|
| Testimonials |
"This way of learning a language made complete sense to me. Working with the SpeakEZ German course, I was able to understand more in 2 weeks than in five years of German in school!"
-- Asbjørn Finsnes
"The way in which this method is presented provided me with language that will suit me in a foreign country instead of a collection of unusable vocabulary words.
Those who have studied languages realize that looking-up individual words cannot convey a language in the correct manner. Becoming fluent means being able to verbalize ideas ; not learning technical rules and identifying the Past Predicate Indicative.
The audio part of this method has been my favorite portion of the learning process. Not only is the pronunciation slow and clear, but it is presented so that I remember the flow of sentences and concepts.
Thank you for the opportunity to work with this amazing program; it has been a blessing for me."
-- Destiny Yarbro, College Student
|
|
What's Beyond Filling In The Blanks?
by Nathalie V. Fairbanks
Take one of these fill-in-the-blanks exercises from your language workbook - we'll just use one in English as an example, so that everyone is on the same page:
Fill in the blanks with verbs in the simple past tense.
Alex ______ (to eat) his oatmeal in a hurry. He ______ (to arrive) at the office 10 minutes late and _______ (to swear) that he would get up earlier the next day.
You might have strong feelings about this kind of exercise - most of my students hate grammar with a passion, even if they try to hide it for my sake...
I believe that if you can learn to use grammar exercises to your advantage and actually learn something from doing them, you will likely change your attitude towards them.
You won't, however, if you approach this exercise like a crossword puzzle (that's what most of us do).
We see "to eat", search our internal database (or the dictionary, or the back of the textbook) for the past tense, fill in the blank and move on to the next blank. After all, the objective is to fill out these blanks as quickly as possible and get it over with, right?
Wrong! Racing through the exercise won't do a thing for you, apart from reminding you where the relevant grammar information is located. I picture this kind of grammar knowledge as little boxes in your brain that you fill up with topics - one for the past tense, one for personal pronouns, etc.
Once they're filled, you label the boxes and store them away. When you need something, you scan the boxes, get the piece you need and put the box back on the shelf. The knowledge that you worked so hard to acquire never finds its way into your active skill-set and you can't seem to find it when you need it.
So here's what I recommend you do with fill-in-the-blank exercises:
1- Fill in the blanks correctly (of course).
2- Make sure you understand what the sentence means and if you don't, get a dictionary or ask your teacher.
3- If the exercise is in a workbook, make the effort and handwrite the whole exercise into a separate notebook. It will force you to pay attention to the whole sentence and to the context. It will also help you remember an actual application of the grammar point you are learning. There is something about handwriting that affects our brain differently than typing - try it out and experience the difference for yourself.
4- Then, say the sentence out loud, several times preferably, until it just rolls off your tongue. Decide that you'll repeat each sentence three times, and just DO it.
5- When you read the sentence out loud, try to not emphasize whatever is in the blank. In class, I often hear students saying:
"Alex ATE (pause, look at the teacher) his oatmeal in a hurry. He ARRIVED (pause, glance at the teacher) at the office 10 minutes late and (pause, point finger at the word) SWORE that he would get up earlier the next day."
Of course, what's in the blank is the novelty, the one element you want confirmation on from the teacher. The trouble is that the sentence now sounds completely distorted and a native speaker would have a hard time understanding you.
So, read the sentence just as any sentence in a text you're working on and forget that you found it, of all places, in a grammar exercise!
These steps will ensure that you learn something meaningful -- the content of the sentence -- that happens to teach you a new grammar point, rather than completing a "crossword puzzle" in your target language.
© 2007 Nathalie V. Fairbanks
WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEBSITE? You may, as long as you include this blurb with it: SpeakEZ Languages publishes "Language Learning Express", a free bi-weekly e-zine for language learners who are eager to discover the secrets of efficient language learning, transition seamlessly into a new culture and have fun on the way. Get your FREE subscription and your FREE e-book now at http://www.SpeakEZLanguages.com.
|
