The right way to learn English

Some important skills a person must have in life are reading and writing and now that you want to learn English, these two abilities are really important too, actually, you could not even be on this blog without knowing how to read English. As I have told you, what I write here is the most powerful method to learn English and that’s how I want you to learn, in a powerful way.

If you read some of my former articles, it won’t be something new if I tell you to not study grammar rules, but I’m not saying that grammar is not important, grammar is really useful when you write or read something. But do not think that I’m telling you that you should revert to the old methods, like going to an institute or a school or maybe start studying English from a textbook, that is completely useless, in fact, you will destroy your English learning and you won’t be fluent when speaking.

Children and Schools

Let’s make a comparison between what the old methods to learn English are and the way children learn to speak any language, so let’s start analyzing the old and useless methods of schools and textbooks:

What schools and textbooks always start off is teaching grammar, they make you memorize words and then they tell you the structure of the sentences, the verbs, the tenses,  etc. And in the meantime they teach you these things, they force you to speak and repeat what the teacher says. I remember when I was on my last year on school, before the graduation, we were just about to finish some subjects and English was one of them, so the final test was getting closer and my classmates and I were kind of nervous about graduation, so one day the teacher said that the final test was going to be singing a song in English and in front of everyone, I tell you the truth, I didn’t do this, I got a bad grade, but some of my mates did it, it was so stressful for them and ridiculous, I mean, no one could even sing in Spanish, our native language. That test was one of the stupidest and useless things I ever saw, no wonder why many people hate to learn a foreign language.

Now, let’s think for a moment about babies, when they don’t know how to say a single word, they never force themselves to speak, actually, they learn to speak and they have no idea about what grammar is and still they speak natively, what do they do so?  How do they learn in a natural way? The children’ secret is listening, they start listening from the same moment they are born, later when they grow up a little and they already know how to speak, they go to school and learn how to read and how to write.

The way your learning should be

Did you notice the difference between schools and babies? It was the method they use. What children do first is listening, they listen to their parents when talking, they listen to other people, they listen to television, they listen to everything and then when their brains are ready they start speaking, it is all a natural process, later they go to school and learn how to read and to write. Schools do the opposite, they want you to read and to write first, they force you to speak and many times they tell you to focus on listening when you know how to use grammar and the structure of English.

LISTEN FIRST AND THEN DO EVERYTHING ELSE...

I will not get tired of saying the same thing: FOCUS ON LISTENING, no matter how long it takes for you to understand native speakers, listen to English until you can understand them, and then speak, read, write and do everything else, but grammar must be in last place when you learn a language. If you focus on listening, your English and the correct grammar will come automatically, it is going to be natural for you to speak English.

Now, after having focused on listening for a while, writing becomes a need and of course the best way to learn to write is reading, when you read, you see how the words are spelled correctly and here’s when you learn to write in English, but never stop listening! This is the way you must learn English, in a natural way.

REMEMBER!!!!!!!! LISTEN, LISTEN AND LISTEN TO ENGLISH!