Last Post : Challenges
LAST BLOG SESSION: Post 10 (week 13): English Language
Challenges
> What comments can you make about your experience learning English at university? What about the use of blogs?> What aspects of your English need to be improved and how do you plan to do this?> Outside the English class, how much are you using English these days? What for? - Wordcount: 260- Make comments on 3 of your partners' posts and also on your teachers'.
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Learning languages seriously and taking responsibility for the process is always something intense and at times, it can get to be a little discouraging or even, one may feel one's not making big progress.
All those are fears, I believe, because just by having the great conviction that one's going to learn and working on it eagerly, will prove that with a little bit of patience a human person can learn anything she or he wants to. The essential foundational idea is that it is never a fast and short process, all the contrary; it requires lots of time and inner motivation.
The learning barrier I most often perceive among my students is anxiety and shyness, many of them can understand quite a lot but when it comes to expressing themselves, they just cannot put their ideas forward, either for being shy or for feeling they are going to make a mistake, particularly, they think they are not able to properly pronounce. If we look at these situations, the solution is very simple.
I think that to learn more, my students need to lose their fear to speaking and interacting in English, and the way I see it, it will improve when everybody realizes that having a good accent, pronunciation or even, having a perfect grammar are not the most important aspects of language needed for communication, and that if they just spoke and put their language knowledge into practice (however extensive or minimal), they would certainly open up a door which leads to nowhere else than to communication. Now I wonder, Is there, at all, a better language learning environment than meaningful real life practice?. And furthermore, where can we get such practice in our monolingual context?
> What comments can you make about your experience learning English at university? What about the use of blogs?> What aspects of your English need to be improved and how do you plan to do this?> Outside the English class, how much are you using English these days? What for? - Wordcount: 260- Make comments on 3 of your partners' posts and also on your teachers'.
All those are fears, I believe, because just by having the great conviction that one's going to learn and working on it eagerly, will prove that with a little bit of patience a human person can learn anything she or he wants to. The essential foundational idea is that it is never a fast and short process, all the contrary; it requires lots of time and inner motivation.
The learning barrier I most often perceive among my students is anxiety and shyness, many of them can understand quite a lot but when it comes to expressing themselves, they just cannot put their ideas forward, either for being shy or for feeling they are going to make a mistake, particularly, they think they are not able to properly pronounce. If we look at these situations, the solution is very simple.
I think that to learn more, my students need to lose their fear to speaking and interacting in English, and the way I see it, it will improve when everybody realizes that having a good accent, pronunciation or even, having a perfect grammar are not the most important aspects of language needed for communication, and that if they just spoke and put their language knowledge into practice (however extensive or minimal), they would certainly open up a door which leads to nowhere else than to communication. Now I wonder, Is there, at all, a better language learning environment than meaningful real life practice?. And furthermore, where can we get such practice in our monolingual context?
you're right, it is difficult to find other places or times where we are "forced" to speak in english, I think that the faculty should have other spaces where they can talk, perhaps without having the pressure of the marks.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the comment above, even could have some subjects related to careers, but dictated in English..
ReplyDeletefor me lose the fear of speaking in english its hard becouse I never do that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the post, i think that is a personal challenge to explore some frontiers behind the discurses. I also try the same
ReplyDeletebesides shyness I would say the lack of opportunities to test our speaking skills is a relevant factor, if we could expose ourselvers more to that type of situations we would get used to and would get ride of the fear of failure / wrong pronunciation.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that fear of failing is often an impediment to expressing oneself in another language :c
ReplyDeleteCHECKED.
ReplyDelete