HOW TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE?
Are there prerequisites for learning English? There are three such conditions: extensive reading, prolonged viewing of English television or stuff in English posted on video sharing sites, and the last, and probably the most difficult to meet - to reach a level of language proficiency relatively quickly that enables reading, and viewing stuff available in mass media.
Regarding the first and second conditions - it is primarily a matter of reading many thousands of pages without the help of a dictionary and spending hundreds of hours in front of the TV, watching and listening to programs, although not fully understanding them. It should be emphasized: the understanding is to become more and more complete, but not completely complete (one can choose materials that are increasingly difficult). Only in such a situation will we learn to construe messages, only part of which we will immediately understand, guess meanings from the context, derive satisfaction from finding the meaning.
One may ask why so many pages of text, so many hours of viewing and listening. After all, learning a language is not just a mechanical activity - it engages both consciousness and subconsciousness, organizes a slightly different vision of reality. Extensive reading and prolonged viewing of materials posted on the Internet are necessary conditions, which does not mean that they are sufficient. You still need intelligent conversation, reflective study of grammar, practice in the accurate understanding of complex texts, and learning to write.
Understanding a foreign language is usually more difficult than speaking it. Therefore, among other things, the development of perception skills is the foundation of language learning. In addition, it is very convincing to hypothesize that it is only from very broadly developed comprehension skills that the ability to formulate one's own statements grows. The latter certainly does not rely on recall of learned texts. Therefore, it can be described as naive, if not downright absurd, to believe that playing out “practical” dialogues-scenes from a textbook (e.g., “At the bank,” “At the airport,” “At the restaurant” is the optimal way to master the art of conversation.
Learning a language through extensive reading, listening and watching happens naturally - we can read and watch what genuinely interests us, which admittedly (especially at first) can be difficult, but not too difficult. We are aware that we largely control the learning process ourselves. At this stage, Agatha Christie's and John Creasey's detective stories are excellent for reading, although for amateurs of culture at a higher level, for example, Bertrand Russell's beautiful and very simple in style philosophical prose is available. As for television, on the other hand, the easiest to understand is the news, which, by the way, is broadcast (with slight modifications) every hour.
Reading is not a passive activity. It is a creative, transforming a printed piece of paper into a living reality that engages us. The same is true of watching TV broacasts in a foreign language - after all, we are undertaking a journey into another culture. Someone once said after returning from England: It was a fascinating tourist adventure. But linguistically! The English dismissed me with monosyllables and polite smiles. They had no time for me. So I enrolled in a language school. There I just listened to how not to speak English - I had mates from all over the world, and everyone twisted English differently. It was funny. There's probably a bit of a point in that. There are tourists, not knowing the language at all, who do very well, especially if they have money. There are also those who, although they have limited knowledge of the language, are able to enjoy themselves and have fond memories.
It may sound paradoxical, but it is television and now more so the Internet that provides a wide spectrum of meanings and contexts: news, commentary, discussions, plays, films. One can, without leaving one's apartment, participate in all this – in different countries. This does not mean that one day we will not go there to visit friends, study, maybe work. Then everything will be different - we will know the language. Now we are learning it - by reading and watching available stuff.
Now let's move on to the third condition - learning at the elementary level. What can be done to make learning from the very beginning natural, i.e. somehow similar to the learning at the secondary level described above? One thing is certain: the main burden falls on one's own work - work with the teacher is extremely important, but it is only a complement to work outside the classroom. In this situation, the quality of the texts with which we will work becomes particularly important.
Not every realistic text i.e.,linguistically correct and relevant to the assumed situation, is a real text i.e., one that corresponds to the true intentions of the person uttering it. Thus, for example, when we utter texts that a teacher expects us to say, but which we don't really care about, since they bear no relevance to our real life, we are at best participating in the reproduction of “realistic” texts. On the other hand, if we are involved in producing texts that express precisely what we really want to say, we are uttering “real” texts. This applies not only to texts spoken aloud, but also to those thought of while working alone on the language.
Speaking about what we really want to say, at all levels, entails making use of the previously acquired, very broad internal repertoire of language resources. In each language user’s mind these resources form an inventory of means of language expression that includes not only grammar and vocabulary of the language but also a number of elements of various situations. This repertoire builds up in the main by means of understanding a vast body of material. It is the continuous building up of this internal repertoire that may be called the study of language. Having such a repertoire ready to hand a prerequisite for the so-called active use of language (speaking, writing).
Again, this is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Additional activities are needed. The main activity is natural conversation, preferably in the presence of a sympathetic teacher. Among other things, it involves the learner attempting to say what he really wants to say at the moment, using the repertoire of means at his disposal, i.e. everything he has learned so far. He often has difficulties. The teacher's help usually takes one of three forms: simplifying the message, pointing out elements of the repertoire that have not been used, supplementing the repertoire piecemeal. Polish may then also be used. Such procedures can be described as dynamizing the learned repertoire and expanding it slightly. At all times, the teacher is a friendly advisor, and mistakes are never treated as an offense.
It is worth recalling: self-work at the elementary level is primarily listening to recordings and reading texts, which by their nature are able to stimulate the learner's interest, to take the form of their own authentic forms of expression. Speaking of texts for language learning at this level, it is worth adding that in addition to absolute linguistic correctness and English cultural climate, they should be both easy and interesting for a Pole - never infantile. The simplicity of form can and should go hand in hand with the profundity of content.
