Language Learning: What should you do in Stage II?

Posted on May 18th, 2010 by Debra

In early stages of English learning, your job is to get the basics of the grammar, learn a few phrases to get by, and pick up some everyday vocabulary. You’re not really expected to say much at first. Just listen and study. However, it’s really tempting to stay in this stage of learning.

Why not? There are so many benefits:

You don’t really have to do much work to listen
Your teachers and classmates are still speaking slowly and clearly
If there’s a word you don’t know, you always have your electronic dictionary to translate

There is a limit, though. Some people stay at this level, and never move up. If you are in the first stage for more than 3-5 months, it’s time to think about moving on to the next stage where you start producing short sentences.

Don’t worry about perfection!

Students want to produce perfect sentences with grammatical accuracy. When you do, you actually make communication worse!

Here’s a tip:

When someone asks what you did this weekend, don’t spend 5 minutes in silence creating the perfect sentence. To really communicate, have a quick, common response so your listener will know you’re engaged. Your only job is to show interest in communicating…and you do this by responding.

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks