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I get a lot of practice listening to Russian while training for my 90 km ski race in Sweden. That race will take place in Mora Sweden on March 4. I was tricked into going into the race by my employees and our suppliers in Sweden. But I intend to complete the race. So I am taking a week to train at Silver Star. Here is what it looks like at Silver Star.

Here I am ready to start my 5 hour endurance training. There are tens of kilometres of trails, some flat, some hilly, with beautiful views.Can you notice my earphones connected to my iPod for listening to Russian?

If you need to go you need to go. Note the snow load on the toilet.

I stopped to look at the view. Note the trail below the one that I am on.

Some skiers in the distance. You hardly meet any other skiers. When you do you chat.

A view of the down hill ski area.

Here is the podcast.

How can we learn to write English better? The following is a message from an English teacher on the TESL-L Listserve, a community of over 20,000 English teachers on the Internet.

"I'm appalled that anyone would believe that giving students books would help them learn how to write an essay. Learning (and teaching) a second language is MUCH more complicated than encouraging students to read."

and

" I am sooooooooooooooo tired of these simple "just give them books" solutions."

 My answer to this was as follows.

Different people learn in different ways, although there are certain universaI principles. The power of reading is one of them.

I have learned many languages, mostly by reading and listening. I would not go to a class to learn how to write better in any language. I would read more, and I would listen more. I would choose content with the style and use of words that I want to learn from. I would notice words and phrases and save them for review. I would consult articles on the Internet, or books which explain the style that is most appreciated for the language I am learning and the kind of writing that I need to do. These materials abound, especially for English writing. I would do it all on my own. Reading would be my most important activity and where I would spend most of my time.

I fully recognize that a majority of learners may take a different approach. But I believe that nobody can improve their writing without spending most of their time reading. The challenge for the teacher is to find ways to encourage, facilitate or stimulate their students' reading. Providing advice and feedback may be necessary for a majority of students ( I agree that I may be an exception), but the reading is the most important activity. This is based on my experience as a learner and as a teacher.

Humberto wanted to know how to develop English language output as quickly as possible. My answer is first of all to relax and enjoy the language. The more tense you are, the more anxious you are to speak well "as quickly as possible", the poorer you will do, unless you can also enjoy English.

I can imagine that if I were an immigrant to Canada and could not get the jobs that I wanted because of poor English, I would dislike English. Similarly, if my only motivation for learning English was an exam, I would not have positive feelings towards English.

You need to be positive. You need to relax. You need to like English and to like your personality in English, in order for good output to happen. So that is the first secret. Get positive! Link up powerfully to English. Link up emotionally. Being a perfectionist can break that emotional link. You will never be perfect. If perfection is your goal, you will never be good enough in your own eyes.

More on this later...........

I find the poor quality of reading material for languages like Russian and Korean very annoying. What is equally annoying is the poor quality of language CDs. Inevitably when I start learning a language from scratch, as is the case with Russian or Korean, I depend on language programs that I can buy in the store or online. (The Linguist is not yet available for these languages.) What is most annoying is the amount English on these CDs. "Lesson 5" it says in English. Or "The next episode is about Sally and Igor going to the Post Office, see if you can understand what they are saying." Or: "Try to answer the following questions after listening to the episode". Why the English? Let me figure it out. I want to listen to these texts 20 times to get used to the language. I do not want to listen to English. What better way to get used to numbers (always very difficult in any language) than to  hear them in the language I am trying to learn. Why not just say "Chapter 34 on page 245" in Russian or Korean! Why not!!!! What goes through the minds of the people who make these recordings? Is my reaction so different from other learners?

A recent e-mail brought to my attention the British Council "Innovation Awards" for new and better ways to teach and learn English. I had a look at the list. Amongst the finalists in the advanced category were "Splendid Speaking" by Flo-Joe and "Intelligent English" from Pearson Longman together with The Economist. I could add Business English Podcast to the list of similar services although it did not make the British Council list. I explored these services on the web. I guess I would never go about learning " business Russian" in this way. Why not?

As an intermediate or better  Russian learner,I would want real authentic content. I would rather listen to and read real content from a novel, news story or other articles intended for native speakers than listen to what "Splendid" or "Business English" offer. I would never want to go through the tedious exercizes that "Intelligent English" provides.

The quality of the recorded voices is important. Stilted voices and unnatural recordings do not turn me on. For an English learner there is a wealth of content intended for native speakers that address the issues of presentations and how to speak in a meeting, or how to write a report etc.. Many of these are freely available on the Internet. I would get all the authentic material of this kind, aimed at native speakers, and import them into The Linguist. I could even import content from the programs I listed above. Then I would imitate the words and phrases and structures used in these contents.

In any case I would want my own style of presentation. I would look at many different resources and decide how I wanted to make presentations. I would build up my basic ability in the language by focusing on content that I enjoy, even if it is literature. If I build up my overall skills in the language, the presentation skills or business skills will be much easier to acquire.

I believe that learning business English, or academic English or other specialized English is secondary. Building up a solid base in the language, with natural phrasing and rhythm is the first thing to do.  I found these candidates for the Innovation Awards rather un-innovative. The language resources, especially for English, are all out there. The innovation will come with systems like The Linguist which make this plentiful content more easily accessible for learners and put the learners in charge, and get away from the traditional teacher-oriented format.

The fastest way to increase English vocabulary is to read. If you can then listen to what you have read, so much the better. It will reinforce your memory of what you read, and improve your reading rhythm and speed.

There are problems, however. It is not pleasant to read material with more than 5% new words. But to increase vocabulary you need to discover new words in interesting contexts. Consulting a traditional dictionary is hopeless because it is so time consuming and the words so quickly forgotten. Reading on line is better because you can consult an electronic dictionary but the words are still quickly forgotten. It is also easier to read a book than to read online.

If you are lucky you can find special graded readers with prepared word lists. Even with a prepared word list, all too often it seems that the editors of these readers deliberately provide translations of obvious words that you already know and do not provide translations of difficult new words that you do not know.

We think the The Linguist is an excellent solution since members can use the content in our library which self-grades to their invidual vocabulary level. They can also import any content they like, and build their own vocabulary databases and use our vocabulary learning methodology.

Whatever you do, you canot avoid reading a lot if you want to master lots of vocabulary.

The champion word learner at The Linguist is one of our members from Japan, Sada...  Matsu..... He has been with The Linguist since Oct 30 2005, in other words over two years. I see him on the site almost every day. In about 27 months he has saved 11,3999 words and 3882 phrases. He has studied 809 items, of which 299 are from The Linguist Library and 510 are imported from elsewhere. He listens 1-2 hours per day. ( He actually records his listening hours!) His total known words is 26,419. He never writes. He never participates on any Skype discussions. He just reads and listens, just about every day.

Ai, go for your goal of 20,000 words! But I am glad you are also going to join us on the Vox blog and hopefully join some discussions as well. 

Here is the podcast

You need to learn English before you start to speak in English! I have been working on my Russian over the holidays. I am fighting my way through Bulgakov's "The Life of Monsieur de Moliere" reading, listening and saving words and phrases using the Beta version of The Linguist. There are a lot of new words. Many of them are identified by The Linguist system as low frequency words but I am still trying to learn them. At the same time I am reviewing older, easy content, listening to it, and repeating phrases while I listen. I still do not speak Russian with anyone and have no real desire to do so. I guess I would summarize my philosophy as follows; until I can read and listen to a novel, news programs and recorded conversations in Russian and enjoy doing so, I have no desire to speak with anyone. I might be extreme but I feel there is so much I can on my own to improve in the language, I am not sure that stumbling around in a conversation at this stage in my learning would really help me. I think the same is true for English learning. Maybe I am being unfair. It is true that I do not need to learn Russian, nor to speak it. As learners of English you may have a greater need to produce language output at an earlier stage. You should still spend most of your time on reading, listening, word and phrase review, and imitating and repeating phrases; in other words activities that you can control. You need to do two things; become more in tune with the language, and learn words and phrases. This comes from input activities. When you can enjoy listening to and reading novels and news report, the speaking will come naturally.

I look forward to hearing your views!

Here is the podcast.

Develop the habit of imitating and do not study grammar! You will learn English faster! I will follow up, here, on the previous post which referred to mirror neurons, and discuss how to use this phenomenon when you learn English on The Linguist system. In the example of my previous post, I was able to react instantly to the driver in front of me. I was able to anticipate the intentions of the driver in front of me without thinking. My neurons took over. I believe it was the mirror neurons. The instructions on what to do in that situation did not come from a "grammar book" or a driving instruction manual. It is the same in language learning. We need exposure to the language. Listening and reading are key to creating familiarity with the language, and especially in building up vocabulary. Formalized output exercizes that are found in grammar or text books are not necessary and do not work on our imitative ability. ( See my previous post on the inability of output to improve usage accuracy for a group of English learners in Japan). Instead, repetitive reciting of phrases is, I am convinced, the most effective and easiest way to practice output in the language whenever we want. It is not enough to observe someone driving, although it helps a lot. It is important to also drive oneself, in order to notice what is happening. I believe that in the case of language learning, it is not enough just to listen and read, although this should be our main activity since it is enjoyable (creating flow). It is not necessary to study grammar or answer grammar questions, since these do not work very well, and are stressful. It is, on the other hand, most useful to practice repeating a phrase, at least 5 times each time, immediately after hearing it. This can be done by just stopping the iPod from time to time and repeating the last phrase. Do this with an emphasis on the rhythm and intonation of the language, rather than on remembering the words. This in no way this makes reading and listening and the deliberate and efficient learning of vocabulary less important. It just improves your ability to perceive, observe, hear, notice and eventually imitate another language.

I have posted a few comments here about mirror neurons, those neurons that help us imitate, sympathize with and anticipate what people are doing or going to do. I believe these mirror neurons have a lot do with language learning. Something happened to me this morning that made me think of mirror neurons. I was riding in a car and the person driving the car ahead of us stopped and signaled that she was going to turn right. She was about 10 metres from the intersection and just beside a parked car. There was a parking space behind the parked car. I instantly, almost instinctively, knew that she was signaling because she wanted to back up and park, not because she wanted to turn right. How did I know that? How was I able to anticipate what she wanted to do? I believe that my mirror neurons told me. They were acting out what was going to happen based on my experience of watching people drive, and driving myself. Certainly I was not born with some innate set of driving instructions.

We learn by observing others. Our mirror neurons help us imitate because they fire the same way whether we are doing an action, or simply hearing and listening to someone doing an action. If we watch someone play tennis we start to learn how to play tennis. We just imitate them. The more we see them play, the better feel we have of how to play. Without the opportunity to see others, there is no way a book of instruction on tennis would be meaningful to us. It is the same way with language. We need to see and hear the language, as much as possible. That is how we will develop the ability to imitate the language. I will touch on vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation separately.

I used to record some our members' corrected writing. I never really knew if people found them interesting or not. I am going to record here three examples of one of our member's writing. I will also past the text here so that Linguist members can import these texts into their own files. Jill and I have thought about talking about some of the corrections in our podcast, but I am not sure that is really a good idea. It will depend on the reaction I get here. Let me know your views. Let me know if you would like your corrected writing recorded.

Here is the recording

Here is the text.

Advent’s garland

This is about a Scandinavian tradition, but it is also a trend that has spread elsewhere in Europe.

Four weeks before the winter solstice, one creates a garland made of fir branches. It can be hung in the middle of the main room at home. It can be laid down on a table as well.

Four candles are fixed on the garland.

During the first week, one of the candles is burnt for a few moments. Two candles are burnt the week after that, and then three candles are burnt on the third week.

When the longest night of the year finally comes, one burns the four candles together. Thus, as one goes through the decline of the sun, more candles are lit. They somehow take the place of the sun. During the solstice evening, they symbolize the end of winter and they announce the sun's return.

After Advent comes a cycle of twelve days which accompanies the winter solstice. This is the deepest point of the year. The Earth holds its breath.

Throughout those twelve sacred nights, light will be reborn to illuminate a new year.

Outside light and inside light, the action of fire and flame are brought together.

A great calm will settle into homes. This calm will have to sink into each one of us, at least one time a year if we want to look out on the world with new eyes, both clear and faithful.

Maybe, this is a part of the origin of the traditional question:

What are your best resolutions for the coming year?

Is this justice?

Last October the 27th, M. D 58 years old was attacked by three armed burglars who had broken into his house. He was held down on the floor by one of them while the others manhandled his wife. A weapon on his temple, M. D tried to break away from his attacker who was trying to strangle him. During the fight, the victim twisted the gun and it went off. There was a shot however the bullet went into the ceiling. M. D shot at his attacker who in his escape fell through a window. He died soon after. As a result M. D was put in prison the 29th. The crime was intentional homicide! Even though he defended himself and his wife, he was considered a murderer.

His wife has been obliged to move out of their apartment to take refuge in their daughter's house. Many people found that case unfair. The mayor of the town warned the attorney general. At the beginning of last week the government took a look at this case, thinking the place of that honest man was not in prison. A politician from another party disagreed with this position, feeling that the government didn't have to intervene. However the politician was not shocked by what happened to M. D.

Last Saturday M. D was liberated. Good news. What is more is we could hear the family of the deceased bandit shouting on television. Even though their son went to steal and attack someone, they were angry, shouting against the law saying that the  law was two sided and so on. Really! Sadly, it is not uncommon for an innocent person like M. D to go to prison.

Justice, did you say justice?

Last week there was another incident like that. Some bandits came in the house of a retired antiquary to steal their valuable stuff. They manhandled an aged couple roughly 85 years old. The son of those poor people, being on the second floor, went down after hearing loud noises. Seeing what was happening to his parents, he went back up to get a gun and to shoot at the attacker who was brutalizing his mother. One of the burglars died.

The same thing then happened to the son. He was put in prison and the old couple had to move out to avoid retaliation by the bandit’s gang. Until now, we have no news on television as to whether he has been liberated or what else happened.

Solstice.

Solstices are and remain two favoured periods in the annual course of the cycles of nature. Throughout the months, the slow and deep breathing of Nature connects Earth and sky with the same future.

Throughout summer and autumn, the days become progressively shorter. Eventually, the sun is present less and less to enlighten men's activities. It seems as if the sun is dying. However, as everyone knows, the disappearance of the sun would be the end of all life.

During the winter solstice, in the longest night of the year, men start a long evening with genuine contemplation. By tending the flame in the family hearth they show their commitment to the return of the sun, and they rely upon the continuity of life.

The sun does not betray their hopes, though. It takes back its elan in the winter sky as it rises day by day, always higher in the spring sky.

When summer comes, the solstice is the sun's triumph. Men celebrate the power of sun with joy.