have English.   And how do we measure this English?... with the tests.

As a teacher, I have a love/hate relationship with these tests (yes, another love/hate relationship, just like with tenses).  The good thing for the teacher is that students preparing for a test are generally, generally well-motivated (not always).  The bad thing for a teacher is that it is sometimes difficult to keep learning fun when an important exam is ahead.

If I think as a learner (of Spanish), I feel that I need exams to motivate and guide me.  I am not taking a language course at the moment so if I really want to improve my Spanish I will need to have an exam to prepare for.  The exam will have specific points about language that it will test (think IELTS Writing Part 1: Graphs and Tables) and that means I know what I need to focus on.

But a big problem is that testing is generally stressful, can be expensive, and the English it tests can sometimes be very inauthentic, in other words, not like the English you will hear on TV or find in a native-speaking conversation.

Another problem is that we are not all good at taking tests or exams.  I will admit that I am not good at standardized tests.  I hated them at university and I actually failed some of them (there, my big secret is out in the open!).  I was also really bad at predicting if I did well in a university exam or not.  I remember there were a few times when I finished an exam and I thought that I had done very well (I hadn’t) but there were also a couple of exams that I thought I had completely failed (I passed very well, in fact).

So when I come out of an exam and then I am told that I failed it, does that mean I didn’t learn anything?  Did I learn anything from those courses?  Apparently, not enough.

What do you think about exams and tests?  I look forward to your opinions so don’t be shy. :-)

Don’t Be Afraid of Getting it Wrong! (Additional)

Ha!  By complete coincidence, I found this quote from the Dalai Lama, speaking in Japan recently.  If the Dalai Lama and I are in agreement, then I must be saying something right! ;-)

Thank you very much to David Deubelbeiss, who tweeted this, and to the EnglishCentral blog.  As they say in the blog, the Dalai Lama is talking about the Japanese but really this is good advice for everyone!

Click on the picture to go directly to a listening/speaking exercise on the EnglishCentral website.

Don’t Be Afraid of Getting it Wrong!

I was reading an article a couple of weeks ago about how the C.I.A. in the United States is investigating language learning.  If you don’t know, the C.I.A is the Central Intelligence Agency and very basically they are spies! Obviously, multiple languages are very useful for this.

Well, the article was not as interesting as I expected (click here if you want to read it) but this article had one paragraph that "jumped out" at me (it got my attention).  Here is the important part for you:

“Another surprise came from studies of Spanish-speaking immigrants, because neither age nor language proficiency seemed to predict how quickly the immigrants picked up English. Instead, the fastest learners showed both the greatest motivation to learn and a willingness to use English at every opportunity despite being bad at it (at first).”

Ok.  So in general, the people who achieve the most in learning a language are those who find motivation and are not afraid to use their bad English.  It is like a muscle in your body: the more you use it, the stronger it gets, and we all know the phrase “Use it or lose it!”.  Well maybe we can change this phrase; "It's better to use it badly than lose it."  So I  return to the topic of motivation and opportunity for learning English, something I talked about a little bit in a previous post.

Finding Motivation

This is difficult.  Personally, I don’t think I have this.  If I look at myself as a Spanish language learner, I see a lack of motivation.  I want to learn and improve my Spanish but I don’t need to improve it.  But if I knew that I needed to become much better for a test or for a job, then that would give me much more motivation.

Finding Opportunity

For me, this is easy: I’m living in Argentina!  I’m staying at a Bed & Breakfast where they don’t speak English!  I have lots of opportunity to practise my Spanish here.

So, is Gordon improving?  No, not really.

Why is he not improving?  He has opportunity but doesn’t really have motivation.  He needs both!

Now, I am NOT saying that you need to move to another country to learn the language (although that does help).  You can find opportunities everywhere, especially with the Internet.  Motivation can only come from you.  For me, that’s what I am working on.

What do you do to help motivate yourself?  I would love to know your ideas.

Gordon

P.S.  One final point about getting it wrong and making mistakes.  Yes, of course you will make mistakes and you will make lots of mistakes.  Nobody does anything perfectly without lots and lots of practice, and practice is when we make mistakes.

Is English Difficult to Learn?

This post is inspired by a similar post on Warren Ediger’s Successful English blog.

Personally, I always thought English is an easy language for giving information but a difficult language for getting information.  As I continue with my Spanish studies, I think this is probably true of most languages.

For example, a low level learner’s vocabulary in English can be good enough to explain a problem they are having.

“I have very bad stomach-ache.”

But understanding the huge variety of possible replies needs a wider vocabulary (we say “wider” for vocabulary, not “bigger”).

“You should go to the doctor.” 

“You might want to see a doctor then.” 

“You’d best go and see a doctor.” 

“I’d go to the health centre, if I were you.” 

“You’d better make an appointment with the GP then.” 

“Do you reckon you need to see a doctor?” 

“There’s a clinic on the next street if you want to drop in.” 

“It sounds like you could do with an appointment to see the doctor.” 

“It’s probably a good idea to see your GP then.”

Think about all of these different phrases and parts of language you might need to understand the reply. There are modals verbs like ‘should’, ‘would’, ‘could’ and ‘might’.  Phrases like “You had better + verb” or “You had best + verb” which we use for suggestions.  Direct questions using phrases like “Do you reckon…” or indirect questions “…if you want to see him.”   The change in title from ‘doctor’ to ‘GP’ or not talking about the ‘doctor’ but about the ‘clinic’ or the ‘health centre’.  The variety of verbs you could use; ‘see a doctor’, ‘make an appointment’ and ‘drop in at the clinic’.

As you can see, there’s a lot of English that you might get from this one simple sentence, “I have very bad stomach-ache.”  For me, this also shows that vocabulary needs to be learned in phrases around topics instead of learning the grammar first.  What I mean is that there are some complicated conditionals in there "I'd go to the health centre, if I were you."  Do you think you should wait until you are Intermediate/Upper-Intermediate before you can understand that and reply to it?  You need a doctor!

But I don’t think this problem is limited to English because I know I have the same problem not understanding replies to what I say in Spanish.

One of my problems in Spanish is anxiety.   My worst skill is conversational listening.  This is very different from passive listening.  I can sit in a café or pub and listen to a group of people speak in Spanish and I will follow the gist of the conversation (gist = the general idea, the main points).  But listening in a one-to-one conversation is more difficult because you have less time to think about the language you are hearing and you need to think about what you want to say as well.

The problem is that worrying and anxiety do not help learning.  So how do we stay calm?  Well, it is good to work together with other people who also want to learn English or other people who want to help you improve your English.

So, is English a difficult language to learn?  Well yes, and no.

The main points I haven’t mentioned here are motivation and opportunity.  Are you motivated to improve your English?  What is your motivation?  Do you have the opportunity to use your English?  These are also important questions to ask if you want an answer to the question, “Is English hard to learn?”

What do you think?  As always I look forward to your opinions.

Gordon

P.S.  And for a more humorous opinion about why English is so difficult, click here.