Two Key Elements For Beginner’s Success in a Language Learning

We ALL speak a language. Since the time we were no more than five years old, we could speak the basics of our mother tongue without any knowledge of grammar rules, but to be able to associate phonetic symbols to the sounds we use to express ourselves, we had to get familiar with someone showing us how to do it. But, at that point, we are at the most critical moment of our educational journey because we are laying the foundations that will determine the rest of the course of the building. In the experience I’ve had for more than ten years in teaching English and Greek, I have collected two very important elements in the field at a beginner’s level.

Speed

The first element is SPEED. It’s one of the most decisive factors in learning, which is often overlooked or even suppressed in order to gain quick access to a language. Many times, I saw students get frustrated by difficult words, but if you give all the time that is necessary, telling them to relax and it’s not as if they have to catch the train, but it’s like they’re trying to unlock a heavily locked door, and that is true when dealing with languages like Greek, where the stress mark is very important for the meaning of the word, repeating over and over again and going forward only if it’s second nature to you. Take your time, go slowly. It’s just the same as a child trying to walk. If you are in a hurry, you will just fall down. Give the students time to correct themselves, avoiding quickly fixing their errors, and let them realize on their own. Nothing well built or accomplished was done in a hurry, or as the saying goes, “Rome was not built in one day!” A picture is worth a thousand words!

Images

The second element that I appreciated over the years is the use of images, art, and generally being as colourful and expressive as possible from a teacher’s point of view and encouraging the student to use images and be as expressive as they can as well. In an experiment I have done, I took ten words randomly placed and just gave fifteen seconds to my students to remember them. No one could recall all ten words after five minutes, but when I placed them all in a meaningful sentence, almost all could remember them. The main idea is that our eyes are looking for meaning through images, and if they can’t find one, the learning process gets harder and harder. From the beginning, the language began with art; drawings of all kinds were made to convey thoughts. But even today, art still plays a mega role in the learning process, especially in this day and age where technology gives us abundant tools and possibilities. Let’s use them as much as we can in all colors, shapes, and sizes to make learning a meaningful reality, as pictures, images, and drawings strongly stimulate our minds. Just think about it for a moment. Letters are symbols that came from Egyptian drawings, and the letters themselves are a king of drawing, no matter how modern they look. Similarly, the teacher must be able to be passionately expressive when explaining words or reading a passage or any sentence, putting the right colour and intonation in the right place, and that will greatly enhance the meaning of the sentence to the point where the student can guess right the meaning even without knowing the specific words of the paragraph. Try to encourage the students to read as expressive as they can as that will give a “living feeling” to what they are reading, a “naturalness” as we actually do in a live conversation, remembering that the aim is to make the lesson part of their five senses!

Conclusion

The human brain functions in a way to learn things, so the main point is NO WORRIES if one goes one step at a time, taking it slow and easy, repeating it over and over again in an interesting way. The mind will not get a negative shock and abandon the effort as so many do. Simplicity and setting small goals, and slowly learning little by little each lesson with the use of images as an interest trigger guarantees substantial progress. Finally, make TIME your friend and not your enemy. A language is more than just communication; it’s expressing life’s experiences that are filled with emotions and events, and experience takes time, so give your learning process all the time it deserves!