Category: Learning Styles

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How to Improve Your English Speaking Part 2 – A Deeper Look

Best ways to learn English

This is an updated version of my Almost Everything You Need to Learn English post from 2017.

Speak better English

Today I am going to tell you what have I learnt (or learned) about the best ways to learn English (or any foreign language). For the last five and a half years I have been living in the Czech Republic, helping Czechs and Slovaks to learn English. Mainly, I have focussed on spoken English because my clients want to improve their speaking and there is no better way to do that than to simply speak. Or is there?

Here is a vocabulary list of the words in bold and their English definitions

During these last six years, I have learnt a huge amount about how to teach and how we learn. It is my intention, over the next few weeks, to tell you just what I have learnt and to go in-depth into each of the ideas. Today I will give you an overview of what to look forward to in the coming weeks and it is my hope that you can use this information to create some kind of personal plan for learning. First things first, have you read my introduction to Speaking Better English? Great, so now let’s take a look at the main areas I want to focus on…

Motivation

Motivation to Learn English

Before you even start to learn English, you need to have motivation, a reason for learning. This could be as simple as wanting to take a holiday in a foreign country, where you know English will be indispensable, or it could be because you want a new job and English is a prerequisite for getting the position. If you have a solid reason for learning it can help motivate you to learn. If you are studying English because your boss told you to, I recommend you find some real motivation to spur you on and give you a reason to learn English. To continue reading more about how to motivate yourself, click here.

Goals

Having difficult but attainable goals will also spur you on. Long-term goals are good but you also need more short and medium-term goals, which, when you achieve them, will give you a boost and show you that you are making progress. I suggest even making goals for each learning session and gamifying the tasks you have. Then there’s the Pomodoro technique. You can read more about that and other goal-setting ideas here.

English habitsHabits

Decide to have good habits. That is a choice you must make; to practise regularly and frequently. You simply must make time and prioritize your English. It doesn’t have to be THE most important thing in your life but it must have a prominent place. More on habits here.  To get into the habit of improving your English regularly get my FREE English Habit Blueprint here.

Repetition and Review

I know this is one of the 150 year old schooling methods that I mentioned earlier but it does have it place within an ultimate learning method. There are two reasons why it has remained the mainstay of the mainstream school and that is primarily through laziness/conservativeness of the school system in general but secondly, because it does work as a way of fixing information in your memory. A future blog post will go into more detail on the pros and cons of how you can utilize this technique.

Confidence

Build your confidence right from the start. There are numerous ways you can do this, even if you are a really shy person or someone who is ashamed of their level of English. One quick tip for you today is to make a list of all the words you can find that are the same or similar in Czech and English. You immediately then have a ‘go to’ vocabulary. Start using these words as often as possible to send your brain the message that these words are OK!  You can meet with a native speaker, read books and watch videos/TV/films; label everything in your home or office; Take risks and get out of your comfort zone. Take a holiday in a native speaking country and use what you know. Read more about confidence in speaking English here.

Make Mistakes

I am always telling people to STOP APOLOGIZING when they make a mistake. This is a terrible learned habit from your childhood when you were chastised for your errors by your parents and teachers. You were only trying to answer a question or do some task and because you got it wrong they shouted, scolded, punished, restricted, and withheld. It is difficult to overcome these feelings but it is possible. Visualization is the key, more on that later. Basically, be able to laugh at yourself when you make mistakes. Make mistakes your friend. RELAX, it’s OK, but DO LEARN FROM THEM. I also have a video course to help Czechs and Slovaks correct some of the most common mistakes they make when speaking English.

Grammar (Oh no!)

Don’t learn English grammar in the traditional way (unless you’re a polyglot and find it easy), use my Faster Grammar For Speaking method. I will explain more about this is a later post but essentially it is a mixed tense way of learning that focuses firstly on the grammar you need to speak about yourself. This is a system I have been developing for some time and I hope will be a massive help to anyone who considers themself a false beginner. For those of you who are struggling with the Present Perfect tense here is a little freebie for you. Just fill in your name and email address and I’ll send you the Easy Guide to the Present Perfect ASAP.

Jak se nejlépe naučit anglicky?
Easy Guide to the Present Perfect FREE ebook

Visualization

Without doubt, the biggest elephant in the room that the education system, the world over, is ignoring. Visualization is the best way to remember vocabulary, full stop (or period if you want to speak American English)

Learning Styles

I have written and spoken many times on the subject of learning styles and thankfully it is something that is creeping into education systems. Using as many learning styles as possible and finding your most prominent learning style will increase your learning effectiveness. I will write more on this later but for now, you can check out this older post of mine which will give you a basic understanding of what learning styles are for the uninitiated.

Listen

Unfortunately, I find this to be the one area most neglected by Czech and Slovak English learners. You should try to listen to native speakers as much as possible. Radio, TV, films, podcasts, music, documentaries, and real people. If you are lucky enough to live in Prague you have an unending supply of native speakers. Teachers of course, but also on the streets, in the pubs, restaurants, shops, and cafes. Get out there and listen.

Immediate Action

When a word randomly comes into your mind, immediately (or as quickly as possible) find out its meaning, write it down, and visualize it. Start using your new words in your writing and in conversation frequently to fix them in your vocabulary.

Ask for Help

When you don’t understand something, write it down and ask your English teacher/helper to explain it. If you have no one, find someone or at least try to find some advice on YouTube.

Learn English language online with a personal native teacher! Register to italki now.

Get Creative with Your Notes

Write down anything interesting you find in English, new nouns, verbs, phrases, grammar rules, idioms, expressions, or just interesting facts in English. But don’t stop at just writing in the usual boring (school-taught) note-taking way. Get creative with your notes. Fill the page with your own drawings, cartooning the vocabulary and using different font styles, shapes and sizes.

Copy What You Hear

Imitate what you hear. Copy the speaker instead of just pronouncing words as you read them. If you really want to have something like a native speaker’s accent you need to copy what you hear. Don’t just say things the way they’re written or the way you learned them, listen to how a native speaker says it. Be consistent with your pronunciation though and choose a particular accent rather than mixing and matching because this will lead to misunderstandings for sure. There exists an idea of a generic or stereotypical British and American accent when there really is no such thing. Both countries have a multitude of different accents. If you are interested here’s a funny picture

No photo description available.

Next week I will expand upon motivation to learn English and try to help you find yours and give you actionable steps to find it.

Do you have a plan for learning? A method? A system? Tell me how you learn English in the comments below.

Posted on

Almost Everything You Need To Learn English

Today I am going to tell you what have I learnt (or learned) about the best ways to learn English (or any foreign language). For the last five and a half years I have been living in the Czech Republic, helping Czechs and Slovaks to learn English. Mainly, I have focussed on spoken English because my clients want to improve their speaking and there is no better way to do that than to simply speak. Or is there?

Here is a vocabulary list of the words in bold and their English definitions

During these last five years, I have learnt a huge amount about how to teach and how we learn. It is my intention, over the next few weeks, to tell you just what I have learnt and to go in-depth into each of the ideas. Today I will give you an overview of what to look forward to in the coming weeks and it is my hope that you can use this information to create some kind of personal plan for learning. First things first…

Motivation

Before you even start to learn English, you need to have motivation, a reason for learning. This could be as simple as wanting to take a holiday in a foreign country, where you know English will be indispensable, or it could be because you want a new job and English is a prerequisite for getting the position. If you have a solid reason for learning it can help motivate you to learn. If you are studying English because your boss told you to, I recommend you find some real motivation to spur you on and give you a reason to learn English.

Goals

Having difficult but attainable goals will also spur you on. Long-term goals are good but you also need more short and medium-term goals, which, when you achieve them, will give you a boost and show you that you are making progress. I suggest even making goals for each learning session and gamifying the tasks you have.

Jak se nejlépe naučit anglicky?

Habits

Decide to have good habits. That is a choice you must make; to practise regularly and frequently. You simply must make time and prioritize your English. It doesn’t have to be THE most important thing in your life but it must have a prominent place.

Repetition and Review

I know this is one of the 150 year old schooling methods that I mentioned earlier but it does have it place within an ultimate learning method. There are two reasons why it has remained the mainstay of the mainstream school and that is primarily through laziness/conservativeness of the school system in general but secondly, because it does work as a way of fixing information in your memory. A future blog post will go into more detail on the pros and cons of how you can utilize this technique.

Confidence

Build your confidence right from the start. There are numerous ways you can do this, even if you are a really shy person or someone who is ashamed of their level of English. One quick tip for you today is to make a list of all the words you can find that are the same or similar in Czech and English. You immediately then have a ‘go to’ vocabulary. Start using these words as often as possible to send your brain the message that these words are OK!  You can meet with a native speaker, read books and watch video/TV/films; label everything in your home or office; Take risks and get out of your comfort zone. Take a holiday in a native speaking country and use what you know.

Make Mistakes

I am always telling people to STOP APOLOGIZING when they make a mistake. This is a terrible learned habit from your childhood when you were chastised for your errors by your parents and teachers. You were only trying to answer a question or do some task and because you got it wrong they shouted, scolded, punished, restricted and withheld. It is difficult to overcome these feelings but it is possible. Visualization is the key, more on that later. Basically, be able to laugh at yourself when you make mistakes. Make mistakes your friend. RELAX, it’s OK, but DO LEARN FROM THEM. I also have a video course to help Czechs and Slovaks to correct some of the most common mistakes you make when speaking English.

Grammar (Oh no!)

Don’t learn English grammar in the traditional way (unless you’re a polyglot and find it easy), use my Faster Grammar For Speaking method. I will explain more about this is a later post but essentially it is a mixed-tense way of learning that focuses firstly on the grammar you need to speak about yourself. This is a system I have been developing for some time and I hope will be a massive help to anyone who considers themself a false beginner.

Visualization

Without doubt, the biggest elephant in the room that the education system, the world over, is ignoring. Visualization is the best way to remember vocabulary, full stop (or period if you want to speak American English)

Learning Styles

I have written and spoken many times on the subject of learning styles and thankfully it is something that is creeping into education systems. Use as many learning styles as possible and finding your most prominent learning style will increase your learning effectiveness. I will write more on this later but for now, you can check out this older post of mine which will give you a basic understanding of what learning styles are for the uninitiated.

Listen

Unfortunately, I find this to be the one area most neglected by Czech and Slovak English learners. You should try to listen to native speakers as much as possible. Radio, TV, films, podcasts, music, documentaries, and real people. If you are lucky enough to live in Prague you have an unending supply of native speakers. Teachers of course, but also on the streets, in the pubs, restaurants, shops and cafes. Get out there and listen.

Immediate Action

When a word randomly comes into your mind, immediately (or as quickly as possible) find out its meaning, write it down and visualize it. Start using your new words in your writing and in conversation frequently to fix them in your vocabulary.

Ask for Help

When you don’t understand something, write it down and ask your English teacher/helper to explain it. If you have no one, find someone or at least try to find some advice on YouTube.

Learn English language online with a personal native teacher! Register to italki now.

Get Creative with Your Notes

Write down anything interesting you find in English, new nouns, verbs, phrases, grammar rules, idioms, expressions, or just interesting facts in English. But don’t stop at just writing in the usual boring (school taught) note-taking way. Get creative with your notes. Fill the page with your own drawings, cartooning the vocabulary and using different font styles, shapes and sizes.

Copy What You Hear

Imitate what you hear. Copy the speaker instead of just pronouncing words as you read them. If you really want to have something like a native speaker’s accent you need to copy what you hear. Don’t just say things the way it’s written or the way you learned it, listen to how a native speaker says it. Be consistent with your pronunciation though and choose a particular accent rather than mixing and matching because this will lead to misunderstandings for sure. There exists an idea of a generic or stereotypical British and American accent when there really is no such thing. Both countries have a multitude of different accents. If you are interested here’s a funny picture.

No photo description available.

Next week I will expand upon motivation to learn English and try to help you find yours and give you actionable steps to find it.

Do you have a plan for learning? A method? A system? Tell me how you learn English in the comments below.

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Why Video Is King For Learning English

Video is without doubt the best way to learn. I’m not just saying that because I have a free English video course for you but because I know from first hand experience that I personally retain more information from watching a well made piece of video, than I do from any other way of learning. Why is that? I’ll tell you later, first of all I want to share with you another of your common mistakes and explain how you can correct it.

We are going with Petr.

If you want to tell someone that you are going somewhere and you are not going alone, it is quite right (correct) to say that you are going with them. The mistake is made here when you refer to both yourself and the other person by saying; ‘we’ are going, and then also saying the name of the other person. For example;

These people are watching my free English video course

You are going to the cinema with your friend Petr. Only the two of you are going. The first time you tell me about this trip to the cinema you should say:

“I am going to the cinema with Petr.”

Not “we are going to the cinema with Petr” or “We’re going with Petr to the cinema.”

This is because if you use we are going with Petr, I assume you mean you and I and Petr (three of us). The we would refer to you and I.

If I know, for example, that you have a husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend and you say “We are going to the cinema tonight” then I assume you mean you and your partner, so, you don’t need to say who with. In this case just the first time you mention your trip to the cinema you would say just:

We’re going to the cinema tonight.

I would understand from that sentence that you mean you and your significant other (boyf/girlf/husband/wife etc).

If you want to say at the first mention who you are going with, refer to yourself (I) and then who with, so:

I’m going to the cinema tonight with Petr.

See if you can remember this and compare how well you retain the information (just from reading it) with how you are able to recall information from my free English video course. Read on to find out more about the benefits of using different learning styles.

pc-video-learning

Learning Styles

As I talked about in my previous blog, the traditional ways of learning all have their plus and minus points but the most important of those points is that they all have mainly only one learning style, with the exception of meeting somone face to face.  The thing is, with video, not only do you have video and audio, but, it allows for still pictures, written words for you to read and it can be tactile (kinesthetic) if the video has physical action points for you to carry out.The fact that you can stop and repeat certain parts of the video also give it an advantage over meeting a person in real life. Can you imagine asking your English teacher to repeat the same thing as many times as you need to fully understand it?

When I am recommending or explaining new ideas to my clients, invariably (usually) they come from something I have remembered from a video I have seen. That might be TED talks, documenaries or online courses, ok there are many things I have recommended from books too but I find things much harder to remember if I have only read them. And there is some science behind that, here it is…

The Science Behind the Idea

On the site socialmediatoday.com Eric Schwartzman gives these reasons why learning online is king.

Here are 4 big advantages of online learning:

  1. Automatic Retention – You don’t have to take notes. When all the material is recorded, and people are spared from having to retain everything themselves, they can focus on trying to actually understand the key concepts and on demoing tools and services without having to write it all down simultaneously.

  2. The Knowledge You Want First – When information is presented from a lectern, it’s shared in a linear fashion. You have to sit through long, drawn-out explanations, some of which you know, and some of which you don’t. But since everyone knows different things, the linear approach serves the group, but not necessarily the individual.  When on-demand content is broken down into bite-sized chunks, and tagged appropriately so it can be easily found, participants can laser in on what they want.

  3. Learn at your Own Pace – Everybody picks things up at different speeds.  Good instructors try and teach to the center of the classroom, which under serves fast and slow learners.  When you can stop and rewind demos as many times as you like and learn at your own pace, everyone can learn and fast or slow as they like, and no one gets lost or bored.

  4. Anytime, Anywhere – There is no longer a need to schedule time out of the office, wait until the right course is available, be forced to consume 6 hours of course material in a single day or board a plane.  Online social media training allows you to time-shift and place-shift your professional development when you want, where you want.

notetaking-from-laptopMy Opinion

While I agree with the majority of what Eric says, I would still argue that writing down and taking notes plays a valuable part in commiting information to memory (when used simultaneously with other learning styles). What makes note taking even better is when you add colour, pictures and different styles. Check out Mike Rohde and his sketchnotes for some amazing inspiration.

If you haven’t tried learning English from a video course before, I suggest you give it a go. You will find a multitude (tons of stuff) on You Tube to help you learn English and of course you can take my free English video course by clicking here. If you have tried video learning before and weren’t impressed, do still check out my course as I assure you, it will be like no other video course you’ve taken before (it’s not just a talking head course).

See you next week with a winter holiday special, yes, I’m going to learn how to snowboard! Leave a comment below and tell me if you’ve tried video before as a way to learn English.

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Muj Špatný Češtinu

Pamatujete že ja jsem Anglický rodilý mluvčím?  Tak že, tadz mám problěm protože dneska musím napsát vaše blog v Čestině. Asi, ne, určitě, poynáte že muj řada slovu je jako Anglickz.

Ahhh… musím vzpnout 4esk7 kl8visnice kvůli muj y a z je správný.

Pokračuju… Zkouším napsát bez používajici slovník i překládač tak uvidíme jestli umíte mi rozumět. A, proč udělám Český blog kdzž vždycky psám v Angličtině?  Odpovězda je ukázat že nemusíte být perfektní být rozumění.

Jestli vaše gol je být rozumění je to duležitý jenom že máte důvěra zkoušit ynova a znova (Sakra!)  Mnohu Český lidi vubec říct ani nic protože “to není perfekt”, “to není dobrý”. Slište mě! ear-clip-art-McLLy6RXiNe bude lepšit bez zkoušení. Nevadí jak špatně vás Angličký jazýk, většinu rodilý mluvčí vy pomoc s trpělivostem.

Dneska ten blog bude krátký protože pro mě napsát na počitač trvalo mi hodně dlouhá. Měl jsem nějáký knihy se učit Česky ale pro mě nefungovat. Ja vím že dělám hodně chyby. Máte nějaký jiný nápady pro mě? Doufám že ano. Dolu mužete mi pomoc v commentsu. Dík. 🙂

Přes přístí dva týdnu budu napsát o vaše nejběžnější chyby a jak je opravit. Těšte se na videa mini kurz Zdarma.

Dolu řeknete mi co myslíte co je nejběžnější chyby.

Čau for now.

P.S. Mužete mi  sledovat kliknutím na FOLLOW.

 

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How to Remember and Recall Your New Words.

Three weeks ago I asked you about your learning styles. You can read that post here if you missed it. Last week I recommended four websites to you, three of which will help you to expand your vocabulary. This week I am going to let you in on (Phrasal Verbs explained at the end) a couple of secrets for remembering those new words that you have been learning.

left_right_brainWhen I started learning Czech I just couldn’t remember new words unless I used them very often. Living in Cambridge in the UK I didn’t have that much opportunity other than with my girlfriend and a couple of her friends. Our brief conversations, if you can call them that, were merely pleasantries, Dobry Den, Ahoj, Jak se máš etc.

I did find a very helpful application called BYKI which uses flashcards and sound to assist in your learning, English one side, Czech the other with a picture if it was a noun. I soon started to show off how many new words I thought I had learned. My first words were as a child would learn, colours and animals. I was particularly good at birds, go on, test me! Sokol, orel, labut‘… I have recently found out that this type of application is called a “Spaced Repetition System” and is quite effective. However, I soon learnt all the words in the programme (there weren’t so many for the Czech language). My motivation to learn stopped and I learnt almost nothing new until we decided to move here. Check out Anki, my new favourite flashcard software.

Listen, Lisen, Listen

ear-clip-art-McLLy6RXiSince I moved to the Czech Republic I have found it increasingly easy to remember new words as I am surrounded by the language and hear it constantly. This repetition of hearing sounds has clearly helped my understanding of the language but as I said last week I still learn very passively. You, on the other hand, probably live in the Czech Republic so you don’t have that luxury. What you need to do is listen to English songs, watch films, TV channels and series in English. Of course, you are learning and practising regularly from books, reading and in conversation with me or your other English teacher (aren’t you?) so a good system for memorizing your new vocabulary is a must.

Use Your Memory

Many years ago I read a book called ‘Use Your Memory’ by the author Tony Buzan. You may know of him because he invented Mind Maps, the system of drawing brain-like pictures to aid memory recall. His book has many fantastic ideas with memory techniques from 2000 years ago like the Roman Room to modern inventions like his Mind Maps. One of my favourites is to make a visual story from the words in your imagination. This works fine for remembering a list of words in your own language however it needs some adjusting to work for foreign languages, in your case English. Enter ‘Mnemonics‘. (Pronounced – nemoniks)

lightbulbMnemonics are memory techniques to help you remember large pieces of information. There are many types of mnemonics including, rhymes and songs to remember things but my favourite style of mnemonic is the image mnemonic (number 7 in the list if you follow this link). You invent a colourful, exciting image, or better still video, in your mind using the two words you need to attach together. For example, if you want to learn the English word for ‘konvice’ which is ‘kettle’, you could think up an image in your mind of a konvice v Barceloně. Barcelona is in Catalonia which in both English and Czech (Katálonie) sounds similar enough to kettle for you to remember.

When I was learning the months of the year in Czech I used mnemonics to remember some of the months with great success. Some words were a little difficult to imagine so I used another technique of word association. If your images are clear enough in your mind it might only take a few seconds per word to fix in your brain. It’s also great fun and very creative. The simple idea behind it is that you are attaching the new word to something your brain already remembers. Buzan calls these ‘hooks’ on which you can ‘hang’ your new words to remember. Here’s how I learnt the months of the year in Czech.months

  • January = Leden – Sound like the English word lead (olovo)
  • February = Únor – Uno is one but this is the second month.
  • March = Březen – Brrrrrrr (the sound we make to mean it cold) I imagined a Buddhist Zen monk sitting in the snow shivering.
  • April = Duben – my associated word was ‘doobie’ (adults can look that one up)
  • May = Květen – I already knew flowers in Czech and in May there are flowers right?!
  • June = Červen – Because I knew ‘red’ it was simple, and May’s flowers in my image were red which led me straight to June.
  • July = Červenec – Just add th ‘ec’
  • August = Srpen – Sounds like serpent ( a mythical snake-like creature) at my birthday party (the 20th!)
  • September = Září – The Russian Tsar going back to school.
  • October = Říjen – I had a Nazi officer interrogating me saying ‘Zee end is near’
  • November = Listopad – I already knew the Czech words for leaf and fall so it was simple. I also thought about making my Christmas list.
  • December = Prosinec – Robert Prosinečki (ex Croatian international footballer) standing next to a Christmas tree.

What Now? Leave a comment.

Of course, if your English vocabulary is already pretty large you could try using English words to make the associations, it really doesn’t matter whether the hook word is English or Czech as long as it is just that, a hook. If this is you, have a look at this great mnemonic dictionary for some ideas on how to remember new words.

Have fun with this and leave me one example in the comments below of a mnemonic or word association you use.

Richard.

Phrasal Verbs Used

  • Let you in on – to allow someone to know or share (something secret or confidential).
  • Show off – make a deliberate or pretentious display of one’s abilities or accomplishments.
  • Found out – to get information about something because you want to know more about it, or to ​learn a fact or piece of information for the first ​time
  • Think up – to devise or contrive by thinking
  • look that one up – to search for something in a book or online
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How Are You Learning English?

Originally posted by Richard, Sep 23 2015 10:10AM

What Techniques Do You Use For Learning English?

Are you a textbook only person or do you like to practice conversation too? booksAre you one of those people who writes Czech words down one side of the paper then folds it over and writes the English on the other side? (just like my dad – yes he’s learning Czech!) Do you go to evening classes? Are you listening to CDs? Is watching films your favourite way to listen to English or are you more of a song person?

Learning Styles

Each person learns differently in their own way. There are many theories telling us of ‘Learning Styles’, that is that we all learn in a variety of different ways. It’s said that we are usually more dominant in one learning style than another. Here’s an example:

Neil Fleming’s VARK model suggests that there are four discernible ways in which we learn.

Visual learningGetBetterGradesNow-Dot-Com-Learning-Styles-274x300

Auditory learning

Read/write learning

Kinesthetic learning

Fleming said that Visual learners prefer to see something more than just words in order to assist their learning. Aids such as graphs, diagrams, symbols, and pictures for example). Auditory learners by listening to lectures, discussions and audio recordings, etc.). Kinesthetic (or tactile) learners like to learn with real first hand experience that is to actually BE moving, touching, and doing things. (exploring, experiments and physical activity etc.).

More Styles

In recent years this theory has been developed and according to the Institue of Learning Styles Research the list now contains seven different learning styles: Print, Visual, Haptic, Intereactive, Kinesthetic, Aural and Olfactory. You can find out more here: http://www.learningstyles.org/

It’s true also that there are scientists out there who claim that these learning styles don’t exist. However whether you believe it or not surely covering all bases and using as many different techniques as you can (to aid your learning) can only be a good thing. If nothing else it keeps you interested and enthusiastic.

Share Your Styles

So share with me your prefered ways of learning English, I’d love to know what has and hasn’t worked for you. Tell us by leaving a comment below. Sign up for my weekly English Tips email here.

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