英语学习者面临三大挑战

1、英语学习者面临三人挑战!Three biggest challenges facingan English learner1. Developing a passion for learning EnglishAIIEnglish learners would like to speak English well. They are excited at the ideaof being able to com muni catein En glish flue ntly. However, theyusually dontcareabout the lear ning process its

2、elf. For most lear ners, lear ning En glish isa dutysomething that they have to, but don t want to do. They don t seepleasure inlearning En glish.In short,most learners would like to speak English well butdont like to belearningEn glish. This is the first and biggest problem facing an En glish learn

3、er,because a person who doesnt like to learn English will not learn it well.Ifyou dont love English, English wont love you back!If youwant to become a successful learner, you need to like the learning processitself. You need to treat timespent on English as time for pleasure an drelaxati on. For exa

4、mple, you n eed to enjoy:readi ng En glish senten ces and thin ki ng abouttheir structurelear ning new words from a dictio narywriting a correct English sentence byconsulting dictionaries,grammar guides, and the Webpractici ng the pronun ciati on of En glish soun dsa nd wordsIdeally,lear ning En gli

5、sh should be your hobby. You should think of yourself as anEn glish Lear nera pers onwho has chose n lear ning En glish as one of theirfavorite activities.2. Making the first change to ones lifeThe decision to learn English requires changes in your life. For example,decid in gthat one will read a bo

6、ok in En glish for 30 minu tes every day and keep ing tothat decisi on .Itsvery difficult to make a small, but perma nent cha nge toyour life,especially if learni ng English doesnt seem“fun”. However, learnersshould remember that study ing En glishfor 15 minu tes every day gives you muchbetter resul

7、ts tha n study ing for a whole day once a mon th.3. Making further changes toones lifeWhile thefirst cha nge is the most difficult, each subseque nt one is hard, too. A lot oflear ners take the first step(e.g. they start read ing a book in En glish everyday) and stop there. They do not en gage in ot

8、her En glish-building activities.A goodlearner will have a set of activities (reading, watching TV, practicingpronunciation, listening to record ings,etc.) and choose from that setaccord ing to his or her mood. One activity is not good eno ugh, because (1) yougetbored more quickly, and (2) it gives

9、you a range of Ian guage skills that istypically too narrow. For example,reading in English can t improveyourpr onun ciati on, although it can improve your grammar, vocabulary, readingcomprehension, and writingskills.)Why we don t like English classes我们为什么不喜欢英语课En glishclasses are the most popular w

10、ay in which people study En glish. They are soamaz in gly popular thatmost people do not even think abouthow to lear n En glish . Theprocess is automatic: I want to lear n En glish, so I sig n up for an En glish course. I will paysome mon ey, sit inclass for a few hours a week, and I will get good E

11、n glish.This isvery surpris ing, because En glishclasses are a very poor way of lear ning En glish. We have spe nt alargepart of our lives in En glish classes (in high school, college, and atla nguage schools), and we know what theyare like. With all our kno wledge ofEn glish classes and courses, we

12、 would be surprised if we met a pers on whohaslear ned to speak En glish very well by going to En glish classes.If youattend English classes, you spend many hours a week on them. Often, you alsospe nd lots of your mon ey.What do you get for your time and mon ey? Hereis what you can do at an En glish

13、class:?Listen to some bad English. Thepronunciation , grammar,and vocabulary of other students (and sometimes the teacher, too) will be bad.Sometimes as bad as this , or worse. Surely listening to these people will not make yourEnglish better.?Say five sen ten ces in En glish. There are usually 10-2

14、0 stude nts in theclass, so there is little time for you to speak En glish. Normal En glish classes are verypoor speak ing practice. (Conv ersati on classes are better.)?Read a boring textbook . Almost all English teachers use textbooks .Want to know why? Because it makes their work easier. They don

15、to prepare for every class. They just do the n ext unit in thebook. Textbooks make teaching easy. And they make learningboring andin effective. You have to read stupid stories about Michael Jacks on or a woma nwho lived in Africa n jun gle for two years. Then you have to an swer questi onsabout them

16、 and talk about them with other stude nts. This is madness! All thisnonsense that you don t care about.you think that learning English isboring .?Liste n to a few grammar rules, such asthe prese nt continu ous tense isused for talking about developing and changing situations”. Learninggrammar rules

17、is the stupidest thing you can do. The two main reasons:t haveIt makes1) It is impossible to memorize all those hundreds of grammar rules any way, 2) Whenspeak ing En glish, you don t have time toWhiak:tense should I use? Lets see. I want to present the idea of action continuing up to thepresent tim

18、e, so I should use the present perfect tense.”You want to use your Englishnaturally. Grammar rules may improve your scores in tests, but they do not improveyour En glish.?Do some grammar exercises. After talki ng about grammar rules, teachers usually giveyou some exercises, such as multiple choice o

19、r gap filli ng tests. Grammar exerciseshave two fun cti ons: 1) they make you review the grammar rules, 2) they test yourEnglish. The first function is useless because grammar rules are useless (see previoussecti on). The sec ond fun cti on, testi ng, is okay if you want to compare your knowledge wi

20、th other people. But testi ng does not teach you any En glish.?Get a homework assig nment. The homework is usually a grammar exercise (seeprevious sect ion) or a compositi on . The subject of the composition will usually besomething that you don t care about.Examples: Your opinion on the proverb“Blo

21、od is thicker tha n waterit good to be famous? . What nonsense. Doing boring things is not going to help yourEnglish. It will only decrease yourmotivation .En glishclasses will not teach yougood pronun ciati on(whichis simply n ecessary forcom muni catio n!). Most teachers completely ignore it,somet

22、imes because theirown pronunciation is bad. Some teachers will correct your mistakeswhen you speak. But very few teachers willtell you how you can avoid makin gthe same mistakes aga in. Very few teachers will tell you about the soundsofEnglish and how to use a dictionary to learn about the pronuncia

23、tion of words.Mostteachers will not en courageyou to read in En glish, to buy agood En glish-E nglishdictio nary , to liste n to En glish-la nguage record in gs on your own. They will just do their textbook and theexercises in it. If your teacher isdifferent, you are lucky.This iswhat most En glish

24、classes look like. Think about your classes. If they are likethatbori ng and in effectivethe n you are simply wast ing yourtime. (Dont worry: you arenot alone. Milli ons of people around the world wastetheir time by going to En glish classes, even though they donot improve theirE nglish.) You can re

25、place in effective and bori ng classes with in teresti ng things which willreallyimprove your En glish:?In stead of liste ning to bad En glish in the classroom, turn on your TVand watch CNN Intern ati onal or ano ther En glish-la nguage cha nn el. You will get lotsof perfect senten ces in excelle nt

26、 En glish.?In stead of sitti ng for two hours to say five sen ten ces in En glish, sig n upfor a conversation class with a native speaker . Or start speaking English with your bestfrie nd.?In stead of work ing with a bori ng textbook , read somethi ng in teresti ng.There are so many in teresti ng te

27、xts in En glish! Surf to En glish-la nguagesites on the Web. Read a good book in En glish. Simply, read somethi ng that interestsyou. Something that won t bore you to death.?In stead of memoriz ing grammar rules and doing grammar exercises,read and liste n to En glish. In put is the on ly way to lea

28、r n impressive , natural En glish.?In stead of writi ng compositi ons about the subject that your teacher gave you, writeabout somethi ng that you care about. For example, write some e-mail in En glish. Dont writefor your teacherwrite for yourself!You can damage your English bywriting and speaking写英

29、语说英语有可能毁掉你的英语How practice can damage your EnglishIf you ask“How can I learn to speak English better?”, many people will tell youpractice, practice”.“Speak and write in English whenever you can”,theyll say.classes are full of activities which in volve speak ingand writi ng. You produce sentences whe

30、n you do anexercise in your textbook,whe n your teacher makes you speak in class, or whe n you have to write acomposition. All these activities are supposed to help you with your En glish.Practicecan be very useful. Its even necessary to learn English well. So whatThe problem is that for many lear n

31、ers, speak ing or writ ing means making alot of mistakes . Some people makea mistake in every sentence!Supposeyou are writing an e-mail message in English. Your English is not perfect andyou want to write themessage quickly. You write (in correctly):I want speak En glish .When youwrite a senten ce,

32、you also read it. So the in correct sentence becomestoxic in put”for your brai n. The next time you write a message, you will be more likely towrite I want finish or Iwant be happy . Why? Because I want speak Englishis freshiny our head you recen tly used it! And whe n you writeI want a fewmore time

33、s, youll gbad habit: I wantwill become your natural way ofspeak ing En glish.Such bad habits can be very difficult to elim in ate. Even if somebodylater points outyourmistake and you concentrate very hard to avoid making it again, the bad habitis often stronger. Its aiphillbattle .Every timeyou writ

34、e or speak with mistakes, you reinforce thosemistakes. As you repeat your mistakes, youdevelop bad habits. If you make alot of mistakes, practice becomes a harmful activity because it teachesyoumore bad En glish tha n good En glish. Some learners make so many mistakes thatthe more they practice,the

35、worse their En glish becomes!Practice,All En glishs theprobleWhat about“learning from your mistakes”?The onl yway you can lear n someth ing from your mistakes is whe n somebody corrects them.lf you say an incorrect sentence, and if some one poi nts out the mistake an dtells you the proper way to exp

36、ress your meaning,the n your kno wledge ofEn glish in creases.You maytherefore think that speaking or writing with mistakes is not so bad because itis a cha nee to fix yourerrors and lear n somethi ng n ew. Unfortun ately, this istrueon ly if youhave a checkera compete nt pers on who will correct yo

37、ur mistakes. If youdont have achecker, speaking or writing with mistakes will only give you bad habits.If yourethinkinghtat an English teacher couldbe your checker, consider this:Many teachers (especially non-n ative speakers)are simplyin compete nt. Sometimes they will find“errors”in correct senten

38、cebad alter natives. I could n t count the nu mber of times it happe nedto mehigh school.Most teachers correct only the biggest mistakesa nd ignore the rest.The reason is simple: class time is limited. If theycorrected every mistake of everystudent, they wouldn t be able to teach theirlessons. You c

39、ould geiskind of private tutor, but how much would it costto have him correct everyth ing youwrite and say in En glish?What about rndomnative speakers”? This category includes any native speakerswho are not yourteachers: your America n frien ds, Australia n pen pals, n ativespeakers on Internet foru

40、ms, or justregular people around you, if you are inan En glish-speak ing coun try. Can they be effective checkers?Notlikely. In gen eral,n ative speakers will not correct your mistakes!As long asthey can understand what you mean, they will completely ignore allyour mistakes in grammar,vocabulary and

41、 pronun ciatio n. For example, themessage below is perfectly un dersta ndable andcould easily pass un corrected:I am want make questi on for knowing how to able speak En glish proper way.I need ofa internet learn book for American word of slang. I will thank yourhelp for life.Why isthat?As a case in

42、 poin t, I get a lot of e-mail from En glishlear ners. I love En glish and I likecorrect ing mistakes. But I almost n everpo int out mistakes. Why? Because if I did, it would ofte ntake me 10 moreminu tes to reply to a message. And I usually donmi nu tes.Correct ing mistakes requires not on ly great

43、E nglish skills. To correct some one, youhave to pay atte nti on to what he saysor writes. If somethi ng is wrong, you have to thi nk of abetter way to sayit. Correcti on takes time an deffort . And people are lazy and don thave the time to fix some oneelsessentences. Its much easier to ignore the m

44、istakfesepnd theconversation going .Its always stressful to tell some one that theymade a mistake. Many nativespeakers will be afraid of an awkward socialsituation and when you make a mistake, they willprete nd that nothing hashappe ned. Some of them will eve n think they are being polite.sor sugges

45、tnt have 10 moreis not eno ugh you still n eed some on eto give youfeedback . And itis difficult to find acompete nt pers on to help you.Besides,eve n if you had such a pers on available whe never you speak or write inEn glish,mak ing mistakes would probably still be harmful, since mistakes can lead

46、 to badhabits even if they are corrected.The sooner you realize you cannot“speak your way”to goodE nglish, thesooner you will make some real progress.Solution: Stop making mistakes!We havesaid that whe n you practice, you rei nforce your mistakes, and that you cannotrely on feedback fromother people

47、.We have also said that you need practice to lear n En glish.There is asimple solution to thisparadox : Never makemistakes! Before you concludethat we havecompletely lost it , pleaseread what Michal has written about his experiences: It is close to the truth that I haven everwritte n an in correct E

48、n glish sentence.I knew many grammatical structures and I usedonly those that I knew. My sentences were similar to sentences which I knewto be correct.I followed good examples,so all myse ntences were good.In the begi nnin g, I could write only verysimple senten ces, but all the simple sentences wer

49、e correct. Then as Iadva need, Iadded more and more complicated structures, and aga in all myse ntences were correct.Because of this approach, I was n everre inforcing bad habits. I n ever had any badhabits! From the beginning,Icopied only correct sentences. With every sentence thatI wrote, I rein f

50、orcedmy good habits.You can speak and write with almost no mistakes, too.FAQBut if Im afraid to make amistake, I will never open my mouth!”You will not be afraid to make a mistake if you know how to say things in En glish. Youwill know how to saythings in En glish if you get eno ugh in putthat is, i

51、f you keep readi ng and liste ning to correct En glish sentences untilcorrect En glish phrases sound n atural to you and in correct phrases sound weirdto you. Then you will be sure that youngcorrectly.I make a lot mistakes whe n Ispeak En glishwhat should I do?”1.Defin itely get a lot of in put . If

52、 youmake mistakes in your En glishsentences, that means you don t know how to saythings in English. You needto learn how to say them. You won t learn that byspeaking or wYktinig.must read and liste n to correct En glishse nten ces.There is no otherway.2.Try to be more carefuluse the rules of error-free speak ing .Ifre speakiLear ning from your mistakessounds good, butit is not easy, because making mistakesyoustill make a lot of mistakes, you probably shou