We’re talking about learning a new language and, in order to better understand all the points of view, we interviewed some students of our school. We talked about learning a new language by having fun, not only at school. We know how much is difficult to learn a different language at school because we are obliged to do it, and so, at the start we don’t think we will have fun, but we only think about grammar, notes and so on.
Interviewing EsterI understood that students should be much more engaged in the lessons so that they could better learn everything; for example, if we think about conversation in English, if the teachers talked about more topical issues, the students would be much more interested and they should learn English or everything else faster. To learn a language it’s obviously important to know the grammar in order to make correct sentences, but it is also important to have a vast vocabulary in order to make us better understand. We could also have fun and watch some tv series or movies in original language so that we could learn the slang by sitting on our sofa.
Making some experience abroad is, in my opinion, the best way to learn how to speak a language; Ester went, with her class, to Edinburgh and she told me that, during that week, she learnt lot of things she didn’t know before because every language is made of grammar but also pronunciation and specific vocabulary. It was an amazing experience and she learnt a lot by having fun with her friends visiting a new city. She had to speak with many people and practice her English and so she could improve it.
Ester believes that studying grammar is also very important while learning a language because even if we can make people understand what we’re saying without making a grammatically correct phase, especially at school, university and at work a better English is needed in order to communicate with colleagues. Many students are dissatisfied with the English language teaching method and in fact Ester would suggest using more interactive activities like movies or songs, to learn how people speak in everyday life and make students more interested. Reading is also useful while learning a language because you can learn many new words. Also, while watching movies you can miss something that characters say, but with books you can search for any word you don’t know and understand it better.
My interviewed believes music is a great way to learn a new language because you can approach it in a fun way. Also, knowing the words to your favourite songs is so much better than singing to something you don’t understand. Ester definitely believes that having a pen friend abroad is a great way to practice a language and to learn new things, not only words and grammar, but also cultural differences you didn’t know about. Ester has a pen friend in Idaho and she has helped her a lot practicing her writing.
Finally, we can conclude that Ester’s English level is quite high, maybe because she enjoys it a lot and she always love speaking it, maybe because she always watches movies in English and listens to English songs.