This sponsored blog post has been brought to you by Harrow International School Beijing
Teachers love to set quizzes for students and here we have a quiz about learning languages:
True or False:
1. Sitting next to a native speaker will help my child to improve their English.
False! All the research indicates that when a second language speaker speaks with a native speaker then only the native speaker speaks. I notice this when I get into a taxi. My Chinese is not too bad and I often begin a conversation with the taxi driver. The problem is as the conversation goes on the taxi driver speaks more and more and I speak less and less. This is a dreadful situation for a language student. You must speak to improve.
2. When we speak to other language learners we pick up their mistakes.
False! In fact most of our mistakes result from what we call L1 interference. L1 stands for 1st language and this refers to the areas where your first language is different to the language you are learning. An example of this is Chinese people forgetting the ‘s’ on plurals (dogs). This is because there is no ‘s’ or equivalent for most Chinese words.
3. Translating English words to my language is a good idea.
False! Translating is not a good language learning habit. The first problem is that it is very hard to translate some words from one language to another. For example, 麻烦，it is impossible to find a single English word for this. The other thing that is bad about translating is it stops you thinking in English. If you are always flicking backing and forwards between languages you will never be a fluent English speaker.
4. Mistakes always indicate a problem with learning.
False again I’m afraid! Mistakes are a part of the learning process. We particularly make mistakes when we learn a new grammar rule. The reason is we apply it too much. For example, when students learn that it is not ‘He play football,’ but ‘He plays football,’ they tend to put the ‘s’ on everything, ‘They plays’, ‘You plays’ etc. The lesson we should learn from this is that making mistakes may in fact be a sign of having learnt something new.
5. Good teachers are the most important factor when learning a language.
False! Obviously good teachers are important but much more important are good students. The reality is that learning English is a long process and students will have some good teachers and some less good teachers, sometimes perhaps no teachers. If a student has good study habits he or she will survive anything. This is why at Harrow International School Beijing we put a strong emphasis on ‘Behaviour for Learning’ which means we aim to develop good learners who will succeed under any circumstances.
To summarise here are a few tips to remember about being a good language learner: don’t translate, speak with other learners, don’t be afraid of mistakes and most important of all, develop good study habits!
This sponsored blog post has been brought to you by Harrow International School Beijing
Photo courtesy of ilmicrofono.oggiono (Flickr)
