AEE 302: Why Just Speaking May NOT Be the Best Route to Fluency in English

<p>Come back and let us know your thoughts on this: http://www.allearsenglish.com/302</p> <p>Get our FREE IELTS Cheat Sheet: http://www.allearsenglish.com/evaluation</p> <p> </p> <p>Today we have a special guest on the show!</p> <p>Our guest will challenge your assumption that SPEAKING is the most important part of learning English.</p> <p><strong>Julian sees learning languages as a simple, two-step process:</strong></p> <p>Step 1: Learn the language that we need for our specific situation</p> <p>Step 1: Apply the language and use it</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Julian’s 3 Tips- How to Keep it Practical:</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>Try to do many different kinds of things in the language: </strong>English is a process. Spend time with it. You can’t HAVE it. You can’t GET it. You need to constantly maintain it.  Julian says that there is no difference between “experiencing” the language and “learning” the language, as far as your brain is concerned. By experiencing the language in many different ways, we can acquire chunks of English which will help us to sound more native-like. You should try to encounter the language through reading, speaking, listening, writing, etc. Get a more well-rounded experience of the language instead of just focusing on speaking.</li> </ul> <p> </p> <ul> <li><strong>Try to get a balance between intensive activity and relaxed exposure:</strong> Some of your work should be deliberate, focused, practical, intensive study. At the same time, some of your work should be a more relaxed encounter with the language. You need to take it in in a way that is enjoyable and easy. You could try listening to music in the language or watching TV. The key is getting a balance between the two forms of learning.</li> </ul> <p> </p> <ul> <li><strong>Focus on things which are useful to YOU:</strong> Exclude things that aren’t useful to you. Don’t bother to learn things that you won’t need to use. According to Julian, we don’t become fluent in English. We become fluent in specific to