Me…. English…. Fantastic!     ….this book….all!…… I know.

A lot of students want to learn English as quickly as possible and, of course, we like our students to be ambitious and to push themselves. The only problem is that learning a language is not the same as learning Mathematics. Once you learn how to calculate the area of a circle, you can do it every time perfectly. You may make mistakes sometimes but basically, you just apply the formula to the problem and you get the answer. You can say that you know how to calculate the area of a circle and you are ready to progress to the next thing, maybe the area of a cone.

Learning a language is not the like that. Maybe, you are in a pre-intermediate class  and you’ve been in it for 3 weeks. You understand the grammar well, you can do the exercises quite easily, you follow the reading texts and you feel that you are one of the strongest students in the class.

So, you think that you should move up to the next level; the intermediate class. This would be fine if you were learning Maths, but languages are different. The difference is that using a language is a skill, not just a list of facts and ideas to learn. And this means that you need to practice it and be able to use it in a quick, relaxed and  flexible way. All circles are the same but all situations and meanings are different.

Learning a language is like learning to drive. In your second or third driving lesson , you can probably turn right at a roundabout. You won’t hit any other cars or crash into the wall but it will be very difficult, you will be nervous and hesitant and you won’t do it very well.  What you need is more practice so that you can do it smoothly and without too much stress. Also, each time you turn right at a roundabout is a little bit different, you may be behind a bus or maybe there’s a cyclist next to you. If you can handle these differences in a safe and relaxed  way, then you can say that  you truly know how to turn right at a roundabout.

It’s the same with language. You need to be able to use the past continuous in positives, negatives and questions, say it correctly, not think for 3 seconds in the middle of the sentence and know when to use it and when not to use it. Then you can say that you know the past continuous.  And it’s not just a question of grammar and vocabulary. Your general ease and fluency needs to improve too so that you are not always trying very hard to understand and speak in any situation.

In work or in academic studies, it’s often a bad thing to be in a comfort zone. In language learning, it’s a positively beneficial thing, you need to go through periods in your comfort zone.  Maybe, you are not learning a great deal of new language (you can always learn vocabulary) but you are becoming more fluent, you can say more things about more topics in more different ways, it’s not painful to be in a conversation. Being able to listen and understand without too much effort and reading quicker; this is also progress. If you want to go up to next class too soon, you will miss this stage of your language development. Remember, it’s not Maths.

I thought you might be interested in seeing the set of ideas that underline our teaching philosophy at UIC. We give this to our teachers to think about when they start teaching with us. Reading tem might give you a good idea of what to expect in the classroom at UIC.

1. If the students can do it, let them. They can and should correct, help, give examples, agree or disagree with and explain things to each other.

2. Students learn when trying to negotiate meaning with others. The most memorable language learning experiences come when you are trying and managing to express some idea to someone else.

3. People naturally learn meaning so record new language meaningfully. This means not just isolated words on the board but words in meaningful phrases.

4. Even advanced students need to repeat new vocabulary and have meaning and use checked.

5. Higher level students should be collectors of expressions and collocations. It is these native speaker phrases which give them the bridge from very good speakers to native speakers.

6. Thinking time and inner rehearsal create better quality and quantity of authentic language. Give students a chance to think through what they are going to say before they say it. This gives them confidence.

7. Active participation in learning leads to learning more. So keep the students busy in class and they should always listen to other students as well as to you.

8. You always get better the second time you do something so task repetition is key. We should often ask students to tell 2 other students about the place they live, not just one.

9. You should help students to notice the natural language you or others use. Monitor yourself for useful, accessible bits of language that the students could learn.

10. It’s almost impossible to over-repeat concept and use definition.  Meaning is the most important thing in language; every utterance begins with an idea. We should make sure students can label their ideas properly.

11. Connected Speech pronunciation can help not only pronunciation but listening, fluency and general confidence. Don’t be afraid to do some choral drilling.

Spelling is one of the key ways to improve your English language. Unlike most European languages, English words are not always spelt the way they sound which is why most students find it difficult to spell words in English. There are also many silent letters that make it more difficult for students who are learning English. Below are some examples of type of words that are confusing because they may have the same sound but different spelling or same spelling but different sound. Try to find more examples of these types of words and see for yourself how spelling and pronunciation make a difference!

HOMONYMS are words that sound alike but have different meanings.
Example:
fair (appearance)
fair (reasonable)

HOMOPHONES are a type of homonym that also sound alike and have different
meanings, but have different spellings.
Example:
pear (fruit)
pair (couple)

HOMOGRAPHS are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.
Example:
lie (lie down)
lie (not true)

HETERONYMS are a type of homograph that are also spelled the same and have different meanings, but sound different.
Example:
tear (in the eye)
tear (rip)

And how to ask…

Lots of students get quite confused about how to ask questions in English. It’s true that it is a little bit more complex than in many other languages. For example, in Spanish, if you want to ask if John likes sausages, you  simply say ‘John like sausages? ‘ with your voice going up at the end. If you want to know where John lives, it’s  ‘where lives John?’ – difficult?, no.

It’s not so simple in English but most students get used to using ‘do’ or ‘did’ in questions fairly easily so they can ask;  ‘ Where did you go last night?’, ‘How much does it cost?’ or ‘ Does John like sausages?’.

Ah but imagine if you had a group of people and you had to give them lunch. You speak to the whole group and ask a question, is it:

1. Who does like sausages?

2. Who does sausages like?

3. Who likes sausages?

Well, it’s ‘c’, if you ask that question, you’ll see some arms up and some people will say ‘ I like sausages’. Why no ‘does’? because the answer to ‘who’ in this question is ‘I’; it’s the subject of the sentence, it’s the person who ‘likes’ something. It’s not the thing that he likes. So ‘I’ can replace ‘who’.

Imagine there are 3 people in a tragic love triangle; John, Janet and Charles.

John loves Janet but Janet loves Charles and Charles? He loves John. Oh dear.

So, janet is the thing that John loves so we ask ‘Who does John love?’ and the answer is Janet. Janet is the object of the sentence and when we ask about that, we use ‘does/did’ etc in the sentence.  Janet doesn’t love John unfortunately but John is not so unhappy, somebody loves him. But who? ‘Who loves John?’ – Charles, Charles loves John.

So now, answer these questions;

Who loves Charles?

Who does Charles love ?

Who loves Janet?

Who do you love?

Who loves you?

I hope you can answer the last question.

A question I am often asked by UIC students, is one about formal English Language exams, and the best one to take.  Students are sometimes confused by the differences between the Cambridge exams (First Certificate and the Advanced) and the IELTS exams.  I have drawn up a few key facts about each, which should make the decision a little easier to make.

Wendy, Feb 6, 2013

You are sitting at a table of a café or a pub in the UK.  There are some empty seats at the table.  Someone comes up to your table, looks at a chair and asks “Is anyone sitting there?”.  Your first reaction could be to worry for his sanity but you can relax, he’s not crazy. He’s just asking you if it’s OK for him to sit down or to take the chair away. He could also ask: “Excuse me, can I take this chair?” or “is it alright to sit here?”.

The person is  being polite and following a complex etiquette that we have established in public places.  One of the rules says that if someone is sitting at a table, then it is his table. You have to ask permission to do anything with that table. Even if he is not eating anything, somebody will ask his  permission to take the salt away. Of course, he  will nearly always  sa y yes to these requests  but he must ask first.There is only one grey area* in this set of rules. You arrange to meet your friends in a pub. You arrive but  your friends haven’t arrived yet. It is OK to hold/keep/look after the chairs on your table. If someone asks you, you can say “I’m sorry, I’m waiting for some people” or ” Sorry, some people are just coming”. This is Ok but not for too long. After about 10 minutes, you’ll start to notice some cold stares from people and  your British guilt gene will be flashing a warning light in your head. Quite soon, and especially if there are people standing up, you will need to let them sit down and give up your friends’ chairs.

You can stay sitting on your chair but your friends will have to stand up when they arrive. It’s their own fault for being late! This is the UK after all; land of punctuality and politeness.

*a grey area = a situation where the right thing to do isn’t clear. You need to judge it yourself. In other situations, we can say that it’s just ‘black and white’ which means that it’s very clear what’s right or wrong.

So, you want to come to England and learn English in a school. It seems a very simple idea; you apply, the school  tests you, they put you in the right level and then you go to the school and start the course.

Ah but these days, you have to know what kind of English you want to learn. You have to be able to navigate a world of acronyms to decide on the right course for you. Do you want ESL , EFL or ESOL? Do you need EAL, EAP or maybe ESP? And a salad with that, maybe?

Ok, I’ll explain.

EFL means “English as a Foreign Language.”
Students of EFL, like the students at UIC,  usually learn English in an English –speaking country like the UK.  Often, they are people who enrol in language courses, either in London or in their home country, as they need English to get a better job or to travel.

ESOL is “English to Speakers of Other Languages.”
ESOL students tend to study English in an FE college in the UK. FE I hear you ask? “Further  Education.” They are usually individuals who have left their native countries to emigrate to the UK and need the language to live here.

EAL is “English as an Additional Language.”
Learners of EAL are normally bi-lingual and speak English and another language equally well.

EAP is for people who need English to study at university.
It stands for “English for Academic Purposes” and is also known as “Academic  English.”

And ESP? There’s one for you to go and find out yourself! Let us know when you find the answer.

Or maybe, you’re interested in taking an exam. So what will it be… TOEIC, TOEFL, FCE, CAE or maybe IELTS?

Enough already! It may be time to form SAPALT…

The Society Against the Proliferation of Acronyms in Language Teaching.