Reciprocal Teaching

Numerous studies have revealed that in every country, native-speakers use only about 2,500 distinct words and phrases on a daily basis. Dr. Pimsleur spent his lifetime studying these language building blocks. With the Pimsleur approach, it's not how many words you know, but rather, which words you can use. By aiming each lesson at teaching you to use those 2500 words, the Pimsleur approach teaches you to speak the most Czech in the least amount of time. It is easier to start to learn a new language than to become good at it, and almost certainly is more fun. I've started to learn many new languages. French, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Afrikaans to name but a few. I can't speak them yet but I've started and I've picked up a few words and phrases that help me when I'm visiting, and equally importantly I’ve had fun doing this. For example, I've started to learn Italian but I haven't learnt any Italian grammar, and when I visit Italy I'm not able to speak correctly . Now you may say this is lazy, but we all live in a world where you can hear and speak any number of languages. So my aim is just to communicate at a very basic level when I visit a country, to make an effort, to show appreciation of the language and culture. I'm not trying to talk about world politics or explain my view on life. So, I know about starting to learn a new language and this is what works for me. I pick key or useful words and phrases that I want to learn. For example, as a visitor to another country, the key words in a foreign language are the words which will be of most use to you and.

Reciprocal Teaching

Languages are naturally acquired by people listening to language. The human brain is built to analyze it. You know, there are a lot of places in the world-not in America-but in supposedly "backwards" places like West Africa, New Guinea, where it is commonplace to find people who speak half a dozen languages. How do they do that? There are no language schools. So, they do it because it's part of their lives. They go down to the market, they find people talking in 4 or 5 languages and if they're going to do any trade-or buy anything-they have to know just enough of the other language to get by. So, this is how languages are learned, whether by adults or by children-by listening and interacting with real people in real-life situations. Lerny presents a carefully chosen selection of four images and asks you to select the image that matches the written text and the voices of native speakers. Building on the knowledge you’ve already gained and your intuitive grasp of the meaning of each picture, you make a choice. There’s absolutely no translation or memorisation to hold you back, so you start making progress immediately. Immediate Reinforcement: The very second you complete a task, Lerny provides feedback. Speak a word and our unique voiceprint technology automatically rates your pronunciation. Connect an image with a phrase and you’ll immediately learn if your choice was correct. Complete a set of exercises and you’ll instantly know how well you did. With Lerny, you always know where you stand. Systematic Sequence: Dynamic Immersion™ is a continuous process. The Lerny curriculum is carefully sequenced, gradually incorporating new words, phrases, and more complex grammar as it reinforces existing learning. Your understanding of your new language grows naturally..

You have to ask yourself, why is it that so many people try to learn foreign languages and fail abysmally. I think there are 2 reasons why they fail: they're not motivated enough and they don't have sufficient exposure to the real thing. The key to language learning is a combination of these two things. In regards to motivation, a lot of that's got to come from the learner. But given the learner has a reasonable amount of motivation, then the burden lies upon the course to hold the learner's attention and continually present them with material that is both interesting in itself, and relevant to the kinds of things the learner will have to do when he's using the language. That will keep up the motivation. Now, as for the material, if you have material produced by a native speaker of that language, and a sufficient amount of that material is provided, then language learning takes place. Since we are equipped to learn languages, the brain does the rest of the job for us. All it needs is sufficient motivation and sufficient first-class, first-language speaker material from which to learn. The way language is naturally acquired-in real-life second language learning situations-is by listening to the language itself. And analyzing it yourself. The people who learn second languages most successfully, are not those who go to language schools. If you go to a language school, you tend to go somewhere where they have a special theory about how language should be learned, and they impose that theory upon you. But actually, the human mind is constructed to learn language. That's one of the basic things. Just as a spider spins its web, so too do people acquire language. It's just as natural.

Lerny presents a carefully chosen selection of four images and asks you to select the image that matches the written text and the voices of native speakers. Building on the knowledge you’ve already gained and your intuitive grasp of the meaning of each picture, you make a choice. There’s absolutely no translation or memorisation to hold you back, so you start making progress immediately. Immediate Reinforcement: The very second you complete a task, Lerny provides feedback. Speak a word and our unique voiceprint technology automatically rates your pronunciation. Connect an image with a phrase and you’ll immediately learn if your choice was correct. Complete a set of exercises and you’ll instantly know how well you did. With Lerny, you always know where you stand. Systematic Sequence: Dynamic Immersion™ is a continuous process. The Lerny curriculum is carefully sequenced, gradually incorporating new words, phrases, and more complex grammar as it reinforces existing learning. Your understanding of your new language grows naturally. I think what makes the Pimsleur approach most effective is that it engages the learner from the very first stage and presents him with situations that hold his interest and attention-and it's been carefully prepared to do so. Let's face it, alot of foreign language work can be terribly boring. And one of the key elements in language learning is motivation. If the learner is not motivated and gets presented with mechanical, repetitive kinds of exercise, then it becomes a chore. To find a language program that holds the learner's interest is really something quite rare. And I think the Pimsleur approach certainly does that. Here is one suggestion for learning common words and phrases. Watch television concentrating on the soaps. This is helpful because the language is repeated again and again, the words used are in common.