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The BENEFITS of FULL‐IMMERSION Right From The Start

28/6/2017

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What’s the best way to learn a language?
There are many methods and theories but let’s look at the way we learn our native language.

A baby is born without being programmed for any particular language and this baby spends the first year of its life sleeping and listening. Gradually it listens more and it sleeps less; finally it starts trying to repeat the sounds it hears. After about a year and seven months a baby can usually say its first complete sentence.

Now a baby doesn’t study grammar – all it does is listen. Around the age of three it has acquired sufficient vocabulary and sentence structure to speak correctly in the language of its surroundings – in the language of its family. In fact if each parent speaks a different language to the baby, the child will learn both languages and will speak to each parent in their own language. I speak from experience as I myself grew up bilingual and my children have been speaking Italian to their father but English to me since birth.

Babies don’t study any formal grammar but they study vocabulary and expressions by association. They associate a sound, a word, with an object. So babies learn the language directly by listening and they pick up vocabulary and grammatical structures in context. Babies only learn in context, by associating images, objects, situations, and people with the language they hear.

This is the reason it is fundamental to speak to your students in English from the first day you meet them. The more they listen to you speaking, the more they’ll pick up and memorise even subconsciously.

I’ve been teaching myself Spanish mainly by listening to audios and travelling. Last week I texted a friend that my daughter had won a gold medal and I first wrote ‘ganado’ but it just didn’t ‘sound’ right. I then opted for ‘conseguido’ which sounded correct and a moment later I was congratulated for her having ‘conseguido’ (won) this medal. I had never studied this verb before but I had somehow absorbed it – listening gives you ‘a feel for the language’!

As a result the best way to learn a foreign language is first and foremost by LISTENING in order to associate an object or a picture with the word, an expression in context. The brain must connect the word or expression with its meaning without translating. This ASSOCIATION is very easy for the brain whilst translating makes it work twice as hard.

The brain already has its image bank – all it needs to do is associate various ‘synonyms’ (even in various languages) to it.

Instead translating is like putting the words of languages into separate drawers – the brain has to open two drawers, find the puzzle pieces in each language and put them together. Sometimes it picks the wrong pieces and horrific translations result!

Look at what happened when a clothing company consulted a dictionary without the help of an expert: Made in Turkey became Made in the bird you roast for Christmas.

Or when someone confused the Latin-American Spanish for Pope with potato and the Pope was greeted with Welcome Potato!

Ironically you have to know a language to use a dictionary correctly.

I always speak English with my students directly from the start – which means that I adapt my language to their level and if they are complete beginners I will speak very slowly and clearly using very simple language with gestures and pictures. This makes both teaching and learning very arduous at the beginning but if the students understand that they need to be patient and persist, they will reap the benefits.

This is no easy feat: a few years ago I had an evening course of complete beginners including 2 retired couples. I only spoke English and we slowly progressed. They seemed to be very unhappy that I insisted on speaking only English to them. Halfway through the course the two elderly couples left on a three-week cruise through the Mediterranean missing quite a few lessons. On their return they told me that they had been the only ones of their group to communicate in rudimentary English on their holiday but what had surprised them most was that they were able to understand. They completed the course with a renewed attitude, to my great satisfaction.

When I teach beginner adults in a class, my very first lesson deals with getting to know each other so we discuss in very simple sentences who they are, where they live, what their jobs and hobbies are, their families… Then towards the end of the lesson I write a paragraph on the board which acts as a scaffold for their oral introduction to the rest of the class. One by one the students speak reading the sentences and filling in the gaps appropriately according to their personal situation. They leave the lesson feeling it was very difficult and tiring but they had already managed to speak about themselves in English and that was a great satisfaction. One should always try to end a lesson on a high note so students feel satisfied despite their difficulties.

When I teach, speaking only English to my students, I aim at teaching them specific language and expressions, but I inevitably use daily language that I had not intended teaching formally. As a consequence I find my younger students in particular using expressions I had not planned such as, “I have an itch!”, “It’s itchy!”, “You’ve got a terrible cough!”, “Bless you!” when they sneeze, “Oopsy daisy!” (a typical British expression for when something falls down accidentally), “Really?!” when they tell me something interesting - even if they speak to me in their mother-tongue, I always reply in English. Depending on their age and proficiency I allow myself to understand them in their own language or insist they express themselves in English. So children and adults pick up the language you don’t realise you are using.

The same goes for texting: When I text with my students in English I sometimes use expressions they don’t know, so they will text back asking, “What does I’ll let you know mean? What is ASAP? My students are picking up language they would not necessarily learn in class but only in daily
Picking up the language in context gives you expressions, phrasal verbs without having to memorise them and think – they just come naturally.

My sister-in-law came to my evening classes after a long day’s work. She always asked if she could only sit and listen because she could no longer concentrate. She was not particularly talented nor motivated, nor did she study at home. Despite this she told me that on one holiday with her friends who spoke no English, she managed to solve various problems at the hotel – the words just came out and she had no idea how. This is an example of the power of the brain to absorb language…

Not only language but also people are associated with language - my school students are so used to associating me with English that if I meet them outside the classroom context, in the corridor, at the supermarket, they will still speak to me in English – it’s just natural for them. They don’t even dream of speaking to me in their native language.

When you learn a language you should associate an expression or a word with an object or a situation. You learn these associations in chunks – by doing so its not necessary to learn the grammar in the formal sense because you pick it up and embed it in your brain just as it stands and over time you will put these pieces like a puzzle together and form correct sentences.

That’s why its important to surround yourself with the language – set your computer, mobile phone and social network settings into the language you are learning. Read, listen and watch as much as you can – immerse yourself fully in the language even if you can’t travel there. Some social networks also connect you to people who want to exchange conversation with you if you speak to them in the language they are studying.

Full-immersion is fundamental to language learning and if you can’t go there you must surround yourself with it here.
Check out more EFL talks like this one in 

EFL talks - The Companion Guide: 
Teachers Teaching Teachers
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HOW do CHILDREN LEARN A LANGUAGE so easily? The SECRET to FLUENCY!! - Student learning tips

25/6/2017

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What's the best way to learn a language? 
How do children learn a language?

Last summer I was on holiday at an international campsite in Croatia watching children and listening to how they interact with each other. There were children from Germany, Italy, Croatia, from all over the world and they were all talking to each other while playing together.

How do they do that? They listen to each other and repeat. That's also how they learn their own language.

When children are born they grow up listening to their parents and to their friends for about two years before they actually start repeating. Then they start saying words and sentences but they don't study grammar, they don't study how to read or write until they're much older. They do, however, have an enthusiasm for copying what the others say, copying the good language and the bad language.

So what's the easiest way to learn a language? Listen, listen, listen, listen and repeat - even if you don't understand. Listen and repeat! Slowly you'll pick it up, you'll understand from context and you'll be able to use the language correctly without studying the grammar. You'll be able to pronounce it correctly if you've been copying the pronunciation you hear rather than how you remember the words are written.

So listen and repeat! Listening comes way before speaking and there are a myriad of possibilities to listen to & repeat authentic language on the internet nowadays!

Try listening to and repeating what native speakers say on the VOSCREEN.com website – fun, excellent for listening practice, comprehension and pronunciation practice:
  • listen until you think you can repeat what they said (repeat! Not translate!)
  • check the subtitle to compare with what you said
  • don’t worry about the terrible Google translator translation – we are practising comprehension of the words in English and pronunciation – not translation!
  • Repeat what you hear (not what you read!!)
  • Continue with next 5 seconds film
  • Practice, practice, practice.

These are just a few tips to help you along with your fluency.

Please write in the comments box below how you find this method works for you.

​If you want MORE SPECIFIC SPEAKING PRACTICE, download my 10-Minute-A-Day FREE FLUENCY TRAINER on-the-go Exercises to experience the benefit it has on your fluency and confidence in English! Follow these tips and enjoy learning English easily!!

Your English fluency teacher,

Susan
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IMPROVE your ENGLISH by THINKING in ENGLISH! But how…?

23/6/2017

5 Comments

 
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Why is thinking in English really important?

I've always stressed that listening is the first thing to help you learn English naturally with all its expressions, grammar, collocations and phrasal verbs. The more you listen, the better you'll be able to absorb all the grammatical structures. On the other hand, you also need to practice speaking.

All this can only be done if you're thinking in English. How can you think in English?

It's not as difficult as it seems: you have to incorporate it into your daily life and the best way is to talk to yourself. So if you're alone, it's no difficult feat; of course, if you're in company, it's a little harder.

I have tested it on myself: I have taught myself a little Spanish and I always practiced when I was driving.

What you have to do is to literally speak to yourself - you see a pedestrian who is crossing the road in the wrong place and you think, “Well, couldn't he have gone on the zebra crossing?”, that is, if your level of English is at least pre-intermediate, but you can also say, “Oh look at that man: he's not on the zebra crossing!” That's for beginners or for people who have less experience learning English. What you have to do is to use the little language you do know and say it out loud to practice your speaking & pronunciation - at the same time, you'll inevitably be thinking in the language.

I always recommend incorporating it into daily life. I often send my students out of the lesson saying, “Okay, now open the door, close the door.”

As you're walking towards your car you can think, “Hmmm, where are my keys? I'm putting my hand into my pocket; I'm pulling out my keys; I'm putting the key into the .... “ Not everyone will know the word 'lock' - 'to unlock the car' but you make a mental note, “Okay, I don't know the word for that thing with which I open my car.” When you have time, you can either google the word on your smartphone or when you get home you can look it up in the dictionary.

Not knowing a word mustn't worry you. You have to just carry on and say, “Okay, so I'm opening the door; I'm pulling the door; I'm getting into the car; I'm closing the door; now I'm turning on the engine and so on.” Speak to yourself during any of your daily activities - when you get out of bed: “I'm going to the bathroom and brushing my teeth”.

Use any activity where you can speak to yourself out loud. If you're speaking out loud you're sure that you're thinking in that language and don't be deterred by any vocabulary you don't know.

Simplify - use simple words to express things and make a mental note of the words you can't think of. Then check them and if you do this regularly - you don't need to do it all day but regularly every day, regularly in any case - you'll see that your pronunciation will improve and also that you'll be thinking in English.

Thinking in English is one of the first steps to improving it, to making the language become yours, to make the language become part of your being. That's when you start really improving because if you can listen a lot, speak a lot and think a lot, you're already on the way to raising the level of your English or any language if it comes to that.

So don't forget: think in English... speak out loud... you'll notice the dramatic improvements within a couple of days.

Hope you implement this advice!

Please write in the comments box below how you feel after trying it out for a week or two!

Looking forward to your comments,

Your English fluency guide,

Susan
5 Comments

How I TURNED COMMUTING TIME into QUALITY TIME for LANGUAGE LEARNING and MUCH MORE...

16/6/2017

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My personal experience...

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So many students complain that they'd like to practice their English but they don't have enough time.

Other high-performing businessmen and athletes manage to squeeze in a lot of activities into one day. What's their secret?

How do you spend your commuting time? Is your commuting time WASTED time or GAINED time?

When my son was only three years old I chose to send my children to a very good school which was about half an hour's drive from where we lived. Now many people I know criticized that choice, saying that we would have been wasting our time two hours a day because it was a 30-minute drive one way and that was only one of the many disadvantages. In reality it turned out to be gained time because, on the two laps with my children in the car, going to and returning from school, when they were young, we sang songs, spoke to each other, told each other stories, practiced various languages and as they grew we also did spelling as well as times tables but what was most important is that we spoke to each other about our concerns, our worries and in particular, any questions about life they had we discussed: the existence or not of Father Christmas, human reproduction, smoking, drugs and all things which were concerning them as they grew up.

In that commuting time I managed to also teach them what I thought were the values of life so we built a really deep relationship through commuting and talking together - we were strapped in the car, we couldn't escape from each other and we really got to know each other; I got to trust them and they got to trust me. It bonded our relationship and I know that if we hadn't had this commuting time we wouldn't have built such a strong relationship because I would have done my own thing in the house, with all my household duties, whilst they would have gone to play and it wouldn't have been such an opportunity - so if you use this commuting time wisely, it is only gained time.

Not only was it quality time when we were together, but on the journeys where I was alone, on the way to pick the children up or coming back from having dropped them off, I used the time to discover the joys of audiobooks. I had really never used audiobooks and that's when I started discovering how exciting they are! Then I started learning Spanish and realized the advantages of language learning in the car, so for me commuting does not only have the disadvantage of the hassle - sometimes I'm stuck in a queue - commuting isn't only something negative, it's something positive.

So that's why you, who I'm sure are very busy, as I always have been, can take advantage for your language learning too because you can listen to podcasts, you can sing songs in English, you can listen to various audio books in the language you're studying and take advantage of audio courses where you listen, where you repeat and even if you don't want to do any of that, you can just talk to yourself in the language you're studying - for most of you that'll be English: talking to yourself will help your jaw get used to forming the words in the language you want to become fluent in and, best of all, nobody can laugh at your mistakes! As a result you'll feel very confident and the more you talk to yourself in this language, even if you're making mistakes, it doesn't matter, you improve your fluency.

That's why I think that taking advantage of commuting time means that when you get home you've done your daily dose of teaching yourself a language or practicing it and then when you're home you can dedicate your time to relaxing, doing sports, spending time with your family and that's very important, to have the feeling that you've done something for yourself, without stealing time from the things that you love, which are not necessarily language learning. This is why I've developed this course where you can, while you're in the car, listen, repeat and practice your fluency, practice your listening comprehension and practice your grammar because the exercises, over the weeks, gradually revise the grammar from easy to difficult including phrasal verbs and typical expressions.

These are all things that you can do, in particular, in the car whilst you're commuting - I recommend you don't just use the time for listening to music and chatting to your friends on the phone but actually as a kind of training for yourself. Now take advantage of it, see the positive side of it! I teach a lot of doctors; I teach a lot of people who are really, really busy and don't have much time but do commute. These courses are especially useful for people who have a very busy schedule so if you think that you'd be interested, download these courses I developed especially for you busy people - try them out. It's only ten minutes a day every day and you can listen, repeat and practice all your skills - the only skill that isn't really contemplated is writing but that you can practice in the comments box here below. This course was actually conceived for listening and repeating; so download it - the first week is absolutely free – if you find it's useful then you can go on my website and check out if you want to buy one or more weeks of the subsequent course.

Turn commuting time into GAINED TIME and enrich your life!

I hope you found these tips useful,

your fluency guide,

​Susan

P.S. Check out my podcasts to download & listen to whilst commuting if you have no time to watch my videos!
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How about answering some exciting WOULD YOU RATHER… questions? - Susan’s Conversation Tips

13/6/2017

1 Comment

 

Answer my questions motivating your choices!!

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Stimulating students to speak is always a challenge.
Would you rather... questions give students two specific choices to discuss and they can give their personal opinion moving on to the next question but it can also be subject of debate in class – each standing for their own opinion and trying to convince the others...


Do you know the meaning of WOULD YOU RATHER...?
Would you rather means would you prefer... and I have five exciting would you rather questions for you to give you some food for thought: Now, I'd like you to write the answers to these questions in the comments box below because it's exciting to hear all your different opinions.

1. Would you rather work for yourself or for an employer? Would you prefer to be an entrepreneur or would you prefer to work for someone else? Personally I don't enjoy working for an employer because I'm a very independent person and I like to do my own thing so that's my answer... but what about yours?

2. Would you rather spend the night in a luxury hotel or camping surrounded by beautiful scenery?
So spend the night in a luxury hotel or would you rather go camping and be surrounded by absolutely beautiful scenery? Would you rather stay in a luxury hotel or camping? Well, my answer to that one is I love nature so I have no doubt that I would enjoy camping in most beautiful scenery.

3. Would you rather win an Olympic Gold Medal or win the Nobel Peace Prize? Now that's a difficult one because both are really exciting but personally maybe I'd like to impact the world with peace and therefore win the Nobel Peace Prize even though a gold medal sounds really exciting at the Olympic Games. What about you? Write your opinion in the comments box.

4. Would you rather have your 1st child when you are 18 or 40 years old? Now I didn't really plan on having children that late but it so happens that I was closer to 40 than to 18 when I had my children and despite it not being a choice, it turned out to be very good for me because it gave me plenty of time to do all the traveling that I really loved and then it rejuvenated me because I had to face all the challenges of bringing up two young children at not such a young age so I wouldn't recommend 40 but if it so happens, don't worry about it because it can be really exciting and rejuvenating. What about you? What's your opinion?

5. Would you rather your kids wore a school uniform or clothes of their own choice? Would you rather they had the possibility to choose their own clothes every morning? School uniform or your own clothes? Well, I went to school in Britain and of course there we all have a school uniform so I didn't even think about it but then later my children wore their own clothes to primary school so when the school implemented a uniform at middle school we weren't too happy about it. However, it did work out to be very practical because you got up in the morning and didn't worry about what you were going to wear; you always knew that you had the school uniform to wear so it wasted less time in choice it also reduced our wardrobe. A uniform does have the effect that there are no comparisons: “look what I'm wearing”, “mine is nicer than yours” and so on, as can happen in some schools. So I suppose a school uniform is not a bad choice after all.

Now what are your opinions on these would you rather questions? I'm looking forward to reading your answers in the comments below.
I hope you find these questions stimulating.
Susan


1 Comment

10-minute-a-day FAST FLUENCY TRAINER on-the-go:   Why I decided to develop this course and its REVIEWS

3/6/2017

10 Comments

 

Please leave your REVIEW in the COMMENTS below...

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I wonder if you are like me….

There are so many things that interest me… books, art, music, creative activities, sport…
and so I promise myself every week that I’ll find time to read a little, do daily exercise, both to improve my physical and mental health but then…
- I want to do my best in my job so I spend a lot of time reading up on the latest developments, I take courses to update my professional skills…
- I have a family that needs my attention and with whom I want to spend quality time…
- a household that needs managing and taking care of...

… and so the days slide by and weeks turn into months and before I know it another year has passed without doing anything for me personally, something I believe I need.

This is the reason I decided to develop this course for you, my Fast Fluency Trainer.  The idea behind it was to give people the possibility to train their fluency, their speaking skills, while commuting, going for a walk or doing household chores.  

The beauty of it lies not only in being able to practise without taking away time from all your other activities but it gives you the possibility to speak in private, without feeling that someone is listening and judging you.  This gives you the feeling of freedom to make mistakes and experiment with your mouth the different sounds you can make at different speeds, because language can sometimes be a tongue twister and your mouth needs to be exercised.

If you practise just 10 minutes a day for 7 days I promise you will feel the language flow easily from your mouth and you will be excited to feel this improvement not only in how easily you speak but also to how well you express yourself naturally without too many grammatical mistakes.

So take on the challenge right now - what have you got to lose?

Download my FAST FLUENCY TRAINER exercises onto your phone and start listening and repeating them!

… and don’t forget to let me know if you found them helpful by adding your comment below!

Follow the path to fluency & have a great day!

Your English fluency guide,

Susan
Dana writes: 
I have just tried the fast training for fluency... it's miraculous!!!  
At the end of the listening I could say the text fluently and without any mistake!  That's great I'm training my muscles!  Thanks Susan, this is really a good exercise!
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    Author

    My name is Susan Brodar, born in London into a multilingual family and brought up bilingual English / Italian.

    I went to school in London until 15 when we moved to Germany where I finished my British education at Munich International School. I started teaching Italian at evening classes aged only 17 and studied Mass Communications and Journalism at Munich University.

    I continued teaching parallel to interpreting at trade fairs and business meetings as well doing translations. After working at the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade for a year I married my Italian globetrotting companion in 1983 and we set up our home near Venice, Italy where we continue to live with our two teenaged children.

    Having taken my British High School-leaving ‘A’ Level exams in English, Italian, French & German I am completely fluent in all four languages and am taking a DELE certification in Spanish to complement them.

    ENGLISH (native)
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    GERMAN (C2)
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  • HOME
    • Samples of FAST FLUENCY TRAINER
  • IMPROVE with SUSAN
    • ABOUT
    • TESTIMONIALS
    • How Being Bilingual Led Me To Teaching
    • PUBLICATIONS by Susan Brodar
  • English SPEAKING COURSES
  • BLOG
  • TRANSLATIONS & INTERPRETING
  • TRAVELLER's TALES
    • A WEARY TRAVELLER's TALES
    • TRAVELLING the world for sports: INLINE SPEED SKATING
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