When you think about it, the vast majority of people learn a language to speak it. It’s pretty obvious that that’s a big motivator. But a question that is commonly asked (“how can I improve my speaking?”) gets the all-too-often reply of “to improve your speaking you have to speak”. Sounds crazy right?
It’s not as stupid as it sounds though. And it’s a not a matter of only stumbling around in the dark groping for expressions in a conversation where the other party doesn’t seem too engrossed in your grasp of what foods you like nor about how the wind is blowing strongly today. Sure, these topics are great for idle chit-chat and you feel a sense of achievement when you can have these kind of basic textbook style conversations, but let’s be honest…. that’s not really what you want to talk about is it? Click here to read more.. »
“Scriptorium” is a nice term coined by Professor Alexander Arguelles, personally I just used to think of it as a writing exercise that I had been doing naturally. But now that it has a name that is becoming recognised in the language learning community it makes it all the more accessible.
First off, let me detail what scriptorium is… Basically, as I said, it’s a writing exercise.. but what kind of writing exercise I hear you say. Ok, here we go… Click here to read more.. »
You’ve all heard of “listen and repeat” but have you heard of “shadowing”?
I won’t say it’s a little known concept because I know many language learners that have used this technique or something very similar in their own studies without ever encountering the term itself. They simply stumbled upon it themselves through their own trial and error. The term itself came into play from Professor Arguelles, a polyglot of many languages.
So, let’s take a well-known concept like “listen and repeat” and move from there. The idea with listen and repeat is that you listen to the audio, then repeat it. The idea behind “shadowing” is that when your hear the audio you say it… simultaneously. Click here to read more.. »
Just like there are two sides to every story, there is no one text that will reveal everything. Your best bet to getting the full story? Treat your language study like your diet… eat something different from the menu whenever you can.
Not only would it get boring eating the same food day-in, day-out, but you wouldn’t get to experience anything outside of your usual. So, why not treat yourself to something different from the language menu to keep your appetite high and your experiences growing. Click here to read more.. »
Once you get to a certain level textbooks stop being all that useful. You know the material inside and out and there’s nothing new or challenging. So what can you do?
It’s pretty straight forward actually… Get your mitts on something real!
In short, things that were written by native speakers for native speakers are the next step. The next level.
These can be broken into a few categories:
- Novels and newspapers
- Audiobooks and news reports
- Movies and television shows
- Language exchange Click here to read more.. »
