SECTION ONE
INPUT
SHORT VERSION
Read and listen to something in the language every day.
Input means listening and reading.
Input is incredibly powerful. There are millions of children and young people all over the world learning English just by watching American movies, television shows and by reading social media platforms and gaming websites.
They have the right idea!
Do both every day. Decide in the moment which is more important that day.
Make sure you do both almost every day of the week.
a. LISTENING – 5-15 MINUTES
Activities: podcasts, movies, television shows, YouTube videos, newscasts, songs, www.yabla.com, www.lingq.com (or anything else you can discover in your searches).
THE PROCESS
Listen to something every day. Vary the venues. Experiment. Always keep it enjoyable.
Listen in a conscious and relaxed manner.
Don’t analyze or try to translate. Just follow the words and let the meaning spontaneously emerge in your mind. Understanding is a function of attention, not will.
Relax, pay attention, breathe. Stay focused.
This is not the time for thinking, judging or deciding. This is the time for staying present no matter what.
CHOOSING MATERIAL
You (normally) need to have a basic understanding of what you hear. You don’t need to understand every word. You want to have at least a basic idea of what is said. You need to understand 40% or more of what you hear. Your brain will fill in the missing pieces.
It is useful for pronunciation but not for comprehension to listen to materials you don’t understand at all.
Experiment!
It’s fine to have subtitles or close captions running while you listen (some of the time), but make sure you are hearing the words. As you listen, you hear. As you hear, let the words and phrases sink in without your doing or thinking anything.
There are many jokes made about the husband who doesn’t seem to hear a single word his wife says. Rather than doing that, be like an attentive lover, focused and receiving every word your beloved speaks.
Love and pleasure are important in our life. Make sure that what you listen to is wonderful, enjoyable or even blissful for you.
Who wants to hear a boring person with a horrible voice droning on about irrelevant things?
It’s your responsibility to find material you enjoy.
b. READING 5-15 minutes
ACTIVITIES
Novels, magazines, websites, college readers, comic books, Animé, news articles, articles about your hobbies and interests. Anything in the foreign language.
THE PROCESS
The process is exactly the same as before, but you use your eyes instead of your ears.
Read something every day. Spontaneously vary what you read. Experiment. Always keep it interesting and fun for yourself
Read consciously and stay relaxed.
Once again don’t analyze or try to translate. Just follow the words and let the meaning spontaneously emerge in your mind. As we said before, understanding is a function of attention, not will. Understanding is an unconscious brain function. Let it happen.
If you don’t understand anything at all, bring the reading level down.
Feel free to put the text into Google Translate paragraph by paragraph. But, always read in the new language before you read the translation. Then read the paragraph (or sentence) a second time. This approach makes it much faster and easier to read. It lets you learn new vocabulary.
Relax, pay attention, breathe. Stay focused.
Enjoy your reading time. Find a comfortable place. Stay relaxed and keep breathing.
CHOOSING MATERIAL
There are no rules. Read anything you might enjoy. In print or on a screen.
Again, you want to have a basic understanding of what you hear. You don’t need to know all the vocabulary and grammar. You do want to have at least a basic idea of what is written. Using Google Translate can really help if you don’t use it as a replacement for doing the work.
Experimenting will keep it alive and fun for you.
http://focuslanguage.com/blog/2018/12/13/reading-to-develop-fluency/