Как добиться высоких результатов при самостоятельном изучении английского языка

Деловой портал www.delo.ua совместно с British Council запускает новый проект «Английский язык on-line». В рамках проекта на портале будет появляться видеоинтервью с преподавателями British Council.

Тематика видеоинтервью – новые методики и подходы в изучении английского языка, интересные факты и практические советы по улучшению произношения и увеличения словарного запаса.

Тема сегодняшнего интервью – самостоятельное изучение английского языка. Интервью дает преподаватель British Council Джеймс Акхерст (James Akhurst).

Несколько важных рекомендаций для повышения уровня языка:

1. Чтение англоязычной литературы и статей в Интернете.
2. Чтение англоязычных журналов (Kyiv Post, What’s On)
3. Посещение разговорного клуба либо общение с носителями языка с помощью Skype
4. Просмотр англоязычных фильмов
5. Ведение «дневника студента», куда можно записывать все новые слова и фразы, которые человек слышал либо видел на протяжении дня   

Текст интервью:  

My name is James Akhurst, I’ve been teaching for seven years, and I’ve been teaching at the British Council in Kyiv for two years.

I’d like to talk about learner autonomy. If you think of a traditional teaching classroom, perhaps, the teachers at the front of the room and the students are sitting at their desk, listening to what the teacher says and writing down. The teacher’s quite an active role and the learners are quite passive role. So learner autonomy is about learners being more active in their own learning process by understanding the skills that they need and having more knowledge of the learning process so that they can learn inside the classroom more effectively and also outside of the classroom.

Studying English for four hours a week is a good commitment but it’s only the start of commitment which you can make to study English. There are lots of opportunities for you to study and learn English outside of the classroom. For example for reading you could read articles on the internet. There’s a British Council website LearnEnglish which is very good, there are also English language newspapers and magazines which you could read, Kyiv Post and What’s On.

To practice speaking outside of the classroom some people are lucky that they can practice with their colleagues. If not, you could attend English language Speaking Club and possibly you can use Skype to contact people on the internet and practice English. Alternatively, if you can help tourists or people on the street, it’s a good opportunity to practice conversations.

To practice listening outside of the classroom you can listen to your favourite bands in English and try to write down the lyrics that they say. You can watch clips on the internet, you can watch English language films. And of course talking to people is good listening practice. The more talking you do, at the same time you are also practicing listening.

Lots of people get writing practice at their work which is very lucky. Other people can practice writing on the internet writing e-mails to people or alternatively a really important way to practice learning autonomy is to keep a learner diary. To record what you have done in English, think of new words you’ve learnt, conversations you’ve had, and try to write everything in English. This is a really useful way for you to think about the process of learning.

Autonomous learners, when they have done something using the English language, they’ll look back at what they’ve just done and think was it a useful thing? Was it a successful activity? Did I learn something? Maybe what could I change next time? And then in the future they take this knowledge and they use it to learn more effectively. If you practice even some of the thing I have mentions in this video, you’re on your way to become an autonomous learner. Good luck.