For people who love languages, or would but were discouraged.
- Believe in yourself and have the right attitude
- Put in an hour a day
- Use a system that works... like LingQ
Free27Feb
Testing
What is the best kind of language testing? For English learners. If the person being tested is going into an English language school or English language program I think it is unnecessary to test the learner. I believe that language programs should...
Read more Testing26Feb
What is coming next?
Over the next few posts I will talk a little bit about testing. How effective are the existing language tests for English? How do we know what our skill level is in another language? How can other people best judge our skill level? Is our own subj...
Read more What is coming next?24Feb
Obsessive compulsive disorder and language learning
In Jeffrey Schwartz's book The Mind and the Brain, he points out just how constantly adaptable the human brain is. Research has shown that this adaptability or plasticity continues throughout our lives. The brain is constantly retraining and rearr...
Read more Obsessive compulsive disorder and language learning22Feb
Improving Pronunciation
The following from our Linguist Forum may be of interest. One of our learners, Assad, sent an MP3 file of him reading a text. This enabled our tutors to pick out areas to work on and provide the following recommendation on improving pronunciation....
Read more Improving Pronunciation20Feb
More on vocabulary and learning
I read the following books on vocabulary, all published by Cambridge and purchased through Amazon: Vocabulary in Language Teaching by Jack Richards, Learning Vocabulary in Another Language, by Paul Nation, Vocabulary, Description, Acquisition and ...
Read more More on vocabulary and learning18Feb
Skiing and words
The last three days I have been skiing at Whistler. There was not a cloud in the sky for two days and today is a little overcast. The snow conditions are not ideal but not bad. A little ice in spots and some bare patches. You kind of have to pick ...
Read more Skiing and words10Feb
Memory
I think adults get more frustrated than young learners when they seem unable to remember things. They probably have poorer short term memory than younger students. Even high school and university students probably have an ability to cram informati...
Read more Memory09Feb
More on adult learners
I have been reading "The Mind and the Brain, Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force" by Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley. What becomes clear is that the brain constantly responds to stimulus to adjust and create neural networks. Language ...
Read more More on adult learners07Feb
Hard to learn
As I am reviewing one of my old Korean books I am reminded of all the things that textbook authors do to make it hard to learn languages. Most textbooks introduce vocabulary in categories. The names of the colours , or the parts of the body etc. w...
Read more Hard to learn06Feb
Language cross training
In sports it has been found that to improve in sport A it is often a good idea to practice sport B. Tennis or ping pong or gymnastics may improve strength or quickness or balance needed for ice hockey, for example. I think the same works in langua...
Read more Language cross training