How to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking in English

Have you ever been afraid of speaking in public? Was it worse when you had to do it in a foreign language? What have you done to control your nervousness?

Anxiety can be tackled – positive thinking and some practical tips do help. Here is a link to an article I wrote on the topic: How to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking in English.

Let me know if you find it useful.

Marie-Anne

Learning a Language at 40 – One Year On

Since I received nice comments from you about the previous post “Learning a Language at 40”, I thought it’d be nice to reflect on it now.

One year has passed and the miracle has happened: I speak Italian fluently!

Sure, I still have some hesitations with the endings and sometimes I try my luck and invent new Italian words that no Italian would understand… However I can tell the baker which type of bread I want to buy and say a nice word or two, and I’ve even been able to take job interviews in Italian.

Did I do any particular effort? Did I dive into language learning books?

No. I simply immersed myself.

Immersion means listening, speaking, reading, and writing in the foreign language in order to achieve communicative goals.

I listened to Italian television every day because, except for one French channel, this is all that’s available on my TV set. I also listened to customers chatting in stores (that’s great because you can listen without having to interact and hear a lot of useful small talk).

I spoke because it was necessary – I had to order food, to solve phone bill mistakes, buy electronic items (for example I wanted to compare the qualities of various cameras).

I read Italian magazines – especially fashion ones. They’re not too hard to understand, have a lot of pictures, and present great Italian fashion.

I wrote emails to communicate with the accountant or for work projects. At first I copied a lot of the language (such as greetings and complimentary closes), then I became a little more autonomous.

So what comes out of this is that we need to use the language in context and with a purpose in order to acquire it. Also we need to accept the fact that we make mistakes – what matters is getting the message across.

By doing that I was able to learn gradually, without even realizing it.What was hard to say became easier. What sounded like a string of uninterrupted vowels became identifiable words. Simply because I was surrounded by the language for a sustained period of time.

As I understood and said more, I also became more confident, and the virtuous circle started. Today I feel pride and pleasure at being able to converse in Italian.

I hope you will feel the same with whichever language you are learning to speak.

 

 

How to Prepare an Awesome Presentation in English?

Do you have to speak in public? Will you deliver a presentation soon?

Here is a link to an article I have just written: http://blog.tjtaylor.net/preparing-presentations/

It contains tips on how to prepare your presentation in English, but these can be applied to other languages too.

Let me know if you find them useful.

Marie-Anne 🙂

 

Top 10 Mistakes When Learning a Foreign Language – Part II

Here are the next five mistakes to avoid when learning foreign languages. The previous post dealt with more general considerations when organizing your course; here we look at learning itself.

6. Analyzing Everything

Learning a foreign language means using the right side of your brain, the side that is more intuitive, creative and emotional. If you let the left side of your brain, which is more analytical and logical, dominate your learning, you will experience difficulty. Indeed languages are not governed by rigid rules, there are many exceptions and some structures will seem illogical to you. Just accept them as a way of conveying meaning. For example “I habe Hunger” in German means “I am hungry” but literally “I have hunger”. It is simply a different way of expressing the need to eat! 😉

7. Rely on the Written Word

Do you remember how you learned your native language? For the first six years of life you simply listened and spoke! Listening precedes speaking and obviously reading and writing. Written lists of vocabulary can be useful to memorize new vocabulary, but if you can neither recognize the words when you hear them nor say them properly, they are useless, and you have wasted a lot of energy. This is especially true of English, whose pronunciation is very far from its spelling. It is better to spend time on listening to the language – listen to podcasts or music and watch television and videos as often as you can!

8. Be Afraid of Mistakes

As adults we are afraid of making mistakes and we feel embarrassed when we do. Learning a language however means making a lot of mistakes and learning from them. To progress in your study you need to be tolerant with yourself – accept the errors as part of the learning process, and try not to make the same ones the next time. If you do, do not worry and remember that practice is key to mastery.

9. Be Afraid of Repetition

Yes, repetition is good – it is in fact necessary to achieve any kind of control of the language you study. Remember that many parameters have to be set properly when you speak: grammar, phonetics, word order, and meaning, among others. So do not be afraid of repeating words aloud to be sure that you can pronounce them properly and of repeating sentences until you can say them absolutely naturally. And plan to do this frequently to anchor the words and sentences in the long-term memory.

10. Memorize Chunks

Chunks are strings of words that you learn as such without analyzing them, for example “how are you?” or “can I transfer your call?” or “it’s raining cats and dogs”. In the case of idiomatic expressions it makes sense to learn them without analyzing the terms because the meaning is often different from the words. When learning the foreign language in general, however, it is dangerous to rely on chunks too much as your memory will quickly be saturated. A better approach consists in learning syntax (word order) first and filling it with vocabulary progressively. A separate post will be dedicated to syntax-based learning.

I hope you enjoyed the tips and keep me posted. Thanks.

Marie-Anne 🙂

Top 10 Mistakes When Learning a Foreign Language – Part I

What does it take to learn a foreign language? Over the years I have seen many learners give up or be disappointed by their results. So here are common pitfalls that you should watch in order to maximize your learning and your progress.

1. Unclear Objectives

If you do not know what you wish to achieve, you will obviously not reach it. This is true in many areas of life, but all the more when learning a foreign language as it requires so much time and effort. Realistic objectives for learning a foreign language can be: Be able to use the phone and place an order; be able to make a reservation for your next vacation; be able to converse so as to join a social club. Your goals can be personal or professional, but they have to relate to real life. If possible, make them enjoyable, for example you wish to learn a foreign language in order to visit a country and spend your vacation there. But remember: without clear goals, you are likely to give up studying!

2. Over-estimate Time

Being fluent in a foreign language requires time, and time can be over- or under-estimated. You can easily over-estimate the time that will be available to study. How much time can you really set aside? Half an hour, two, three hours a week? The amount can vary but importantly you need to be realistic about your schedule and how much time you can devote to learning the foreign language. Then develop a routine – for example two periods of 45 minutes per week – and stick to it. Frequent learning is more effective than brain cramming.

3. Under-estimate Time

Bilingualism is a long-haul marathon, and students often become discouraged when they realize that they still have a long way to go before speaking fluently the desired language. This is why having clear objectives helps – being bilingual is hard to define, but being able to make reservations in the foreign language is a clear objective that can be reached within a few months. The time needed to reach your goal will vary, but your teacher should help you to estimate it.

4. Not Trusting your Teacher

You will not learn and progress in the foreign language unless you feel confident your teacher is competent and that you have a good rapport with him/her. If you are not satisfied with the lessons, communicate your criticism to your teacher. If there is no improvement, do not hesitate to change teacher, otherwise I can guarantee that you will stop learning the foreign language before long!

5. Remaining in Your Country

Languages are wonderful means of communication, and they are meant to be spoken. And the best place to speak the foreign language is in its country of origin. Your progress will be much faster if you can travel there and start communicating with natives. Remember: Your teacher can teach you many aspects of the foreign language, but the culture of that language has to be experienced! It is also well known that fluency increases when you speak the foreign language in an informal setting, for example enjoying a beer at the pub or having coffee with friends. 😉

How to Remember Foreign Vocabulary

The art of remembering, which is described in Joshua Foer’s book “Moonwalking with Einstein” (see previous post), can be applied to learning a foreign language. 

The method of memory palaces consists in tapping into our brilliant memory of places to store other information: In other words you need to think of a place familiar to you (your house, your office, your grandmother’s villa, your school) and to place inside each room one or several objects that remind you of the items you wish to remember.

Let’s apply this to remembering the gender of, say, French vocabulary related to food. I’ll do the exercise first, then you could try.  First let’s visualize my mother’s house: To the right is the kitchen, to the left the hall. Now let’s decide that I’ll place the feminine words in the kitchen and the masculine words in the hall. Let’s add some color to the place, so as to make the memory more vivid: The kitchen is filled with pink smoke (a girly color!) and the hall is painted in baby boy blue! Ok, now let’s throw in there the new words: I visualize “le pain” (the bread) as a huge loaf of bread in the middle of the hall (quite blocking the way in fact), then I place “le fromage” (the cheese) on top of it – I see the rat from “Ratatouille” feasting over a lump of stinky cheese! Now let’s address feminine words. I make my way through the haze of pink smoke and see “l’eau” (the water) that is running everywhere! Someone forgot to turn off the tap and now the kitchen is flooded! And on the water I see “la cuillère” (the spoon) that is floating, with “la confiture” (jam) on board!

Sure that is a strange house, but next time I visit it mentally, I won’t forget what I saw in each room, and so I will remember the gender of the words I placed in there.

This technique can be applied to varrious aspects of the language you wish to remember. However you need to be creative so as to produce vivid memories (so engage all your senses and your imagination) and obviously mental concentration is required when you create the images.

Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!

Marie-Anne

A Book to Read: Moonwalking with Einstein

I have read “Moonwalking with Einstein”  by Joshua Foer and I have read it again.

This book provides an excellent reflection on what memory is, how it is supported (our brain vs. paper or computers), how memory loss can affect us, and how we can train and improve our memory.

It is both inspiring and practical, and the author’s perspective in writing the book is quite interesting: It is biographical (Joshua Foer trained for one year and won the USA Memory Championship) and journalistic (the author researched the issue of memory and memorization techniques and integrated many interviews in the book).

I recommend it highly.

Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. The Penguin Press, New York: 2011.

ISBN 978-0-14-312053-7

Learning a Language at 40

Every language teacher should know at least one foreign language, and if possible start learning a new one at age 40.

I am not quite 40 yet and for the past year I have immerged myself in the Italian culture and language. Although I have always learned foreign languages easily, I have to say that mastering a foreign language, in this case Italian, is a bit more challenging than I thought. So the teacher in me is giving advice to the learner that I am: be realistic, take time to integrate new notions, be consistent. And I am doing all that… However it is taking more time than I would like. Is it because I forgot how much time went into learning all the other foreign languages? Probably. Is it because my notion of time and time management is very different now than when I was 20? Very likely. At any rate it makes me empathize with all my students and how frustrated they feel at times!

In conclusion learn foreign languages when you are young, make sure your children make the most of their brain plasiticity by learning foreign languages, and if you are 40 and learning a foreign language, be patient! 😉

Why this Blog?

This blog is not about me. It is dedicated to all the students I have had a chance to teach – from professional adults to college students and children – and to fellow language instructors.

To learners I hope to provide concrete advice on acquiring foreign languages and to colleagues I wish to share useful links and to reflect on the state of the profession.

I hope that this blog will be useful to you. Be sure to leave your comments so I can improve it.

Thanks!

Marie-Anne