Master the mystery of learning

When English language becomes that piece of cake which you enjoy the most (and it is
not only a piece of cake)

For whom is the course? What will you achieve?

By the end of this course you will be able to define your preferred ways of
studying. I am here to provide you with many ideas-if you apply them, I guarantee
you that you will finally surpass your own self-limiting beliefs and disadvantages
of knowledge which doesn’t last long. Each learner needs to know ways how to
keep their knowledge in a long term and test their own apprehension all the time.
What textbooks don’t provide you with is freedom to express yourself-they are
only a tool, in other words the skeleton of a language, but you need to go much
deeper if you want to actually know the language.

You will become more confident in your speaking abilities. I will provide you with
various ideas on approaches towards any boring textbook in order to make it
more involving. You hold the key of your own progress and with the methods
which I propose you, you can become fluent and accurate much faster than if you
are only having English lessons. With the outlined methods, you will become the
best version of yourself in terms of knowledge. After all, it is up to you, which
methods will you choose as most appropriate. Finally, you will understand why
sometimes you know something passively but if you have to use it, you are
struggling. Through full realization of the ways to learn and by acquiring the
''know-how'', you will unfold your true potential. I believe that many people have
tried learning through lessons before. And thus, involving yourself in plenty of
dry-material based tasks wouldn’t be unfamiliar to you. However, our nowadays
world requires much more flexibility and tackling with active tasks. Staring at the
book may make you freeze in front of everyone else once the book is away. This
is happening because textbooks are in a way spoiling you. When you are
speaking, you need to recall everything you know and this is much more difficult
than listening to someone or reading a passage. Everything is easy and already
represented in front of you. Once you don’t have any source to use and when you
need to talk, you might feel unable to start or just experience difficulties. You
might lack the freedom to express yourself (due to active vocabulary shortage) or
maybe you are afraid of making mistakes. Whichever the reasons are, I will show
you various ways how to deal with your learning process. We are living in a rush
and it is clear that you wouldn’t always have the time to use all of the proposed
methods but whenever you have this opportunity, focused learning will help you
to develop your language abilities. Spend thirty minutes every day, or one hour,
but in an effective manner. Spending much more time without knowing how to do
it is a waste of time and energy and we all value these two things. I am here to
give you insights on that. By the end of this course you would be able fully aware
of more engaging ways to learn English, and you will find many answers to your
question ‘’How to learn in a more effective way’’. If you are a beginner or a person
who already has a grasp of the language, you will gain from this course. Welcome
to our journey!

1. Methods to improve your speaking abilities

You might have felt during conversations that it is difficult for you to find the exact
word or choose the most appropriate one. Practice makes perfect so in order to
do that, I advise you to use natural conversations. They are easier because they
provide you with the chance to be fully engaged in the process of learning.
Decide which are the topics you sincerely care about. You can make discussions
with friends or your teacher on these topics and share your opinions. In order to
speak fluently, you should reprogram yourself thinking in English. Everyone has
a flow of thoughts, so if you want to really start being able to communicate
properly, forget about your native language. If you don’t know a certain word or
how to express your thought, look for it in the dictionary or ask someone who is
native. Once you learned it, immediately use it with someone you know. You will
be surprised how useful this can be. If there isn’t anyone who knows English
near you at the moment, write a message, using that word. If you are talking with
someone and you have difficulties coming up with the correct word, once you
learn it, write it down on a piece of paper. The most natural way to become fluent
in a language is to use it all the time, so never be afraid of starting a conversation
with an English-speaking foreigner.

Let’s see how all of what I told you would function.

Me: Hey, George, did you hear about the newest …oh, how were these called?
They are used for laptops and they make it cool.
George: Do you mean cooling pads?
Me: Ah, sure, cooling pads! One of them has six adjustable stands.
George: Six, wow. Can I see it?
…..
Later on, I will start a chat with my best friend Karina and I will type her: ‘’Kari, I
saw some really awesome cooling pads suitable for your laptop as well. Do you
want me to show it to you?’’

Making mistakes is the path to your improvement and avoiding conversations just
because you feel unsure won’t bring you anywhere. It is important also to use the
language even outside of the classroom. If you choose to talk with a native
speaker of English, you will have the opportunity to be corrected as well. If the
pronunciation of some word during your conversation with someone was
incorrect, repeat it in the right way would help you. If you want to speak better,
you should not underestimate the correction of a native speaker and you
shouldn’t just ignore what the other person told you. Be open to being corrected
and alert all the time. If you are learning via textbook and you are taking English
classes, always feel free to ask your teacher how to say something in case that
you are unsure about it.

One of the most important aspects of speaking is noticing your own mistakes and
the mistakes of other people. By being conscious about them, you will progress
for sure. I will tackle now with some common speaking mistakes. Many people
say ‘’There were less people.’’ The correct way to say that is: ‘’There were fewer
people.’’ The reason why you shouldn’t use the word ‘’less’ is because it is used
for dealing with general amounts and ‘fewer’’ is used for a set of things that can
be counted. ‘’Less’’ can be used only with a grammatically singular noun. For
example-His doctor advised him to use less salt. ‘’Salt’’ is an uncountable noun
and therefore we can’t say ‘’His doctor advised him to use fewer salt’’. There are
certain common grammar mistakes as well which people continuously make and
I can tell you why is this happening. If you want to improve your grammar, the
easiest way is to keep track on your most common mistakes. If you have a class
and your teacher corrects you, take a few seconds and write them down. Later
you can make flashcards with the correct and wrong way to say something. For
example, you can write the statement: ''She always talks so fast.'' and then ''She
always talk so fast.'' and cross out the second sentence with red colour highlight
the ending –‘’s’’. You can incorporate that when you talk as well. So, next time
when you are talking with a friend, try using 3rd singular in the correct way,
thinking in advance how to express yourself correctly. Always set goals for
yourself. Today, you can realize what are you saying wrong and tomorrow you
can already say it in the right way, focusing intentionally on that. As a beginner
you might be saying: “There has many different places in this city.’’ While the
correct sentence is: ’’There are many different places in this city.’’ Many students
don’t pay attention to the fact that there is a difference between the impersonal
and personal ‘’there is/there are’’ and ‘’have/has’’. It happens because they are
not focused on the accuracy of what are they saying. They might even know it
but it ‘’slips’’ in this way. Once you become fully conscious of your speech, you
will be surprised how many mistakes you will stop making. In the beginning allow
yourself making mistakes and don’t feel bad if you continuously fail. With the
time, once you focus on the exact mistakes which you are making, you will be
able to stop making them at all. All of these things are in connection you’re your
accuracy.
Now, if we are considering your fluency, that’s different. The more books and
reputable articles are you reading, the more words would you learn. Creating
debates on important current topics can really help you developing your speaking
skills. Start talking, get on stage and you will manage.
Another problem during speaking is whenever you are literally translating from
your native language. Remember that English has its own rules and you
shouldn’t feel tempted to translate.

Me: It’s raining cats and dogs!

George: Where? I don’ see them!
Me: No, silly, that’s an expression, and it means that it’s heavily raining.

With this example, you can see that idioms for example should never be
translated literally.

Not translating literally comes to prepositions as well. They should be learned

and you shouldn’t translate them literally from your native language. They are
quite specific and I suggest you to create a logical path towards them. Let’s take
this sentence: ‘’You can go to Sofia by bus, by car, by plane or by train.’’ You are
trying to remember that the necessary preposition is ‘’by’’. How can you do that?
You can use the alphabetical order and start with ‘’bus’’ because the preposition
also starts with the letter ‘’b’’ (By Bus-easy, right?). If you are trying to remember
that you need to use ‘’on’’ when you are connecting it with ‘’a platform’’’, try
combining it with a word which starts with ‘’on’’ as well: e.g. I am on the platform
to Ontario. Say this out loud or to a friend and you will be surprised how fast you
will remember it.
Now, I have a silly idea for you but it’s actually working. If you have children or
you know any children, you can ask them to yell several times: ‘’by bus’’ and this
would definitely make you remember it. (First, because it includes speaking, and
also because it was said in a louder manner and you will connect this experience
with the preposition). Our minds are very situational oriented, so you would be
prone to remember more anything which has to do with a specific recollection.
When it comes to acquiring new knowledge, your brain can be highly associative
and it tends to connect bits which you already know with the new chunks. You
can always use that fact as well. Don’t let yourself believe that you have
consolidated something which you are not sure about. You need logical patterns
in order to establish connections. Let’s say that you have already learned
Present Perfect Tense. It would be easy if the next tense which you are learning
is Past Perfect Tense because they are closely related. You will need only to
remember that instead of ‘’have’’ you will need to use ‘’had’’ but you keep the
past participle. This is called methodological learning-when you build up on
similar grammar or vocabulary structure. You can also make connections
between some words which you learned (e.g. If I learn the verb
"provide" then I can quickly learn its noun derivatives-provision
 and provider).
Recording your own speech when you are talking with a friend can be a fun
activity and then you can check online which words did you pronounce correctly
and which ones you didn’t know. On top of that, you have a constant access to
what you have been saying and thus you can later make a second recording but
this time using the correct word choice or pronunciation.

Exercise (1)
Do the following exercise if you want to improve your speaking skills: Decide on a
topic which you really like or care about. Make a short discussion on it with
someone (approximately 5 minutes) and record it. Play it and notice any
mistakes. Now correct them and act out the same speaking again and record it
one more time. This exercise is useful as it is giving you the opportunity to track
what you say and thus becoming confident in your speech. Don’t forget that the
point is not to be shy or feeling inadequate when you make mistakes. Allow
yourself to make them and improve yourself by recording it two times. There we
go!

2. How to interact with your teacher so that you achieve better results and
writing practices
Learning a language with the support of a teacher is also a long process. I have
observed thousands of my students struggling with different linguistic problems. I am
always there to help and even I feel happy if somebody shows curiosity. It is not only
that the teacher is there, and he or she gives you the material, and you learn during the
class and then via homework. It also comes to self-investment of time, energy, and
ideas. In case that you already have a language teacher, it would always be beneficial if
you ask him/her about all doubts which you have. Some exercises require additional
help and you are not always supposed to understand what the teacher or the professor
is explaining to you. Be open and straightforward to ask questions if you need additional
assistance regarding all of your difficulties. When you are doing your homework,
underline the parts which are more difficult for you (be it vocabulary or grammar) and
always ask for feedback. If you are learning in a group, don’t be afraid to stand out from
the ‘’crowd’’ with knowledge or lack of knowledge-you can and you should always be
expressive. You can prepare a list with questions for your teacher and ask them any
time you would like to know something additionally or connected with your homework.
Realizing your own progress is quite essential. Always be ready to make a list with all
your doubts and achievements-tracking what you have learned and why, together with
your teacher’s notes can be actually the crucial point in your development. Setting new
goals constantly until you have achieved the desired result is very stimulating. Being
conscious about it is not to be underestimated. Even if it looks too much work for you, if
you instead do it, with the time you will notice that it is improving your knowledge and
abilities much more than anything else. Together with your teacher or alone, you can
prepare a special folder in which you collect all your works in English and achievement
progress notes. Don’t forget that skillful equals willful. Having a board on which you
write down with a marker a wrong sentence and you correct it with a different colour can
be beneficial as well. Being aware of all processes will help you develop not only
language but also other skills. You can be creative with your learning style and try
different methods on your own starting from pronunciation, speaking and consolidation
of knowledge. Learning from your own mistakes and other people mistakes will lead you
to development. Be aware of all of them and rewrite sentences with correction. Also,
you can regularly checkup essays or your friends’ writings. If you ask someone to do
you a dictation (an excerpt from a book/magazine), this would be also helpful. If you are
a fan of curious facts, you can make a compilation of different articles and in this way,
creating your own booklet.

Exercise (2)

No cheating allowed! Copy-pasted texts from the Internet would be detected. 😊 Create
your own text including ten curious facts about some animal which you really like. Add
up direct comment questions under your sentences such as: ‘’Is it correct to write: The
weasles live in variety of habitat..or: Weasles live in a variety of habitats? What makes
one of them incorrect? You can notice that the more specific your questions, the more in
depth answer you can get.

3. Learning with songs

A very useful and engaging way to learn a language is by listening to different kinds of
songs. You can listen to them online and write down the lyrics. Underline the unfamiliar
words for you and with an asterisk sign you can explain what do they mean. Another
method would be if you try remembering the lyrics of different genres and copy-paste it
on a Word. Trying to sing along is also very pleasant. Try referring to songs which have
nothing in common. Let’s say, you can analyze ‘’The Clash – Should I Stay Or Should I
Go?’’ when you are learning the modal verb ‘’should’’:

‘’Darling, you got to let me know

Should I stay or should I go?
If you say that you are mine
I'll be here 'til the end of time
So you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?’’

You can learn various grammar bits simultaneously - possessive pronouns (mine), and
then you can even try substituting this pronoun with all the rest of the possessive
pronouns in the song (nevertheless the song won’t make the same sense anymore):
e.g. If you say that you are his (hers), etc. and you can sing along with the new words.
There are many people who don’t remember the correct lyrics so this can be a good
way to both have fun and practice various possessive pronouns. In this song you can
also learn what ‘’got to’’ means-have got and the phrase ‘’to let me know’’. Another thing
which you can do is write down the lyrics and then a complete translation on the other
side. The modal verb ‘’should’’ is present as well and you can clearly see that you need
to add anything after it (no need of ‘’to’’ or whichever other preposition). Singing the
karaoke version of each song is also useful but what you can do on top of that is,
switching the melody of the song on your computer and trying to sing the original lyrics.
A good song to learn the grammar construction ‘’I should have…’’ is The Beatles’ song
‘’‘’I Should Have Known Better’’

‘’I should have known better with a girl like you

That I would love everything that you do
And I do, hey, hey, hey, and I do’’

There is again a combination of various verbs and this is easily noticeable in many
songs-in this part of the song you can see ‘’I would love…’’ and you can try learning the
difference between ‘’I would love to…do something’’ and ‘’I would love’’… +a noun.
Even Present Simple is available here ‘’and I do’’ (its positive form). If you are learning
the grammar construction: ‘’I wish’’, you can extract the lyrics of the song:

‘’Wish you were here’’ by Pink Floyd -

‘’Running over the same old ground.

What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.’’

Simultaneously, there is an example of Present Perfect Tense: ‘’what have we found’’ –

try to always notice, and be mindful about all verbs in songs and which is their tense.
Later on, you can copy the text in your notebook but miss out on purpose some words
and do it like an exercise-trying to see if you remembered the words correctly. Pay
attention to the pronunciation and listen to the songs not only once. The first time is just
to get the idea and the second time-to see if you already remember how to pronounce
certain words. If you want to learn adjectives, a good exercise for your brain is to notice
if they are describing an event, a person, a feeling, a place, a situation, etc. You can
explore all aspects of the lyrics and all parts of speech by writing down in charts all the
nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. This is a useful exercise for you because you will
end up knowing more words and how to they function in the sentences. Being aware of
all words and their meaning is a good exercise for you. In the beginning when you are
listening to any songs, you would do it in order to apprehend the overall idea and later
on with every following listening, you can already pay attention to the way in which the
word was used, word order, pronunciation, the message which was conveyed. Try with
different genres of music. On the first listening you can try writing down only the words
which you know (not the whole text). You can continue with stopping the song and
writing down even more. Once you have written down the whole text, you can try
learning it by heart and sing along in case that you like singing. (Gradual adding up
words is good for you because you don’t start overwhelming yourself with all of them.
Once you feel ready to include more, you can do it with the additional listening). If you
don’t like singing or you are not comfortable doing that and you prefer writing, you can
go along with writing down words which have the same suffixes: e.g. ‘’ship’’: Friendship
is the best ship and kind of relationship. If we don’t know how to worship, we will go
through hardship.’’ Thus, you can create your own texts, song lyrics or anything that you
are interested in.

Exercise (3): Find the lyrics of a favourite song and write it down together with its
translation. Use also the gradual adding up of words (so don’t write all the lyrics in the
same moment but rather go back to it). Underline any grammar structure and new
words which you may find. Listen to it several times and notice after the second
listening you already learned any new words. Choose a song which might be
challenging to you, not the one with the easiest lyrics. When you are ready with all,
attach it with its translation. Notice your progress.

4. What kind of exercises are really beneficial to your brain and where to take
them from? How to learn so that you have long-term knowledge?
When studying, many people experience difficulties with having ‘’stable knowledge’’- not
only to learn something and remember it for a short period of time but also to keep it in
their long-term memory. This happens due to many reasons but the most important one
is that they haven’t found their most appropriate way of learning. Investing your time in
finding out what works for you is much more important than just memorizing something
and then quickly forgetting it. In order to get over that, you need to realize several
things.

Questions to ask yourself when you study a new language and your learning style:

*Who am I? This question will help you in order to figure out what learning style and
methodologies will be the most suitable for you. Define if you are a person who prefers:
1) learning individually; 2) studying in a group; 3) which repetitive methods work for you
the most; 4) is constant speaking and usage of new vocabulary and grammar working
for you or you need other methodologies as well
*How do I remember all relevant details? Do I need extra support or can I deal with
everything myself?
*How do I evaluate my progress? Do I need teacher’s support all the time or I can work
individually?*What kind of exercises stimulate my brain the most?
*Why did I learn that, how did my brain develop?
Once you know your answers, it will be easier for you also understanding what kind of
language practice do you need.
The next step would be to do exercises, considering your language learning
preferences.
Examples of useful exercises can be:
-Correction of sentences (sentences written in a wrong way and then you are supposed
to write them correctly)-you can do those with your teacher and on your own (previously
I suggested creating flashcards for yourself using that). You might think that this is
confusing but underlining it with green and red will help you.
-Recording yourself when during natural conversations with friends
-Reading English children books out loud (this is specifically useful because in this way
you are capable of hearing yourself and remembering words much faster; plus, the
pictures are quite useful)
-If you are a total beginner or you have children-putting labels on all objects around:
write the words using colorful pens (e.g. a big label: ‘’REFRIGERATOR’’ on its door,
‘’PIANO’’ on its lid, ‘’CHAIR’’ over its seat) /This one is funny because when you invite
your friends, they would be thinking that constantly they are in a different city (the city
called PAINTING-you can try becoming part of it if you believe in fantasy worlds!) or
children would mess them up and put ‘’sunglasses’’ over a pot and your task will be to
rearrange them correctly again) You can do the same with phrases or verbs and stick
them on a small white board
-Create situations and unique dialogues which you can practice with someone-you can
have ‘’topic of the day’’ and discuss on various interests with your teacher or someone
you know
-Systematically go back to previous grammar and vocabulary units. You can combine
both of them together with new vocabulary and grammar (never stop including what you
have already learned and ask your teacher to prepare recap exercises for you which
include both)
-Writing down the appropriate missing word in dialogues-this one is specifically very
useful because it includes your thinking around that which word you should choose
(thus-learning derivatives) and also you would pay more attention to it than to a regular
reading exercise. When you are learning on your own, look for this kind of exercises.

In order to remember more, you need to understand that you need simplicity and the
right approach-what to avoid and what to do. In order to learn fast and efficiently, first
you need to know what not to do and what would make everything overall a more
pleasant process. Learning ‘’dry’’ grammar without putting it in real-life situations and
only doing textbook kind of exercises can overwhelm you. Learning by heart Murphy’s
grammar would make you ask yourself: ‘’Ok, if this tense is called Present Perfect then
why does it concern past events and what is the logic behind that?’’ There are
thousands of examples which prove English is not very logical language-you say money
‘’is’’ (nevertheless we have many banknotes and coins) or the plural of ‘’ox’ ’is ‘’oxen’’
and not ‘’oxes’’. One can start with the exceptions to the rules and find out that it is not
obligatory to always only learn by heart. Rather, put the illogical words to you in
consecutive sentences and write their translation under it if that’s easier for you. Other
people always get confused with learning the usage of certain tenses-they could ask
why in English Present Perfect Tense could signify so many different time-related
things. First, it shows a correlation between the past and the present; additionally, it
shows experience. Also, it doesn’t stress on the fact when exactly the event took place
(two years ago, last Monday)-rather, it is interested in the fact that it shows experience.
All these facts put together in a grammar box like in the majority of the textbooks can be
stressful or inefficient-you might remember it for a certain period of time and then forget
it very fast. Why not extracting examples from articles which contain the very same
meaning as it is in the textbook? You can also write down next to it which usage of the
tense was included in the article. Practice saying grammatically incorrect sentences- ‘’I
went there since 2009.’’ and immediately correct yourself by saying out loud in front of
the mirror: ‘’I haven’t been there since 2009.’’ You can practice in front of the mirror
making a whole conversation as well or a funny scenario. Learning vocabulary and word
choice can be challenging and a fun activity at the same time-no one expects you to
miraculously remember a very complicated word which you saw only once in a
‘’Reading exercise’’. Putting the same word in various contexts can be a fun activity but
knowing when the word cannot be used is very important too. You can create a small
dictionary for yourself which includes all incompatible phrases. For example, you can
write down: ‘’you can say an obnoxious person but you can’t say an obnoxious cat’’.
Learning pronunciation could be difficult for words such as ‘’affidavit’’ but they could be
learned in rhymes: ‘’David wrote an affidavit’’. What I don’t advise you is to open
random Internet sources and try learning things. You need to which are the credible
sources if so. When it comes to learning prepositions, you can become totally confused
and learning them by heart immediately can lead to contradictive results. Therefore,
creating various charts and writing under separate columns can make it more
systematical. You can also write down wrong examples and cross out the incorrect
preposition: e.g. I am happy in that (correct one: about). You can also write short
examples: ‘’You can be happy for me but you can’t be happy of me. You can be
confused about your future but you can’t be confused at your future.’’ If you want to
become even more fluent and be aware of phrasal verbs, use stories-create your own
story containing phrasal verbs such as ‘’put off’’ or ‘’break down’’: e.g. I always put off
breaking down my lessons until it was so late that I had to deal with all my mistakes
during the test. In one of the next modules you will see one more way to deal with
phrasal verbs but until then…

Exercise: This time I will give you an exercise and you will send me your answers. It is
connected with word choice and because there might be people on different language
levels, I would prepare two options. Choose the one which you find more appropriate for
yourself:
1.Lucy: Did you see that …. café around the corner?
Simon: Yes, it looks very nice and probably it’s cheaper than the one that we visited
yesterday.
Lucy: When do you want to go? Do you think that it will be also …..than the other one?
Simon: I hope so.
Lucy: I would be the ……. girl in the world if we also go to the tonight’s theater
performance. Do you want to book tickets?
Simon: Do you mean ‘’The Sunshine Boys’’ written by Neil Simon? This man whose
family name coincides with my first name!?
Lucy: Yeees!
Simon: Why do you think that a man would like to watch something called ‘’Sunshine
Boys’’?
Lucy: Come oon, it’s fun and interesting.
Simon: Ah, ok. I guess it will be the worst experience in our lives but let’s just try.

2. Carol:

5. How is active learning different from passive learning and how you can turn
many passive activities into more engaging ones

What are they and why are they useful? How can you implement them in your learning
process? Every student can turn his homework tasks and learning on his own in a more
active learning process. You can do that also in the classroom together with your
teacher. Involving yourself in a language group during a discussion or a speaking
activity is important. Have you caught yourself being shy or unwilling to participate in a
task/exercise/speaking? Find out your reasons-you might be afraid of making mistakes,
you might feel that you don’t have enough vocabulary in your glossary or you just think
that you still can’t express yourself. No matter what the reason is, you are self-limiting
yourself in this way. Your teacher is not there to judge you and you shall feel completely
free, expressing yourself. Once involved, you will also learn something new for sure.
You can make a list with topics you are not that confident talking about and you would
like to learn (also, how to talk and express opinions on the topic). Active learning would
be to brainstorm your ideas and involve other people in discussions (for example, if you
are part of a language course group). Only reading a text on your own at home can be
enriching but it is always more effective if you do it out loud and in front of a group. One
of the most passive activities would be Reading texts from textbooks, tests or choosing
a word in an exercise (with only one correct answer). Being active with a Reading can
mean to pick up a role in the specific text (if it is a dialogue, in order to act it out) and to
involve your teacher in the process (or any of your friends if you are doing it at home).
You can ask direct him/her questions-why is this word chosen over another one or what
does it exactly mean in this context. Finding out common patterns in English is quite
useful in order to turn your passive learning to active learning. You should stop
memorizing the grammar boxes in your textbooks and rather find a logical pattern any
time. Realizing that there are five basic sentence structures would help you a lot. You
always start with the doer of the action (in grammar units it is called Subject), then you
continue with the action (verb) and after that you would sometimes have a description of
the noun or the verb (an adjective or an adverb-e.g. beautiful and beautifully).
Another passive language learning process is only sticking to textbook exercises
without any other additional activities. The reasons why they are limiting are: 1) not
enough context is given (the sentences are not in a text), 2) you would be more prone to
forget the information after a while, especially if you don’t use it; 3) they are usually not
so engaging. Therefore, in order to turn these boring exercises into beneficial ones for
yourself, you are welcome to represent the exercise to your teacher. He or she can turn
it into a role play game and write down the expressions from it on the board. Then, if
you are in a group, feel free to make an open conversation in connection with this topic.
You can do the same at home as well-if you have any multiple-choice exercises, you
can engage one person with you and turn it into an acting scene (you can use changing
voices as well). If there are simply sentences, developing these sentences is what we
are aiming for (turning them into real-life conversations or situations as well). A strategy
for learning which you can use is to create your own dialogues as well and present them
to your teacher or anyone who knows the language. Being active in classes is
connected also with all games in which the teacher might involve you. As much as they
are fun, you can also learn from them. You can sometimes record some of the games in
class activities and then listen to them again when you are alone at home or with your
friends. When you are walking in the city where you live, you might notice places or
objects and not know their translation. You can in a fast way write them down on a
piece of paper and then ask a native speaker how are they called or check it up. In this
way you would tend to remember more because you are using situational awareness. If
you are outside with friends and you are discussing something which really interests
you, you can try briefly translating it in your thoughts once you are on your own
(brainstorming). Social topics are of big importance because they can both enrich you
and make you think in a different language.
In order to actively remember words, you can use the fact that some of them have the
same prefixes or suffixes: we can easily say that in English there are plenty of words
which end up in ‘’ation’’: e.g. administration, nation, interpretation, generalization,
classification, etc. You can also write some lines which rhyme in order to remember the
pronunciation (look, just one more word that ends up in ‘’ation’’): e.g.’’You deserve the
best vacation with your favourite part of the population. That’s a very good orientation.’’
You can also choose words which end up in similar letters (-ay. -ey):
‘’I pray for the prey with lack of dismay. The world isn’t grey, come what may.’’

How is this connected with active or passive learning?

Also, knowing that there is a strong and weak pronunciation of some words is useful-for
example the preposition ‘’for’’ in the phrase ‘’for example’’ is weak because it’s not
stressed. Have you ever thought why you passively know the language but you feel
unable to express yourself? It is of course due to lack of experience with real speech.
Once you learn something from your textbook or you act it out the way I suggested,
record yourself again, saying what did you learn or acting out dialogues. Listen to your
recording later and do that regularly. In this way you will have access to what you
learned and also you will have the chance to correct it yourself once again. When you
realize that you are in the core of improving your own results, you will be astonished
how much you can achieve.

Exercise: Try creating a debate regarding some topic which you really care about.
Include one more person and send me a recording (it is a Speaking activity). Note which
words did you choose and try the next day to remember the most important of them.
Learning passively something would be to silently read a text on your own at home.
Underline a word but don’t pronounce it. Check the next day if you would remember it.
Now compare the results with the debate and let me know how many new words did
you remember from the active task and how many-from the passive one.

Checked until here

6. Mistakes when learning English-what inefficient practices you might apply and
what you can do instead for better results

Together with the idea of passive learning, you should consider that there are also
wrong approaches in learning a language. Don’t expect from yourself that you will
automatically remember every new word or grammar rule by heart (or even worse, the
phrasal verbs) just because you are repeating them or filling in exercises. Use the
associations method which I mentioned about prepositions but also all kinds of
associations. English can be sometimes illogical but when it comes to phrasal verbs,
positioning matters. When you are learning them, start with the prepositions-they are
going to orientate you. If you are learning phrasal verbs with the preposition ‘’up’’, you
can see that the direction ‘’up’’ presupposes some change in that direction: e.g. to pick
up your socks from the floor. Another example would be ‘’to add up’’ which means to
collect (so, you are putting maybe one thing over another and so on). ‘’Up’’ also
suggests some increase – e.g. speak up; or that something is becoming better- to dress
up. If we consider the preposition ‘’down’’, it works the opposite way around -to bring
somebody down is definitely negative and it means to make someone unhappy or to
cause someone fall over. Another example would be ‘’to close down’’ – I had to close
down my business because of the circumstances.
Another mistake which you might be making is if you focus too much on grammar
because your textbook was designed in this way. You can’t express yourself only if you
know how to use all of the tenses. Therefore, enrich your vocabulary constantly by
reading books or writing down the new words with their translation but only in context.
Never learn vocabulary without adding up in which situations is the word appropriate as
I mentioned in Module four. Word choice is very important and not all words are
interchangeable.
Let’s say, you are about to write down sentences:

Rafflesia arnoldii is a rare (translated to рядък/ in your language) flower found in the
rainforests of Indonesia. It can grow to be (израстват) 3 feet across and weigh up to 15 pounds!
It is a parasitic plant, with no visible (translated to видим/…) leaves, roots (translated to
корени), or stem (translated to стебло).

You should write down under that text:

*rare flower/rare bird/rare pronunciation/rare kind; but you can’t say rare knitting, you
would rather say ‘’unusual knitting’’
*visible stars/light/politician; the last one is not literal and it means a well-known
politician; but you can’t say: ‘’It is visible that it’s like that.’’, you would rather say: ‘’It is
obvious that it’s like that.’’

Before going to bed, read them out loud and include them in a sentence. As a teacher I
always give to my students creative tasks so that they can use all the vocabulary which
they learned and the results are always positive.

Exercise- Write a short text like the one which I will give you as example and send it
back to me.
Find out several phrasal verbs which include prepositions. In brackets write what do the
phrasal verbs mean.

Example of phrasal verbs text:

The students looked up in the dictionary the meaning of the phrasal verb ‘’to turn in’’.
They found out that it means to go to bed. However, all of them put off (to postpone)
going to bed very early and instead they stayed up until 1 a.m. They decided to go over
(еxamine carefully) their idea and the following five days they turned in (went to bed) at
midnight instead.
Second exercise- Write down also one descriptive text and underline the adjectives like
the one with the biggest flower in the world. Then write your notes with which nouns
does this adjective go and list some combinations which would be incorrect. Near the
brackets also like the text that I provided you with, write the translation of the words.
This will help you to get used to with the appropriate word choice and the translation of
the words.
7. Learn with comedy (funny things) – because laughter and humour makes it easier.
There are many expressions which could be remembered in an easier way. Let’s say
that somebody is getting married and during the wedding the groom puts his foot in his
mouth and says: ‘’You know, guys...when we were first dating, she was leaving all her
dirty socks and pads everywhere but now once she is with me…she only leaves pads
and socks everywhere… I guess the progress caused by good interaction.’’ And then
the bride answers- ‘’Mmm, I can tell that my husband put SOME foot in what he said.
Ewww.’’ (She is saying that jokingly, referring to his smelly foot and she didn’t like what
he said). You can see how far you can reach if you want to expand the meaning of an
idiom. You can do that exercise with many of them. The first one is the real idiomatic
expression and it apparently means to say or do something tactless or embarrassing.
Another one is ‘’Bob’s Your Uncle’’ – then you can joke around with the situation.
Imagine that a small child takes it too literally and is asking his mother: ‘’Seriously,
mum? It’s what it says-Bob’s my uncle? I am upset…If he is my uncle then who is that
that guy whom you call ‘’daddy’’ and he arrives with a car and his name is Fred and his
brother is Richard?! I am confused. Isn’t Richard my uncle?!’’ and then the mother
replies, bringing the child a bowl with spaghetti: ‘’Bob is your uncle, darling. I didn’t know
how to tell you but this book made it easier. Now stop and eat and later I will explain to
you what does this expression mean and who are Bob and Richard.’’ Now, for the
people who didn’t know ‘’Bob is your uncle’’ means ‘’there it is/there you have it, et
voilai! From French
(Maybe without 7)

8. How to incorporate games in your studying process

Don’t make the mistake to turn language learning to only a serious process. You
definitely need to have the necessary knowledge as a skeleton of your learning but do
include self-created games as well when learning English.
If you are a person who likes creative things, you can make your own diary in which
you collect: recipes, song lyrics, poems and quotations in English. Choose your
favourite author and collect his thoughts. In this way you will be both enlightened and
entertained. Do this exercise on your own as well: write the recipe down an put some
concealer over several words. The point is to recollect the missing words. Now try
guessing it and overwrite it over the concealer. In case that you have any doubts that
you remember them, use the concealer again and write the missing words one more
time. You can continue playing this game until you are sure that you remembered the
words correctly. You need to simultaneously pronounce them as well so that you
exercise more than one skill at the same time. Another useful and engaging activity
which you can prepare for yourself is to create a pile with verbs in different tenses.
Like a lottery, you can take one ‘’ticket’’ and make a sentence with it. In case that
nothing comes to your mind, then you can stick the verb note on your notebook and
look for words in the dictionary. Write the Subject of the sentence in red colour, the
verb-in green, the adjective-in purple, any prepositions-in blue, etc. Just make them
stand out in a way. Another useful activity would be if you read anecdotes and jokes.
They can be especially useful because each person tends to remember funny things
with much more ease. Think of funny things which you would like to do and transform
them into anecdotes. You can always retell a story of a happening during your day in a
funny way. Let’s say that you need to go to the dentist and you are creating a pre-story
of your meeting with him….

At the dentist

So, right, now this guy will start counting my cavities like he is counting stars… I am
aware of the fact that he can count, woow, so awesome! Maybe I have to clap once he
starts saying all these numbers: eleventh on the right, third on the left…Is he also
some kind of an accountant? I am thinking ‘’Why is he staring at my mouth? Doesn’t
he have anything better to do or to stare at-like beautiful girls, nice photos?!’’…
Then he would go: ‘’Your ninety-seventh tooth needs a filling!’’ ‘’Wait, what? Don’t hurt
my feelings with your fillings! As far as I remember, I have only …thirty-two teeth,
right? Unless I started growing some teeth at night… He wants to extract all my nerves
but he is a little bit too late..I already don’t have any nerves left.

Another way to make the whole process more engaging and entertaining is playing
some card games. You can either play ‘’Cards against humanity’’ or even create your
own ones. On the back of each card you can write some inspirational or funny thought
and play it with a friend.

9. English learning through stories

One of the most engaging way to study is through stories. Why is it useful and which
barriers it might break? All stories enhance your listening abilities. In case that you
chose that way, while you are listening to the story, you can stop it if you hear an
unknown word, write it down and start listening again. It is a very fascinating way to
learn and by no time, you will increase your vocabulary. Even if you spend doing that
30 minutes a day-but do it every day! Persistence is the key to success. During a
second listening you can do it in order to understand the story itself. The problems
which you might face during this process are: you might be overwhelmed by too many
new words or not listening carefully throughout the video due to absentmindedness.
Over 90% of the students are facing those two problems and I have a solution for you.
In case to listen to the story more carefully, you should better put your headphones on
and listen to it through your phone. This limits side distractions and noises and makes
you focus more on what the speaker is talking. Then you can write down in a
vocabulary notebook all the unfamiliar words. Writing down key ideas of the story as a
summary is also very useful. In order to make sure that you understood everything,
listen to the very same story even three times. It is incredibly helpful for your
pronunciation and grasp of the language.