First things first. I don’t think that goals are for everyone. Some people are more process oriented or prefer to act on the spur of the moment. That’s okay. But I still believe that in language learning we need something… Read More »How to set goals when learning a language (and achieve them)
Let’s continue to explore ways to use English (or another language) more in your everyday life. The previous part was about Reading and Writing and this one focuses on Listening (Watching) and Speaking. Just as a reminder, the idea is to make English part… Read More »More English Practice Daily – Listening and Speaking
Some years ago I was teaching in IT companies and I noticed that programmers were quite good at learning English. They were able to identify language patterns pretty quickly and put them to use straight away. On average, at least… Read More »How similar are learning a natural language and a programming one?
So, here are some ways to use English (or another language) more in your everyday life. We start with Reading and Writing. Reading practice Change the language on your phone, on your computer/ laptop and in the browser to English. You already… Read More »More English practice daily – Reading and Writing
A while ago, when I was studying the concept of language coaching, I read an interesting book called From English Teacher to Learner Coach. One of the main ideas was to encourage learners to have as much English practice outside (!)… Read More »A learner or a user?
I regularly have Zoom calls with a friend of mine and an English teacher who is Hungarian. Sometimes she has to answer phone calls and then I have a chance to catch the sound of her native language. Now, I… Read More »A silent period in language learning
Let’s start with discourse. Discourse is a unit/ segment of spoken or written language that goes above or below a sentence and refers to a certain social context. So, it may be a piece of writing, or a story, or just… Read More »Discourse markers
(A quick search in my books hasn’t yielded a lot of theory on this topic, so I’ll write from experience and based on what I found online. If you have something to add, please leave a comment.) The first part… Read More »Sentence frames and social formulae
Idiomatic language… isn’t it the most fascinating part of the English lexis? Something that gives colour, taste and texture to one’s speech or writing? (not sure I can use “texture”, though, but let it be) =) So let’s dive into it… Read More »How to notice lexical chunks: idioms, catchphrases, sayings and phrasal verbs
When you’re reading a text or listening to something/ someone, do you pay attention to words or phrases? And what about your vocab notebooks, do they contain words or phrases? Not once have I asked my students to highlight some interesting/ useful… Read More »How to notice lexical chunks: collocations