Are you one of those people who feel burdened with the task of learning English? Does it feel like a noose around your neck? Do you study for hours yet remember little because your heart isn’t in it? LOOK NO FURTHER. Your HEART is at the heart of this matter. The only way to transform […]
Category: Languages
How to Make Self-Directed Language Learning Work
Like so much in life, language learning is as much about the choices we make as it is any other one thing. If we choose to take control of the language learning journey, to take the reigns and put ourselves in charge of the choices we make, we will increase our chances of success. If […]
Improving French Listening Comprehension: Anything Short Will Do
I am always in search of videos on the Internet to help my clients improve their French listening comprehension and increase their vocabulary. Since an hour lesson is too short to watch a movie and work on it, I particularly favor anything short. Thus, I spend countless hours surfing on the web and watching videos […]
How to Make the Most out of Introducing Children to a Second Language
From the age of eleven, when I had my first French lesson, I have always loved learning languages. My first linguistic triumph was during a family holiday to France when I used all of the four phrases I knew in French to communicate with the toddler who lived in the farm next door to where […]
What is a Language Helper?
I have talked often about using a “language helper” to learn the language and I want to take a bit of time to explain it today. But first I will talk about what a language helper (LH) is not. A LH is not a teacher. They are not a tutor. They will not be experts […]
Misconceptions about Language Learning
The Magic Age Let’s say we all agree that language learning is fab. Whether you are keen to revive a dormant GCSE Language or dream of opening up a new world by learning a new one, have you ever stopped daydreaming and asked yourself “What’s stopping me?”. Well tell you what, I’m going to go […]
Reasons to Learn German
Reading how many or better put how few British students took their A levels in German this year, I thought I’d start a series of posts giving some good reasons why studying German might be useful and to do away with some popular but false stereotypes such as German is fairly complicated and difficult to […]
Tools to learn Spanish – Learning Spanish with the BBC
When learning a language, we not only deal with our lessons, grammar exercises or lists of vocabulary. One of the things I tell my students is that they have to read, watch or listen to Spanish media. In the Internet age we have plenty of material that can help us learning Spanish in a fun […]
How to Get On The Road to Success as a Language Learner
Any journey will have its difficulties Language learning presents different types challenges at different points along the experience. This time round I wish to look at language learners who have difficulty in achieving blast off. These are the learners who put in a lot of (well at least some!) energy at the start but don’t […]
Great Free Resources for Learning British English
As you know, there are different dialects of English around the world like British English, American English, Australian and so on. In most cases it does not really matter which English dialect you learn as long as you try to stick with it and don’t mix up different Englishes. When you learn English as a […]