Learning to Learn
Ok guys, so here are the answers to last night's homework.
1) The collocates with “conference” that I used in the post were:
to hold
to attend
the theme of the conference
the conference began
2) I used “Not only did I...” to make the point that I did other things “on top of” or extra to the first job
3) “run off my feet” means very busy!
4) I used the phrase “Just remember...” to emphasise a “key” or most important idea.
So far there is one comment on the blog by Nia Komalafuri from Jakarta. I recommend that you all read it as he shares some really useful study tips that he uses. First and foremost he talks about “goals”. I would like to add to what Nia says about this by emphasising that we should always try to set for ourselves clear learning goals. Without them (as adults anyway) we won’t get very far. The best way to set goals is through reflection on what you do well now and what you want to do better in the future. Any learners have difficulties because they are not really clear about what they want to learn! It is not enough to say “I want to improve my speaking” for example! You need to pinpoint why you want to speak English and with whom you want to speak it. There are many different reasons to speak and these effect how you speak right down to the actual words! When you have clarified this point, you need to look at your performance in this situation and ask yourself. What do I want to improve about how I speak (is it pronunciation, vocabulary,) and then seek out the materials or resources that can help you. As Linda has pointed out, there are plenty of resources on the web! You then need to be creative as Nia says and experiment to find what works for you. Nia’s example of how he organizes his notes is a really good one. I have seen many students benefit from this. I try to encourage students to organize there vocabulary around certain situationsor key words as I entioned in a previous blog. Also, what he says about summarizing is an excellent strategy that has long been known by academics as being a key to deeper learning (especially sumarizing things yo read). Summarizing aids memory and it also allows your brain to process and organize the things that you feel are important. You can then also use your summary with a study buddy (which is another great thing to have!) a study buddy being a study friend that you can talk things through with and share ideas etc.
I totally agree with Nia that it is a pity that he didn’t know how to learn at high school. This is the same for me too and I’m sure many of you guys feel that way too. Actually this is the fault of our teachers, schools and perhaps governments. What better to learn at school than how to learn! On top of that include the skill of being an independent student that can then learn whatever he wants. I wonder why that never seems to have been a priority in schools? Perhaps it was a priority i your school. If it was I’d love to hear about it!
Bye for now blogmates (I guess tomorrow is my last day here sob sob!)
Comments
Hi Simon. I have to say that this web site gives me a very huge motivation in my English learning. I started to study this languague when I was 10, at highschool I was a really outstanding English student, but teachers were so so bad, I wanted to speak it, to read it , I'm sorry for then but they were too bored. When I graduated I started to study by myself, but I have to admit that I did it very badly, I didn't have a method or strategy to improve my English, I didn't even know what to improve, When I read magazines in English, I just memorized words in isolation, and as a result , I hardly remember just a few words right now, I actually lost my time but not the hope. I quit studying for several years, can you imagine how much I forgot? Yet, I've been studying seriously English for 8 months ago, and I'm very very happy, and I am very grateful to BBC, you give enthusiam, motivation and happiness to all those lovers of English language, you also gives tips for learning better and be successfull. Well, indeed, it's crucial to have goals. Particularly, I set a goal to improve my vocabulary because I want to be more fluent, confidence, and when we use the right expression or the idea that we want to make them understand, we feel happy, and if not, it's a strong reason to, perhaps, reflect how we are learning and ask oneself: How can I do it better? What do I need to be effective so as to do it much better?. I organize my vocabulary by topics, by expressions with ...e.g with time, I also organize my idioms and phrasal verbs by topics and so on, we can be very creative in doing this, the most important is to discover what is the way that works for me. In addition, when I read I pay careful attention what words, verbs, adj, adv, phrasal verbs are interesting for me, many times a new topic comes up for my vocabulary. For me one of the most important thing is that, in my case, I need to recap too much, I need to make plenty of revision, I imagine situations where I can use the expressions and I speak, write or think my own expressions, I practice grammar and so on in my mind, so that the mind get used to thinking the English pattern, we do this because our mind is get used to our mother tongue and it's different from other languages, one way to achieve this, I think, is trying to translate a small paragraph from your tongue into English, but not word-for-word translation because an English structure it's very different from Spanish, and practice, practice, practice until we do it very very well. Speaking it's just a bit difficult because here everybody speak Spanish, so I must get in touch with my mates who also like this language. But I realize that this is a new strategy I have to use to share what we know and practice speaking, that's a great idea Simon, thanks. On the other hand, for me, one of my problem is that I have to be "quite" patient, I have learnt that learning another languague it's a process and, as such, it takes lot of time and effort but then we have our reward and it's more than the effort, we need to be very persistent, having a constant discipline but always get very fun when we are studying, be very creative and have lot of enthusiasm and this is just what BBC do for me. Adittionally, it's very important to have very clear, attainable and motivating goals and a study scheme and then put our shoulder on the wheel. Besides, this wonderful page is very very useful because we can write and practice our writing, we feel excited when our comment is published, that is an incentive to keep writing. Thanks again Simon, you just gave some very handy, motivating and new tips.
Hi Simon, Thank you very much for teaching us how to learn English. I haven't told you that water means money in Cantonese, the language people speak in Hongkong where I was born. I am Chinese but living in Sweden.
Hello Simon! Nia tips are very useful indeed. Anyway, I like the idea of organising the vocabulary around situations and key words. I do have a notebook where I record all the new vocabulary that I come across. However, it´s organised in alphabetical order. From now on Simon I´ll organise my vocabulary in the way you recommended us today. I reckon it´ll be esiaer to me :-). Ooh nooo... do we really have to say good bye? Sob, sob... See ya, Ana Paula.
Hi Simon! Just to inform you, after 21 days of the cure in our spa I am back at work. Happy to find you here yet, reading about your turbulent life and teaching activities, open and provoking thoughts. I´ll study it better later on. In this quick blick over they almost fit with what I am reading in ´All Quiet on the Western Front´, Remarque. I enjoy the language of the book very much and I remember the plot of his books from the past. I think, nobody read such books today for the world couldn´t go the way as it goes. I took the cure going to the spa from my village daily which was almost the pretty same occupation as going to the work. The old small spa with the atmosphere has been changed by a privat owner in to a bussiness with lots of new hotels and wellness and the cured man feels like prefabricated moved piece. The gap in between my presence here was a weird experience as this world wouldn´t exist. I find out it can go so for my world easily, but to discover again that you are here is a good feeling that friends exist. Take care!
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