Independent study of English from Elementary to Intermediate: useful resources and motivation
I share my own experience in learning English. For 8 months I used a lot of different resources, the search for which took my time. Hopefully writing this article will help you save yours.
Background: 11 years of school and 2 years of university English. Then 6 years break and forgetting.
Motivation: when my son was 8.5 months old, she began to teach him English and saw that he understood, responded and began to speak English. It seemed like a miracle to me. After all, I remembered how I taught at school and cried, cried and taught. The language was given to me barely, with difficulty, pain and suffering. And then the baby understands everything, speaks and does not think!
And in order to continue giving the baby a live English, I needed to pull him up.
Beginning with an Enterprise tutorial. But it was boring to do it alone. Then she decided to teach others English. She took several students in person and via Skype. The lessons had to be prepared willy-nilly. And since I wanted to make them as meaningful, interesting and effective as possible, I spent the nights studying textbooks and websites. Some of them worked, others did not. As a result, a list of favorite resources and methods of self-learning and training on them my charges were formed.
')
Such as Speak Out, Headway, Cutting Edge, New English File, Upstream.
Textbooks allow you to very quickly and effectively pull up all 4 skills: Listening, Speaking, Writing and Reading. Everyone has their strengths. Speak Out is the easiest, most modern and efficient. Upstream - gives a lot of vocabulary and amazingly gives grammar (my favorite), but loses in fascination. In New English File cool exercises on pronunciation. Download, choose what you like and start to pass. During the lessons I usually combine materials from these textbooks + I add tasks for working out grammatical structures for speaking.
This dictionary is my first in the bookmarks bar.
My favorite feature of the site is the ability to listen to the word you are looking for in sentences. Here you will find Collocations, synonyms and antonyms of the word.
An example of how I work with the dictionary. I meet an unfamiliar word in the article. I am impressed with him in Longman (practicing Writing). Then I listen to it separately and repeat (developing Pronunciation). After that, I listen to sentences with a word and repeat them (I train Listening). In general, using this dictionary alone, you can learn a language. There is an online and desktop version.
Beginner and Elementary students usually advise reading the transcription, pronouncing the word, and then listening to the speaker. This way you can easily learn phonetic symbols without learning from them specially.
If you have not yet grown to a monolingual dictionary, then the Cambridge dictionary is your option. It gives a much more accurate translation than Google translator and other dictionaries known to me.
If you read the text and meet the word-object of the real world, it is better not to drive it into the dictionaries, but immediately drive the pictures into Google. So you will immediately learn what a screw is and associate a picture with an English word. Without translation
On these sites we listen to live English speech.
Learnathome - simple videos that are easy to watch even on Elementary /
Show-English - TV shows and films with subtitles. Free 40 minutes a day, but believe me, if you work through the material, then this will be enough for you.
Engvid - videos by vocabulary and grammar from native speakers.
Well, do not forget about Youtube, where there are videos of your interests.
Google Chrome extension, fixes your mistakes (we train Spelling)
Here we find a language partner to chat on Skype. About communicated with people from Poland, Slovakia, Pakistan.
A wonderful place to practice English. With each meeting, I discover new thoughts, new ideas. Since usually interesting people go to such events, there is something to listen to and talk about.
The bottom line is that we first do the most difficult and effective: we are going through the textbook. If you are tired of studying, then we look at Engvid. Forces at the end - enjoy the show on Show-English.
Motivation disappeared - go to the English Speaking Club or Speaking24.com.
We do at least something to move forward.
We define the goal for this hour / day. We write out the expressions that we want to introduce in our speech or words to us hitherto completely unfamiliar.
Usually I study for 30-60 minutes and during this time I fill out a white sheet of A4 with expressions and grammar. Then put this sheet in the file. And voila - the task for today is ready. I walk and speak with myself practicing vocbulary and grammatical constructions. In the bath, while cooking dinner, while playing with the baby at home, or while he is sleeping in the stroller.
I have a principle: verbs are more important than nouns, nouns are more important than the rest. Usually, if you understand the verb and the noun in a sentence, you will understand the meaning. So the main thing is to get verbs first.
Background: 11 years of school and 2 years of university English. Then 6 years break and forgetting.
Motivation: when my son was 8.5 months old, she began to teach him English and saw that he understood, responded and began to speak English. It seemed like a miracle to me. After all, I remembered how I taught at school and cried, cried and taught. The language was given to me barely, with difficulty, pain and suffering. And then the baby understands everything, speaks and does not think!
And in order to continue giving the baby a live English, I needed to pull him up.
Beginning with an Enterprise tutorial. But it was boring to do it alone. Then she decided to teach others English. She took several students in person and via Skype. The lessons had to be prepared willy-nilly. And since I wanted to make them as meaningful, interesting and effective as possible, I spent the nights studying textbooks and websites. Some of them worked, others did not. As a result, a list of favorite resources and methods of self-learning and training on them my charges were formed.
')
Resources
1. Textbooks
Such as Speak Out, Headway, Cutting Edge, New English File, Upstream.
Textbooks allow you to very quickly and effectively pull up all 4 skills: Listening, Speaking, Writing and Reading. Everyone has their strengths. Speak Out is the easiest, most modern and efficient. Upstream - gives a lot of vocabulary and amazingly gives grammar (my favorite), but loses in fascination. In New English File cool exercises on pronunciation. Download, choose what you like and start to pass. During the lessons I usually combine materials from these textbooks + I add tasks for working out grammatical structures for speaking.
2. Longman en-en dictionary
This dictionary is my first in the bookmarks bar.
My favorite feature of the site is the ability to listen to the word you are looking for in sentences. Here you will find Collocations, synonyms and antonyms of the word.
An example of how I work with the dictionary. I meet an unfamiliar word in the article. I am impressed with him in Longman (practicing Writing). Then I listen to it separately and repeat (developing Pronunciation). After that, I listen to sentences with a word and repeat them (I train Listening). In general, using this dictionary alone, you can learn a language. There is an online and desktop version.
Beginner and Elementary students usually advise reading the transcription, pronouncing the word, and then listening to the speaker. This way you can easily learn phonetic symbols without learning from them specially.
3. Cambridge en-ru dictionary
If you have not yet grown to a monolingual dictionary, then the Cambridge dictionary is your option. It gives a much more accurate translation than Google translator and other dictionaries known to me.
4. Google pictures
If you read the text and meet the word-object of the real world, it is better not to drive it into the dictionaries, but immediately drive the pictures into Google. So you will immediately learn what a screw is and associate a picture with an English word. Without translation
5. Engvid and Show-English and Learnathome
On these sites we listen to live English speech.
Learnathome - simple videos that are easy to watch even on Elementary /
Show-English - TV shows and films with subtitles. Free 40 minutes a day, but believe me, if you work through the material, then this will be enough for you.
Engvid - videos by vocabulary and grammar from native speakers.
Well, do not forget about Youtube, where there are videos of your interests.
6. Grammarly
Google Chrome extension, fixes your mistakes (we train Spelling)
7. Speaking24.com
Here we find a language partner to chat on Skype. About communicated with people from Poland, Slovakia, Pakistan.
8. English speaking clubs in your city
A wonderful place to practice English. With each meeting, I discover new thoughts, new ideas. Since usually interesting people go to such events, there is something to listen to and talk about.
Technique
1. Learn to stop
The bottom line is that we first do the most difficult and effective: we are going through the textbook. If you are tired of studying, then we look at Engvid. Forces at the end - enjoy the show on Show-English.
Motivation disappeared - go to the English Speaking Club or Speaking24.com.
We do at least something to move forward.
2. Expand passive or active vocabulary
We define the goal for this hour / day. We write out the expressions that we want to introduce in our speech or words to us hitherto completely unfamiliar.
3. Blank sheets with collocations
Usually I study for 30-60 minutes and during this time I fill out a white sheet of A4 with expressions and grammar. Then put this sheet in the file. And voila - the task for today is ready. I walk and speak with myself practicing vocbulary and grammatical constructions. In the bath, while cooking dinner, while playing with the baby at home, or while he is sleeping in the stroller.
3. We learn the right words and expressions.
I have a principle: verbs are more important than nouns, nouns are more important than the rest. Usually, if you understand the verb and the noun in a sentence, you will understand the meaning. So the main thing is to get verbs first.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/447408/
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