Lesson 19

Summary

The next day, one girl asks our teacher an interesting question. She says, “Thank you for the information which you give us on how to learn English. Can you give us a summary? Can you give us some rules about what we can do every day to learn English well?”

Our teacher says, “OK, I can give you a simple summary.

If you want to speak English well, you need to do 3 things. You have to read, listen and speak. You already have this infomation.

What is important is that you do all these 3 activities the same amount of time. If you don’t do one thing, your progress isn’t usually very good.

From my experience, I can say that it is important to use English every day for 90 minutes. You don’t have to study, but it is good to use English actively.

Now, I will explain every activity in more detail. Let’s start with reading. It is good to read for 30 minutes every day. It is the minimum. Don’t read to study English. Read to get some new information. Read to enjoy an interesting story. I know that I repeat this information again and again but it is really important.

Then, it is good listen to English for 30 minutes every day.

It is good to start to listen to simple audio books or news first. Then you can go to a higher and higher level of books and news. When you know 2000 words, you can start watching films and videos on the Internet.

Then, there is speaking. You already know how important it is to speak when you study English. It is important to speak for 30 minutes every day. Of course, the best is to speak to real people. It can be your teacher, your colleagues or friends. Try to find somebody who is at your level of English or a little better and speak with this person. But if you have nobody to speak to, with shadowing and thinking aloud, you can also get a lot of speaking practise every day. I use these techniques very often when I learn Spanish. I don’t have any native Spanish speakers in my life. I use these two techniques to improve my Spanish.

as you can see, studying English is simple. All you have to do is read, listen and speak. This is all. Now, you know how to do it.”

“Thank you”, says the girl. “This is great information. You are the best.”

I am also very happy that the girl asked this question. It is my last day at school and I needed some summary about what I can do. During the four weeks which I spent with my teacher, I learnt a lot. I also improved my English very much.

My teacher knows that this is my last day at school. She asks me if I want to say something to the other students in the class.

I say that I was very happy to study in this class. I met a lot of nice people. I give everybody my email address and I tell them that they can contact me if they want to. Then I say goodbye to everybody. I am a little sad but I know that I have to continue with my life.

Now, it is one year after my last day at school. I used English every day. I used the techniques from my teacher. Now, I know 4000 words in English. It is great.

I also have a new job. I start to teach English. I teach beginners. They know only 500 words. It is good for me because I know that I need a lot of practise as a teacher before I can teach at higher levels.

I have one great advantage in my new job. I had a great teacher in London. I learnt a lot from her. Now, I am trying to give all what I learnt from my teacher to my students. I want them to be successful too.

When you want to learn English, read, listen and speak. Do each activity for 30 minutes every day.