The New World of Language Learning
Our three LingQ Academy Live students, Hanna, Emily and Tamás, are finally here in Vancouver.
I had a short meeting with them and I explained my vision that, basically, we're in a new world of language learning where learners are teachers, teachers are learners and we learn from the world around us. That's essentially what we're going to be doing over the next three months, learning from our environment and from each other. I can remember when I was in my early twenties as the students are.
At that time, I spoke two languages: English and French. I was also just starting to get involved in Chinese. For me, first of all, everything surrounding French and French culture was a great discovery. The more I got involved and interested in all things French: French movies, French history, etc. the better my French became. The same was true with Chinese, where I discovered this whole new world. Since that time, of course, I've learned many other languages, so I want the students to know they too can eventually speak many languages. I know they're interested not only in English. Big changes are happening in the world of education.
If I think back to when I studied languages at school, the teacher was the source. School was where you learned, that was the only place to learn. The amount of language learning opportunity that we have today is so much bigger than was the case 50 years ago. There's no comparison. When I think of how I use the internet, my iPad and other technology, including LingQ of course, audiobooks, eBooks, conversations via the internet, there is so much. There are so many more reasons why today school is not the best education. Education is the world, accessible through all the modern communication tools, mp3 files, YouTube, you name it.
I think that's what we're going to experience here with LingQ Academy Live. The role of the teacher and the learner will be changed. Learners become teachers, teachers become learners and learners learn from each other. It's all part of this idea that people learn more when they help each other, share with each other and learn from each other. In the initial period, I'm going to talk about my experience of learning languages and what I think works, but after a month or so I want to hear about the students' ideas. What do they think works? We'll be talking about these things and other people who are following will also hopefully be stimulated by this and they might also come forward with their ideas. We sometimes call it our LingQ Academy Live Reality Show, but it's a reality show with a message. It's not just about who gets kicked off the island; it's actually about something that I think can be helpful and beneficial to language learners. In terms of my working with the LingQ Academy Trio I have three goals:
1.
Independent Learning
I think our students are already very much independent learners.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have come here. They would simply have gone to the local English school in their home countries. So they are already somewhat independent, but I'm hoping that we can make them even more effective and independent learners. In other words, people who go and find content of interest, who know what they want to learn. If they don't understand something having to do with grammar, they know where to find it on the internet. They're finding their own material, finding things of interest to them, and through pursuing these things they're learning. 2.
English Proficiency
It isn't only about how much the students will improve in the next three months, but how they can use what they have learned at LingQ to keep progressing in the months and years that follow. You don't just study for three months and wow, I'm now perfect. You will improve, but you will also set in place things that are going to have their impact into the future. So we will be looking at things that will enable our students to improve while they're here, but also to continue improving. We'll talk about how LingQ works, lots of listening and reading because I happen to believe in listening and reading, but independent learners need to go out and find content that interests them. We also want our students to get good at finding content in the LingQ library. Also, at some point they should also choose a novel to read completely in English. It doesn't have to be today, but within a couple of weeks a novel for which we have both the eBook and the audio book so that you can listen to it and you can study it. In all of this material they will be saving words and phrases so that this vocabulary and these phrases become part of their English.
3.
Effective Learning Techniques
I believe in language learning there are certain activities that are extremely beneficial and that's what we're going to explore, a limited list of things that have a lot of benefit. We'll get into these activities more as the weeks progress, but they relate to words and phrases. It's my belief that if you have an efficient way of acquiring words and phrases, that is the base for your language learning. Everything else – pronunciation, ability to speak well etc. – will come from that. We're going to do presentations and talk about how to present better, but it all boils down to developing a rich vocabulary of words and phrases, and we're going to discuss different techniques within or outside LingQ that help our students and anyone studying a language to acquire those words and phrases. Follow along with the students' journey on the LingQ Academy Live YouTube channel.
