howisalanguagelearned朱太印

How Is a Language Learned
For language learners, it is not easy to learn a language without a good environment. For example, in this essay, the author and his/her friends “think” they have known English. When arrived in London, they cannot understand a single word of native speakers, even if they have translated a book from English into Russian. They can read without difficulty, but they cannot speak English. They learn English under the non-linguistic context, and they understand it in their own ways, even having no knowledge of what is the real language. Therefore, under the English environment, it is certain that they cannot comprehend what are the native speakers talking about.
From this essay, we can draw a conclusion that language context is very vital. There is no doubt that a good language environment makes language learning easier. However, how to learn a language without the corresponding context Sometimes, because of the economic factors, not all the language learners have opportunities to learn a language under the linguistic context. For example, in China, there are millions of students learning English. How is English learned for those who have no opportunity to go abroad
Combining with what I have learned from this class, I will give my suggestions mainly from teaching aspects. I will elaborate how is English learned from listening, pronunciation, vocabulary aspects. In my opinion, listening is an essential step of learning a language. Imitating native speakers’pronunciation is the second course of learning. Vocabulary is basis of a language. Therefore, I will give my answer from these 3 aspects.
First, listening is extremely vital in the process of learning a language. For those who have no access to enter the English language context, listening to tapes is quite a good way to improve listening skills. However, listening to tapes is much more difficult than listening to a native speaker face-to-face. There are many reasons for this---some to do with the technical changes in sound made by the machine, some much more straightforward--- you cannot see the speaker’s facial expression, or watch lip movements ,and most importantly of all, you cannot interrupt and ask for a repeat or clarification. All these reasons make listening difficult and extremely demanding.
Then, how to improve listening skills by listening to tapes I will give my suggestions from teaching. Teachers should
direct students’listening before they listen. It is artificially difficult to ask students to do listening practices without providing them with preparation which will allow them to use anticipation. Before listening to a tape, teachers should take many factors into consideration: the level of difficulty of the material, the students’ language level and their comprehension ability. Firstly, teachers should give some kind of general, thematic introduction and the students should be told“what it is about”; secondly, teachers should give some kind of guidance on the structure of what they are going to hear. This is done most effectively by giving them two or three questions in the correct order before they listen, so that the basic sequence of ideas mentioned in the tape is clear to them. Thirdly, it may also be very helpful to do vocabulary exercises, for example, asking students to call to mind words which are suggested by a particular topic; or even to provide examples of vocabulary or rhetorical devices which occur in the listening material. All of these make listening material easier for students. Listening skills can be developed more efficiently if students’interest and linguistic expectations are aroused in advance.
After the preparation and direction of listening,
teachers can give “the real things” to students. Listen to the materials several times according to students comprehension ability. How to check whether language learners understand the materials or not Do not ask them such questions: “did you understand this material”. It is too general for language learners to answer it. Teachers can put forward questions as following. What is the general meaning of the material Do you understand the speaker’s intention What is the speaker’s attitude Then, put forward questions about specific details. Check a specific piece of pre-knowledge against the material. By raising such questions, teachers can have a clear understanding of students’ comprehension level about this listening material. S tudents’listening skills will be improved more efficiently if teachers aim to teach sub-skills as well as global listening comprehension.
Listening is a kind of input of language learning, and speech work is a kind of output of language learning. Accurate pronunciation is an important step for language learners. As the above forms, I will elaborate how to help students speak well from teaching aspect. Pronunciation does matter. As we all know, bad pronunciation can be a serious block to communication. However, it is certainly neither necessary nor desirable that
many learners should achieve native speaker pronunciation. There is something slightly absurd about learners spending hours perfecting “ a standard accent”. Try to present a standard model for pronunciation and make sure that students’approximations of it are consistent and intelligible, but do not expect them to reproduce it exactly. Pronunciation is important, but teachers should not set such a high standard for pronunciation that students cannot achieve it, even the learners themselves should not pay too much attention to the sounds. The main criteria for pronunciation are consistency and intelligibility.
How to pronounce well Teachers should give an accurate and correct pronunciation, and then language learners should imitate as much as possible. In the process of learning, teachers can use choral pronunciation form. The technique or choral pronunciation, in which all the students of the class repeat simultaneously, is used a lot in classes. Choral pronunciation serves to bring the class together and to re-focus students’attention on the teacher after some activity where their attention has been elsewhere. In addition, it is useful not only in bringing a class together, but in taking the pressure off individuals. A language learner who is relaxed
is more likely to learn well than one who is tense and self-conscious. When new language items are introduced, it is usually a good idea for the teacher to say these first and invite students as a whole to repeat. Choral pronunciation, if well used, is fun, lively, increases the pace of the lesson, and helps language learners to relax. In the form of choral pronunciation, language learners can master pronunciation more quickly. Furthermore, they can learn a language faster.
No one would deny the importance of vocabulary in learning a language. Language learners hold a strong belief that a foreign language is nothing more than using new words for old things. They should believe that languages do not consist of “words”with equivalents from one language to the other. It is exceptionally rare for a word in one language to have a direct equivalent in another.
There are thousands of words in a language. How to memorize them Is there any short cut to achieve this goal There is no short cut of memorizing vocabulary, but it does have methods. If sorted into groups, words are easier to memorize. Awareness of certain kinds of relationship makes learning vocabulary simpler for language learners. Words are often best learned in groups: synonyms, antonyms, complements, converses and
hyponyms. Let me give you several examples. Single and married are a group of incompatible words, and the meaning of one depends directly on the meaning of the other. For example, employers and employee are converses. They are best memorized together. Car, van, bus, lorry are hyponyms of vehicle. It would be easier to memorize them together. These are some methods of memorizing vocabulary. How about knowing a word “Knowing” a vocabulary item is not a simple process. For language learners, they need to know the contexts in which a vocabulary item can occur, the possible and impossible collocation of the word as well as more details of the connotational meaning of the word. If a learner masters all of these, he /she knows this word very well. This is how is a language learned by learning vocabulary.
In conclusion, a language can be learned by listening to taps, imitating native speaker s’pronunciation and memorizing vocabulary as many as possible. It is certain that there are better ways of learning a language. I just give my suggestions mainly from teaching aspects. Not only language learner themselves, but also English teachers can also play their roles in the process of English learning. I do hope my shallow advice can make a little difference for language learners.。