There’s no doubt that the best way to become fluent in a foreign language is to spend as much time as possible living amongst those who speak that language. This why Interactive Travel encourages and enables students to learn to speak English in England itself.
Based on this, many people choose to go on a language course in the country of their chosen language for an extended trip. It’s often the everyday tasks that students undertake which give rise to the best opportunities to practice speaking a new language, such as going to the shops to buy something, or catching public transport.
One of the reasons for this is because when someone is presented with a study course, or left to choose which parts of the language they study, they fail to tackle the really difficult parts (for a variety of reasons). But when the focus is simply on getting something done (such as catching a bus or buying some food) they have no choice in the matter and no way of avoiding learning the necessary words and vocabulary in order to complete the task.
Another reason is that the student is not just reciting phrases from a book. Conversations will develop into unexpected verbal ‘territory’ and the student will have to try to be understood. It’s a lot easier to give up on a difficult task when failure only involves closing a book. When it involves walking out of a shop empty-handed, or walking off a bus – it’s a little more frustrating, therefore the person learning the language is much more likely to dig in, learn quickly and retain the information – fear of embarassment is a great learning tool!
Also, to be surrounded continually by other people speaking the language that one is trying to learn has many benefits that are not always so obvious. A lot of information can be absorbed while the learner is busy doing other things, if they happen to be in hearing distance of a conversation occurring in the language that they are learning. This is particularly helpful in terms of identifying intonations and emphasis used in the language.
An excellent way to encourage the mind to develop all of the skills required to master a new language is distraction. For example, imagine spending day after day consciously trying to learn a language. Once the task becomes boring or tedious, the mind has a tendency to rebel in order to remove the perceived ‘pain’ felt by continuing with the task.
There is a perfect solution for this that not only helps the student to learn the language more quickly and thoroughly, but also makes the whole language course a much more enjoyable and memorable experience – mix the heavy learning sessions up with totally different sessions where having fun is the key aim. These activities are carefully planned in order to develop the individual, as well as ensuring that while distracted with simply having fun, they are also in an environment where they will be exposed to native speakers of the language while also occasionally being required to either just listen or also speak in the language that they are learning.
Particularly if the student is young, this also provides the perfect opportunity to get them involved in character building activities that require and develop teamwork, communication skills, courage, leadership, listening to and acting on instructions whilst using initiative as well – and many other crucial abilities that will help them throughout their life. The end result is that the learner will not feel like they have been studying constantly, but in fact they will have picked up new language skills througout all of the different experiences – perfect! So if you want to learn to speak English, you should learn to do it in England – and ideally with Interactive Travel. Please contact us for more details.
