English. Learning problems

I think it is no secret to anyone that the current system of teaching is not aimed at quickly and successfully learning English. The reason for this problem lies in many factors: tutors who receive big money in an hour of “helping” you, private schools “making money”, outdated teaching methods in educational institutions, authors of hundreds of books of the next revolutionary techniques “English in 30 minutes”, “iron curtain” at which most teachers were born. Discussion of this problem periodically pops up at various conferences, but as they say, “but it's still there”. This article is designed to help make up for lost years of language learning.

Recall

The most important thing is not to consider language learning as a goal, we learn the language to read magazines, talk to people, watch movies, perceive speech. To begin with, let us recall the basic rules of the English language, which, truthfully, are not very many, and more correctly, not very much. But at once I focus on the word “remember”, it is not necessary to learn the rules, to fix the exercises. Let the rules be a cheat sheet, which will help you to understand “why is it on the end , not on the end ”. Those. You do not need to look for the rules in an unfamiliar English text, you just need to read the text, but not clear sentences, or parts of them, write (ctrl + c, ctrl + v will not work) in a notebook. Alexander Dragunkin's book “Fast English” can help you quickly remember, or understand, some rules, or features of the language, which were taught in school in a very sophisticated way. But I’ll say right away that it’s hard to read his books, a lot of unnecessary information, so I don’t recommend to get involved in his “new Russian” method. And let's still get a notebook in which we structure the rules from his book, for ease of use. Create a cheat sheet.

For example, my version of the cheat sheet (which is understandable and useful, I think, it will be just me)
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What is hidden under three stickers:

To begin

The most difficult step, the wrong choice of which can discourage any desire for further study. The BBC Learning English service will help you, starting with the How to ... section ( www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/howto ) There are sections “How to discuss ...”, “How to ... talk”, “How to ...” explain, ask, advise ”,“ How to ... ask, offer, invite ”,“ How to ... inform or respond to the news ”,“ How to ... welcome, apologize or forgive ”.

Now we will prepare a little for further work and try to make it more productive. To begin with, it will be difficult to read because of a poor vocabulary, in order to help yourself we will install the program TranslateIt! or similar for contextual translation of words with transcription and pronunciation. Pluses TranslateIt! that it can capture text from almost any source (web browser, pdf reader, notepad) which is good.

Let's start with the “ How to ... Discussing ” lecture “ Making suggestions ”.

We open the lecture on the Script link (pdf - 21k) on the lecture page, we read fluently, i.e. we don’t really think about the meaning of unfamiliar sentences, just “understand what you understand, understand”, write out unfamiliar words with a translation in a notebook (as an optimization of the process, we create excel we copy unfamiliar words into a column, then google google translate for the whole column, and we already copy the translation back , in the next column, but after the end of the work with the lecture you should still rewrite these words in a notebook). Now we download the same lecture in mp3 Download - mp3 (1.8mb) and by ear (we close pdf so as not to be distracted) we try to understand the meaning of the lecture, or at least recall those sentences that you read fluently. Let it be very difficult to understand this speech, the announcers read especially without highlighting individual words with pauses, sometimes swallowing the endings. But this is the first time, I assure you. Listened. Now open the pdf and start working paragraphs. We read aloud the first paragraph, clearly pronouncing familiar words, strangers are listening (and trying to repeat ourselves) in TranslateIt! , Lingvo, Google translate or any other convenient service, the main thing is not to lose sight of the text for a long time (hence minus dictionaries in the form of books, until you find a word, you forget the text). Now we play this paragraph in mp3, check the correctness of our speech, and proceed to a detailed translation. We translate more or less literary language, but as close as possible to the original. And so on until the end of the lecture.

Now we return to the main page of the lecture ( www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1756_how_to_discuss/page2.shtml ) We look at the table as if it were a lecture plan, remember what we were talking about in the mind, and proceed to the exercises . The work plan with the exercises is the same: fluently read, listen, translate paragraph by paragraph, listen to the paragraph again - answer the questions.

And so 3 - 4 times a week, the main thing is to choose specific days and hours for learning the language. For example, Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 20:00. This will teach punctuality, one missed lesson can turn into laziness ... and you will stop learning. We have more optimistic goals.

The best option is to work together, translate paragraphs one by one, discuss the correctness of the translation, correct the spoken words with each other, and finally analyze the tasks for the lectures, because Some tasks involve dialogue, or conversation.

Place your class is better to choose some kind of coffee shop, where quietly, without being distracted by household chores, engage in lectures. A laptop and a 3G modem with 2 megabyte traffic per lecture (or free wifi) will help to organize a mobile lecture audience for two.

Sign in to taste

In parallel with the lectures, we will need to learn the words that you wrote out in a notebook. What is the best way to learn? There is no definite answer, each memory works differently, it is easier for me to write cards on cartons (business cards) - on the one hand an English word, on the other hand, and to repeat in the evenings. There are programs like “ IT - the invisible teacher ”, just create your own dictionary, and while working at the computer, you see the pop-up words with the translation. I repeat - as it is convenient for anyone, who remembers as best as possible.

In addition to unfamiliar words, we will need to learn irregular verbs, without them it will be difficult. To make this task easier for you, I advise you to look at Alexander Dragunkin’s book Irregular Verbs. His division of verbs into groups greatly simplifies this task.

For practice, I advise in the evenings to watch one series of your favorite cartoon series (The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, South Park, etc.) without translation and subtitles. The sentences in them are built simply, the speech is clear, in some places conversational. Gradually, you will understand more and more sentences, and get more pleasure from cartoons ... and from myself of course.

Result

Having passed the entire course of lectures “ How to ... Discussing ” (5 lectures) you, I think, will notice that you have begun to understand the language much better, one lesson has become much less time consuming, speech to the ear is perceived much more easily.