#8 Learn how to learn: Reciting (yodlash)

❓Reciting is a traditional way to learn a language but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. How to use it efficiently?

1️⃣ Less is more. You don’t have to recite lots of texts but do it well.

2️⃣ Reciting grammar rules or random written texts doesn’t move you and you can’t develop your feeling for the language in this way. Choose spoken texts like speeches, poems or song lyrics instead.

3️⃣ Choose texts that you find attractive and imitate. By reciting you make a text your own, and that’s not a small decision.

4️⃣ Make sure you understand the meaning of what you recite. When you don’t understand there is no language learning benefit.

5️⃣ Practice not only your fluency but also your intonation, your vocabulary and even your grammar.

❗️Reciting words one by one is not a very efficient kind of activity. But if we use reciting in a more personal and exciting way it can greatly help us learn a language.


👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#9 Learn how to learn: Grammar

❓English grammar isn’t that difficult but we still struggle. How can we learn grammar more cleverly?

1️⃣ Know what you want. Knowing 16 tenses is amazing but can you use them? And are tenses really so important? What about articles, prepositions, ‘to be’, plural, …

2️⃣ Stop separating. We learn grammar rules and vocabulary and then just put them together, right? Wrong! It doesn’t work like that. We learn pieces of language as a whole.

3️⃣ Keep an open eye for grammar. When you watch or read something there are ways to learn grammar “on the go”. We only have to see it. Practice what seems useful to you.

4️⃣ Play with grammar. When you find a good grammar structure you can talk to yourself. Practice by making some sentences about yourself, your life, the world around you.

5️⃣ Use grammar books for reference. Everyone has different problems and there’s no need to learn rules from A to Z. Check rules only for the problems you have.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#10 Learn how to learn: Speaking

❓English learners often say: ”I want to improve my speaking!” Sounds familiar, yes?

Talk to yourself if you have no one else. Why not. If you do have a partner then here’s how:

1️⃣ Speaking is communicating, it’s a two-way road. Stop yourself from wanting to speak more than other people. Long monologues kill every conversation.

2️⃣ Choose meaningful topics or make boring topics meaningful. Don’t think What would other people say? but express your own opinion and hear what others have to say.

3️⃣ Engage in conversation. Don’t just answer questions but have something to say and ask back. Practice turn-taking and your conversation becomes as natural as in your own language.

4️⃣ Adapt to your partner. It may not be the right time to show off high-level vocabulary or idioms.

5️⃣ Don’t be selfish. If you only care about yourself and grab speaking time you can’t learn to communicate. Your best friend will always be your mirror.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#11 Learn how to learn: English! What English?

❓ English is the world language but there are so many kinds of English. Which one should we learn?

Here is some advice:

1️⃣ Realise the reality. There are many Englishes and people in every country have their own kind. You don’t have to choose either British or American English. It is said that 80% of the world’s English users are non-native just like you, so there’s no reason to hide. Your goal is to be competent, not native.

2️⃣ Keep it simple. Perhaps in your family or at your school people admire you if your English is so good that they don’t understand you. It’s not like that abroad. The first priority is understandability. Avoid idioms when you’re not sure if they are used internationally.

3️⃣ Be yourself. When it comes to accent you should understand all but follow none. Nothing is worse than some wannabe, fake native accent. It only shows that you like other people more than your own.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#12 Learn how to learn: Fluency vs Accuracy

❓ Some say it’s more important to speak, no matter how many mistakes (=fluency), others say that it’s better to speak correctly from the beginning (=accuracy). Who is right?

Both are wrong. Here’s how:

1️⃣ What you prefer depends on your character. We all know this from the classroom – some students are more outgoing while others don’t want to look stupid in front of others. How about you?

2️⃣ If you prefer fluency you should do something about your accuracy. Don’t think that more speaking will help your English so much. You probably have a lot of bad grammar and pronunciation habits that will become harder to fix in the future. Start dealing with those mistakes.

3️⃣ If you prefer accuracy it’s time for you to start appreciating your mistakes. They can actually lead the way to real improvement. Take more risks and don’t care so much about what others are thinking. After all, you’re learning English for yourself!

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#13 Learn how to learn: Reading

❓ How can you improve your reading skills?

A lot depends on your habits and lifestyle. But here are a few things to keep in mind:

1️⃣ Read silently. When you read aloud you’re not only annoying people around you, you also pay too much attention to pronunciation. Plus it’s really slow.

2️⃣ Read for gist. You can read long texts in a short time if you focus on the most important things only. Challenge yourself – how fast can you read while still understanding?

3️⃣ Read for grammar and vocab. Texts not only give you information; you can also find a lot of new words, collocations and grammar structures. Keep an open eye for those!

4️⃣ Read for pleasure. Developing reading skills doesn’t have to be painful if the topic is interesting. News and novels are equally good for this.

5️⃣ Read for knowledge. “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader” – you can find a wealth of knowledge in books and that can really make a big difference in your life.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#14 Learn how to learn: Writing

❓ Writing often lags behind other skills. What to do?

1️⃣ Take notes. If you start writing too quickly you may run out of ideas or move away from the topic. Notes help you develop your ideas and sort them. See post #7 of 29 June.

2️⃣ Form good habits – Never write without a title, it helps you remind yourself of the topic. Always check your writing after you finish, you can find a lot of mistakes.

3️⃣ Have more ideas. When something seems good to you, think what could be bad about it and vice versa. For argumentative essays you must be able to switch perspectives.

4️⃣ Write in your daily life. Take notes during classes, make written plans and ‘to do lists’, keep a diary and write messages instead of sending voice messages.

5️⃣ Seek knowledge. What is common knowledge, what needs to be explained? The only way to distinguish that is to have knowledge yourself. Writing is not just some technical skill that needs practice.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#15 Learn how to learn: Learner types

❓ People are different. What works for you may not work for me. So what’s this thing about learner types?

1️⃣ There are different models. The most basic one has 3 types: visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. Others may include verbal, logical, social and solitary.

2️⃣ Visual learners learn best when they see pictures or words, auditory learners when they hear something and kinaesthetic learners when they move or touch something.

3️⃣ Verbal learners need language in speech or writing, logical learners want to be systematic, social learners enjoy learning with others and solitary learners prefer to learn alone.

4️⃣ We’re all mixed. We can all learn by seeing, hearing or touching but some ways will be more efficient than others.

5️⃣ Thinking about your learner type is important as knowing your nature will allow you to choose better strategies.

Use this online test to check your type: vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#16 Learn how to learn: Study groups

❓ Studying by yourself may not be your thing. And you may also feel that your English classes are not enough. What to do?

❗️ Find some friends and set up a study group. It’s a great way to help and motivate each other and create the right kind of environment. Find people who are crazy like you and use the power of friendship for your learning aims!

1️⃣ Make sure you share the same purpose. Maybe you all want to take IELTS or you all study medicine or you all like novels or movies. That way you never run out of topics to discuss.

2️⃣ Find a good place and time to meet and have regular activities. Maybe in a café? Or a quiet corner in the library, or someone’s home, or just some empty classroom? Before or after classes? Or even just online?

3️⃣ Make some rules. Agree on a regular time, be punctual, make it a priority, use only English, take turns paying for drinks, bring videos or books to discuss, do extra discussions online, etc.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#17 Learn how to learn: Listening

❓ It can be frustrating (=annoying because of a difficult problem). You hear a conversation and you just don’t understand what’s going on. What to do?

1️⃣ Broaden your definition of “listening”. It’s more than stop-and-go listening exercises in the classroom. When you try to understand movies, videos and songs you’re also practicing listening.

2️⃣ Realise the importance of knowledge. The more you know about a situation – places, people, topics – the more you’ll understand. That means never stop learning about places, people and topics!

3️⃣ Repeat exercises. In that way you can feel some progress. You can also practice listening for gist (=the main meaning) and listening for details. This is something you will also need in exams.

❗️ Keep in mind that classroom listening exercises are not natural. When you listen to a conversation in real life or in a film you’ll probably understand more. So don’t always blame yourself!

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#18 Learn how to learn: Choosing words to learn

❓ There are too many words in every language and learning them all will take you more than a life time. So how can we choose useful words?

1️⃣ BEST: Words you’ve seen before but you forgot the meaning of – these are always good words to learn because they seem to be more common. Let’s say you forgot what “apparently” means but you’ve seen it before. Check the dictionary and also look for related words like “apparent”, “appear” and “appearance”.

2️⃣ GOOD: Words from your classes may or may not be useful. It’s up to you to choose. Your teacher or your book made a selection but you need to have your own mind. You can only really learn the words you choose to learn.

3️⃣ BAD: Words that are two levels above your level may not be useful. You will find it hard to learn these words and then blame yourself for not remembering them.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#19 Learn how to learn: Dealing with mistakes

❓ Do you have the feeling that you make too many mistakes in English? Then mistakes are your enemies. But how can they also be your friends?

1️⃣ Mistakes are enemies. They can make us look stupid and feel bad and because of them we cannot score high in exams. Of course we hate them for that. The worst mistakes are the ones you don’t know about. We also call them errors.

2️⃣ Mistakes are friends. When you notice your mistake you actually learn. In fact, you cannot learn without making mistakes. Our brains are unable to produce perfect sentences when learning a language and we must make mistakes.

3️⃣ Mistakes are “frenemies”. We want to speak English without mistakes but at the same time mistakes show us the way. Let’s take mistakes for what they are – a necessary evil.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#20 Learn how to learn: Learning strategies

❓ Do you want to improve your English but don’t know what’s the best way?

❗️ You may need some language learning strategies. Here’s how:

1️⃣ Try different strategies. Watch more movies? Read more books? Chat with foreigners? Write more or just listen? Imitate someone? Learn 20 words every day? Discuss with a friend? You won’t know what works for you if you don’t try. Collect more data about yourself.

2️⃣ Be yourself. What works for your friend may not work for you. What your teacher thinks is good for you might not help you. People are different in ability, interest and learner type. Nobody knows you better than you know yourself.

3️⃣ Manage your time. Spend more time on what works and less time on the kind of homework that you do only for your teacher. Take control of your learning by finding your own way. Once you have found good strategies, keep them and reserve time.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

Learn how to learn: Review time

▶️ I often get asked advice that I’ve given before, so let’s look again at the past 20 posts in this series:

0️⃣1️⃣ Manage your time
0️⃣2️⃣ Handle your phone
0️⃣3️⃣ Making a word list
0️⃣4️⃣ Learning by teaching
0️⃣5️⃣ Learning with movies
0️⃣6️⃣ Record yourself
0️⃣7️⃣ Take notes!
0️⃣8️⃣ Reciting
0️⃣9️⃣ Grammar
1️⃣0️⃣ Speaking
1️⃣1️⃣ English! What English?
1️⃣2️⃣ Fluency vs accuracy
1️⃣3️⃣ Reading
1️⃣4️⃣ Writing
1️⃣5️⃣ Learner types
1️⃣6️⃣ Study groups
1️⃣7️⃣ Listening
1️⃣8️⃣ Choosing words to learn
1️⃣9️⃣ Dealing with mistakes
2️⃣0️⃣ Learning strategies

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

▶️ Afandi English is over 4 years old now and there’s a ton of stuff you’ve missed. Here are some hashtags for posts about language learning:

#correct
Check if you can spot some common mistakes.

#grammar
Brush up your grammar.

#ielts
Get the DOs and DON’Ts of preparing for IELTS.

#learn2learn
Take advice on how to learn a foreign language.

#mistakes
The biggest collection of Uzbek learners’ typical mistakes in English – at your fingertips.

#oddmanout
See if you can find the mistake.

#pronunciation
Fix your pronunciation problems, one at a time.

#self_study
Sit down and help yourself. Interesting videos plus script plus activities.

#tongue_twisters
Work on your pronunciation and fluency in one go.

#uni_vocab
Understand university-related vocabulary.

#vocabulary
Learn about lexical problems and pick the right words next time.

#world_englishes
Realise that English is a world language and prepare for the worst. Or the best?

#writing
Say goodbye to your most common and unnecessary writing mistakes.