Image belongs to bettybraun
I’ll start this post by listing several advantages of learning English:
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As a computer programmer, I need up-to-date, original information, and almost 100% of the time that information is in English.
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In IT, if I’m fluent in English and write well, I can get a remote job—working from home for a company in another country and earning a very good salary. Many Brazilians are already working this way.
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The opportunity to discover a new culture and interact with new ways of seeing the world.
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The wonderful feeling of being able to speak fluently with a native English speaker.
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The wonderful feeling of being able to watch a movie in English without any subtitles.
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The opportunity to sell products you’ve created in another country and get high-quality contacts and support thanks to your fluency.
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Levy says that we generally have a larger goal, and English is the means of reaching it.
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Henrique talks about the advantages of learning English, even if you don’t use it every day.
Now I’ll continue this post with another question: Why not learn English?
Image credit: helgabj
I ask because if I’m wondering why I should learn English, it must be because I’m seeing learning as a burden, an extra weight, torture—something boring and exhausting, with no chance of motivating me.
Coincidentally, that’s exactly how we’re made to feel for years when we’re exposed to traditional English-learning methods. In a traditional classroom, the teacher spends almost the entire lesson speaking Portuguese (in Brazil) about a particular English verb (to be), asks you to write some sentences using the verb, explains the tense and grammar rules, and asks you to repeat the sentence a few times. You leave class and look at yourself in the mirror to find out whether you’re really a human being or a robot, because the lesson seems a lot like an algorithm, a more formal kind of language that we use with machines (programming). The cycle repeats, and after a while we have to take a test to see whether we’ve learned the whole “algorithm” properly. :(
As I said in another post, this isn’t a natural method. That’s why it makes people feel obligated, burdened, and bored. Of course it also creates anxiety and mental blocks, and it’s extremely inefficient when it comes to becoming fluent in English. And that is the answer to the last question about why not to learn English: so you don’t have to endure the embarrassment and discomfort of traditional classes.
After all these years of being bombarded with dull, boring, and ineffective lessons, people forget—or perhaps never realize—that, in addition to the many opportunities we saw at the beginning of this post, learning English really can be fun and enjoyable. That’s right: FUN AND ENJOYABLE! :)
To make that happen, we need to get out, break away, and leave traditional teaching methods behind, because they’re responsible for our discouragement. They force us to make unnecessary, unnatural efforts that don’t contribute to fluency.
Image credit: Incase Designs
When we were babies, our parents didn’t bring us pencils and textbooks so we could communicate with them. They simply played with us and spoke to us in their native language. We listened and interacted with them within our limits, and they still loved us and kept making us laugh. Does that seem obvious now? Exactly. So we need to recreate the enjoyable experience our parents gave us as we learned to speak our native language. Okay, Valério, how can we do that?
I’ll sum up what we should look for in one sentence. That’s right, together we’ll finally escape the nightmare of traditional methods. Phew!
###The key is to listen to interesting, comprehensible audio repeatedly.
Now let’s look at a few tips:
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To find audio, look for podcasts by native English speakers. Remember that the podcasts should be interesting and comprehensible: you have to like the subject and understand at least 80% of the audio; otherwise, it won’t stick. This takes personal effort, since everyone has their own tastes and interests. Levy shares some great podcast tips in this post.
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Another helpful tip is to try talking with native speakers using Paltalk.
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Akita talks about what he had to overcome to become fluent in English, and the advantages the internet offers, in his controversial post, “Be Arrogant!"
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If you’re looking for a more structured approach and don’t have the patience to search for interesting podcasts, you can also get the innovative English course created by A.J.: Effortless English. It’s paid, but it was a great investment for me. I hope it will be for you too.
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Guilherme Chapienwski shares his thoughts in the post: How’s your English?
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Vinicius Teles adds his thoughts here.
Have you thought about all the interesting things you’ll be able to do once you know English—and now that you know you can learn it in a more natural and enjoyable way? It’s up to you now!
I hope you enjoyed the post. If you have questions, tips, or suggestions, leave a comment.
Best wishes.
Advertising: ####If you’d like to get the Effortless English course, click the link below: Click here to visit the Effortless English LLC website!
Curiosity: The first photo has the German phrase “Noch Fragen?” which means “Any questions?”