Spoken English for the month
Reprinted from my LiveJournal .
I decided to write about my experience of learning English in an extremely short time (1 month) - what if it comes in handy. Also, give out a little information about how the interview abroad.
')
First, a little about the patient:
I - direct evidence of the inferiority of the Russian education system in the field of foreign languages. I “learned” the German language (why?) For almost 10 years at school and the university and never remembered anything more complicated than Hende hoch. Then I “taught” English already in graduate school for 1 year, although in fact I was only there twice, and the second time was on the exam. I translated the simplest text and read it in German, for which I received 4.
And yet, English sat down in the brain much better than German thanks to the correctly chosen profession of a programmer and computer games, but to put it mildly it was bad. It is enough to mention that I have not read a single textbook or rules of the English language.
A year ago, I could read quite simply professional books and even respond to an email, but 3 cases would speak well about my spoken English:
1. I am in Leste. Call by phone from Germany, wanted to learn something about our games. Anyone who knows English in the office there. I had to "talk." On the tenth attempt, I realized that a person wants to contact our manager. A few minutes trying to explain that the manager is on vacation and will be back in a week. 10 minutes of pasting, which could be said in one phrase.
2. A producer from Holland from Playlogic arrived a bit later. Send him to the cafe. There I - like a dog - and did not understand almost anything, and I could not even say so much.
3. At the same time, about a subway, a tortured foreigner asked how to get to a station. I could explain to him only with gestures.
And suddenly, with such initial data, I decide to leave Lesta and try to get a job abroad.
To do this, you just have to go through first telephone interviews, and then personal ones. And as soon as possible, because time goes by and the application is already written. As a result, from making a decision to getting a Job Offer, the application was gone a month. Do not believe?
Treatment methods:
I decided for myself that I would develop conversational skills and grammar that I did not know at all. All training was tailored to these tasks.
Were hired 2 tutors who came 2 times a week for 2 hours. One is English to practice speaking and understanding, the other is Russian to learn grammar. Total took a total of 12 or 13 lessons. As a result, it turned out not at all expensive, especially if you look at the result and effectiveness of such studies. I especially liked the Russian tutor - she was worried about me and really helped. At first, I was just terrified, and after a month and a half, we had already just spoken English in the last lesson :)
I started reading my first English textbook, which I finally mastered after all the interviews and recruitment.
I found on the Internet a bunch of mp3 files with English texts and downloaded a lot. A lot of listening to English texts. Often 4-5 hours a day. At first, I didn’t understand almost anything, but after a week I began to understand something. A month later, he understood almost everything.
My favorite mp3 podcasts in English:
BBC LEARNING ENGLISH - IMHO, this site should study and listen to everything everyone who wants to speak in English. A lot of useful material. You can download everything and listen.
Voice of America Special English - there is a huge number of interesting podcasts, told in very simple and understandable English. I listened to tens of hours of mp3 from here.
BBC RADIO 4 - here you can download the best programs from this radio every day. There are weekly podcasts. Until now, constantly downloading via rss and listening.
I tried to listen to all sorts of courses Ilona Davydova and other types of "learn English for a month behind the wheel," but it was just a waste of time. Absolutely delusional courses.
The main task of these mp3 is to teach the brain to automatically recognize English speech. Stop being afraid of her, learn to isolate words and automatically translate them. It is necessary to listen to a lot to achieve this. It is ideal to listen to English in live communication, but if there is no such possibility, then mp3 really helps.
Where to send a resume I was looking for on the site monster.com - this is how I understand the largest job search site. I sent maybe a dozen summaries, three replied.
I must say that the resume has already been sent to various Western companies before the start of my training in English. Therefore, it so happened that the first telephone interview with the Czech company was self-assigned right after 1 class with a tutor.
It was successfully failed by me, because I understood only a third of the words, but I could say much less than I wanted. But failures only provoke. The next interview was already after 2 weeks - a huge time.
I must also say that all this time I continued to work hard in Leste for 8-10 hours a day, and also went for interviews to other St. Petersburg companies in order to secure my rear, because and he didn’t really believe that it was possible to learn English so quickly.
During these 2 weeks before the next interview, the basics of grammar were studied, 4 lessons with tutors were conducted, dozens of hours of English mp3 were listened and the English book winnie-the-puh was almost read (for in the St. Petersburg metro it is impossible to listen to anything, just read, and only read English - terribly boring).
Because there was nowhere to take the speaking practice, then I found it very useful to talk to myself. It's very simple: you go to the metro in the morning, and from the metro in the evening and talk out loud with yourself on any topic in English (hehe, just be careful on the streets). Initially, it is very hard and you feel like a fool, but in 2 weeks you can dial 20 hours of conversations in English - this really helps. And this is almost the only opportunity to develop conversational skills without live communication.
As a result, I conducted the following interview much better, although it was not without embarrassment:
The Scot interviewed me. He asked what I think about games such as jiti. I was stuck for a minute (I did not know the English alphabet :)), I could not remember this genre and in general understand what it was about. And it turned out to be GTA - they make it. It was also funny when I forgot the meaning of the word Responsibility. But anyway, I passed this interview and was invited for a personal interview in England.
And a few days later there was an interview with my current employer - in general, everything went like clockwork. We communicated via Skype, exchanged links, wrote text messages, if there was something incomprehensible, and in general it was great. I already felt sympathy for the manager that I was interviewed. Now this is my manager here - Jan Sandbacka, a great person. I also had this interview and was invited to Finland for a personal interview.
Because Finland close, then drove first there. By that time, a little more than a month had passed since the start of training.
All the way to the train to Helsinki, I listened to Voice of America - I think it helped me a lot to tune in for an interview, because 6 hours of listening to English is great to set up a conversation in English. As a result, I spent 3 interviews in 4 hours, sort of satisfied everyone and got a Job Offer. Happy end :)
The British had to refuse, although it would have been a great chance, the authors of GTA4 still.
Of course, for the work of my level of knowledge of the language would not be enough, but how I prepared for work and worked for the first months is another story, much less challenging.
PS: I read it all over again and realized that maybe someone would get the impression that it was a dreadful and difficult month - nothing like that. It was a great month. A lot of fun and drive, study, work, search and hope. Oddly enough - it was one of the most interesting periods of my life.
I decided to write about my experience of learning English in an extremely short time (1 month) - what if it comes in handy. Also, give out a little information about how the interview abroad.
')
First, a little about the patient:
I - direct evidence of the inferiority of the Russian education system in the field of foreign languages. I “learned” the German language (why?) For almost 10 years at school and the university and never remembered anything more complicated than Hende hoch. Then I “taught” English already in graduate school for 1 year, although in fact I was only there twice, and the second time was on the exam. I translated the simplest text and read it in German, for which I received 4.
And yet, English sat down in the brain much better than German thanks to the correctly chosen profession of a programmer and computer games, but to put it mildly it was bad. It is enough to mention that I have not read a single textbook or rules of the English language.
A year ago, I could read quite simply professional books and even respond to an email, but 3 cases would speak well about my spoken English:
1. I am in Leste. Call by phone from Germany, wanted to learn something about our games. Anyone who knows English in the office there. I had to "talk." On the tenth attempt, I realized that a person wants to contact our manager. A few minutes trying to explain that the manager is on vacation and will be back in a week. 10 minutes of pasting, which could be said in one phrase.
2. A producer from Holland from Playlogic arrived a bit later. Send him to the cafe. There I - like a dog - and did not understand almost anything, and I could not even say so much.
3. At the same time, about a subway, a tortured foreigner asked how to get to a station. I could explain to him only with gestures.
And suddenly, with such initial data, I decide to leave Lesta and try to get a job abroad.
To do this, you just have to go through first telephone interviews, and then personal ones. And as soon as possible, because time goes by and the application is already written. As a result, from making a decision to getting a Job Offer, the application was gone a month. Do not believe?
Treatment methods:
I decided for myself that I would develop conversational skills and grammar that I did not know at all. All training was tailored to these tasks.
Were hired 2 tutors who came 2 times a week for 2 hours. One is English to practice speaking and understanding, the other is Russian to learn grammar. Total took a total of 12 or 13 lessons. As a result, it turned out not at all expensive, especially if you look at the result and effectiveness of such studies. I especially liked the Russian tutor - she was worried about me and really helped. At first, I was just terrified, and after a month and a half, we had already just spoken English in the last lesson :)
I started reading my first English textbook, which I finally mastered after all the interviews and recruitment.
I found on the Internet a bunch of mp3 files with English texts and downloaded a lot. A lot of listening to English texts. Often 4-5 hours a day. At first, I didn’t understand almost anything, but after a week I began to understand something. A month later, he understood almost everything.
My favorite mp3 podcasts in English:
BBC LEARNING ENGLISH - IMHO, this site should study and listen to everything everyone who wants to speak in English. A lot of useful material. You can download everything and listen.
Voice of America Special English - there is a huge number of interesting podcasts, told in very simple and understandable English. I listened to tens of hours of mp3 from here.
BBC RADIO 4 - here you can download the best programs from this radio every day. There are weekly podcasts. Until now, constantly downloading via rss and listening.
I tried to listen to all sorts of courses Ilona Davydova and other types of "learn English for a month behind the wheel," but it was just a waste of time. Absolutely delusional courses.
The main task of these mp3 is to teach the brain to automatically recognize English speech. Stop being afraid of her, learn to isolate words and automatically translate them. It is necessary to listen to a lot to achieve this. It is ideal to listen to English in live communication, but if there is no such possibility, then mp3 really helps.
Where to send a resume I was looking for on the site monster.com - this is how I understand the largest job search site. I sent maybe a dozen summaries, three replied.
I must say that the resume has already been sent to various Western companies before the start of my training in English. Therefore, it so happened that the first telephone interview with the Czech company was self-assigned right after 1 class with a tutor.
It was successfully failed by me, because I understood only a third of the words, but I could say much less than I wanted. But failures only provoke. The next interview was already after 2 weeks - a huge time.
I must also say that all this time I continued to work hard in Leste for 8-10 hours a day, and also went for interviews to other St. Petersburg companies in order to secure my rear, because and he didn’t really believe that it was possible to learn English so quickly.
During these 2 weeks before the next interview, the basics of grammar were studied, 4 lessons with tutors were conducted, dozens of hours of English mp3 were listened and the English book winnie-the-puh was almost read (for in the St. Petersburg metro it is impossible to listen to anything, just read, and only read English - terribly boring).
Because there was nowhere to take the speaking practice, then I found it very useful to talk to myself. It's very simple: you go to the metro in the morning, and from the metro in the evening and talk out loud with yourself on any topic in English (hehe, just be careful on the streets). Initially, it is very hard and you feel like a fool, but in 2 weeks you can dial 20 hours of conversations in English - this really helps. And this is almost the only opportunity to develop conversational skills without live communication.
As a result, I conducted the following interview much better, although it was not without embarrassment:
The Scot interviewed me. He asked what I think about games such as jiti. I was stuck for a minute (I did not know the English alphabet :)), I could not remember this genre and in general understand what it was about. And it turned out to be GTA - they make it. It was also funny when I forgot the meaning of the word Responsibility. But anyway, I passed this interview and was invited for a personal interview in England.
And a few days later there was an interview with my current employer - in general, everything went like clockwork. We communicated via Skype, exchanged links, wrote text messages, if there was something incomprehensible, and in general it was great. I already felt sympathy for the manager that I was interviewed. Now this is my manager here - Jan Sandbacka, a great person. I also had this interview and was invited to Finland for a personal interview.
Because Finland close, then drove first there. By that time, a little more than a month had passed since the start of training.
All the way to the train to Helsinki, I listened to Voice of America - I think it helped me a lot to tune in for an interview, because 6 hours of listening to English is great to set up a conversation in English. As a result, I spent 3 interviews in 4 hours, sort of satisfied everyone and got a Job Offer. Happy end :)
The British had to refuse, although it would have been a great chance, the authors of GTA4 still.
Of course, for the work of my level of knowledge of the language would not be enough, but how I prepared for work and worked for the first months is another story, much less challenging.
PS: I read it all over again and realized that maybe someone would get the impression that it was a dreadful and difficult month - nothing like that. It was a great month. A lot of fun and drive, study, work, search and hope. Oddly enough - it was one of the most interesting periods of my life.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/30487/
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