Learn English Fast

Course Notes

Target Audience

The course is useful to two groups of people in order of importance.

1. Intermediate students of English who have difficulty thinking in

English and in understanding English and speaking English at speed.

2. Absolute beginners who have had no contact with English.

Intermediate Students

Intermediate (A2-B1) students often have difficulty with English when

it is spoken at normal speed or when they have to recover their
vocabulary at speed. This is generally not a problem of understanding.
The student usually understands what is said and can generally
formulate a suitable reply, but there is a 10 – 20 second gap between
hearing, understanding and replying.

This makes it almost impossible to carry on a normal group

conversation because by the time answer is formed the conversation
has
moved onto a different subject.

This course aims to remove that 10 – 20 second gap between hearing

and understanding and the encourage the development of fluidity and
fluency in speech and understanding.

Absolute Beginners.

Foreign languages, (not only English) are generally taught in reverse

order to the natural learning process. There are exceptions (the
Rosetta Stone course for instance) but in most cases students start
with conversation and grammar. This is not how children learn.

Developmental psychologists have clarified the process of language

acquisition in children with some precision. The sequence is.

1. The naming of concrete objects

2. The naming of the relationships between concrete objects
3. The application of actions to concrete objects
4. The development of abstract concepts
5. The application of abstract concepts in speech.

Conversation is mostly concerned with 5. The application of abstract

concepts.

Why is language taught this way?

Language is about interpreting your surrounding world in a linguistic

'code' comprising both grammar and words. Communicating with
other people is secondary to that. We know this because of vocabulary
tests on young children, A 5 – 6 six year old child will be fluent in their
native language and have a working vocabulary of about 1,000 words.
They will have understanding and knowledge of about 5,000 – 10,000
words. They know and understand far more words than they use in
communication.
The focus on communication is because that is what students see, in
films and television, in read in newspapers, and books hear on the
radio and in songs.

Students want the ability to communicate, but without the

understanding of the language. It is analogous to the person who
wants to learn the steps to do a 'wedding dance', but not the balance,
musical timing and motor skills that are needed to do it well.

What students learn – though the application of grammar rules – is to

translate from their native language into the target language, in case,
English.

This course is for the most part without grammar or formal training. It
is visual and works through developing visual associations – so it can
be done without a knowledge of English.

The Teaching Process and course aims.

We go back to basic's. Intermediate students are used for formulating

their thoughts in their native language and translating it to English. In
conversation its a four step process.

1. Listening – translate English to native language

2. Interpreting – understanding in the native language
3. Thought – formulating a reply in the native language
4. Speech – translate the native language into English

If you are thinking in English, steps 2 and 3 are removed and so is the
10 – 20 second gap.

In the course we do this by teaching English through visual

association, the way a child learns. We have to break the habit of
translating from the native language.

The course systemically goes over your basic English vocabulary

introducing it to you it visually. If you are an intermediate student you
should be familiar with most of the words. However, once the visual
association is made we speed things up with progressively faster
practise exercises. In your native language you can retrieve words
from your memory in less that half a second. You will start to do this in
English by the end of Part 1 of the course.

The target for Part 1 is 500 words in 4.5 minutes, which may seem
impossibly fast, but it is quite easy if you are retrieving the words
visually rather than translating.

The course structure

The course will be structured in parts that match the learning process
in children.

1. Part 1 – The names of concrete objects (nouns). Most of the nouns

are concerned with household objects and the student should find
themselves walking through their house retrieving object names in
English. Often they will use their native language for the action or
position of the object, but retrieve the object name in English.

2. Part 2 – The naming of the relationships between objects

(prepositions). This is natural progression from Part 1.

3. Part 3 – Actions (nouns) The student will be able to rountinely

describe all their personal actions in English, from getting up and
getting dressed in the morning, to making breakfast. Every daily
thought can be created in English.

'Thinking in English'

Everyone who has become fluent in a foreign language is familiar with

day they woke up thinking in their new language. It's sudden, quite
dramatic, and occasionally disturbing. It can happen in stages, but if
the student if very experienced it can happen all at once.

It will generally occur as a result of intensive practise or 'immersion'.

While consistent daily acquisition of vocabulary is the best way to
extend your knowledge of a language, the transition process is best
achieved by intensive focus on the fast retrieval of vocabulary over
several days rather than in small bites. If you can do a whole section
of the course in one weekend, so much the better.

The brain makes a decision to drop one language and use another. If
you have a large vocabulary it will move everything across overnight –
including all those complex grammar rules you had difficulty
understanding. It's an amazing experience.

Hopefully the experience will happen during Part 1 but you may need
Parts 2 and 3 before the transition is triggered.