The Top 5 Secrets to FAST & EASY Language Acquisition

The top 5 secrets to Fast and Easy Language Acquisition:

1. Comprehensible Input

2. Repetition of CI

3. Language in context (no memorization of lists)

4. Funny, Personal, and Engaging lessons

5. Storytelling

 

Consider this analogy:  if you were to listen to 50 different songs in an hour or one song repeated for the whole hour (and accompanied by printed lyrics and hand gestures), which way do you think would allow you to sing the song on your own after the hour, and even be able to remember it a week or a year or two later?  Easy, right?

So, before you swap out classes with a meet-up group or a talking partner, consider this: just hanging out with Spanish speakers or attending meet-up groups or listening to CD’s is NOT an effective method of acquiring a language! Why not? Because much conversation with native speakers is made up of INcomprehensible messages, a huge vocabulary, little or no processing time, and little or no GUIDED REPETITION!  You may think that you are acquiring Spanish because you are hearing a lot of it….but how much are you acquiring? comprehending? and being able to effortlessly, automatically use without thinking?  Think again about the song analogy and I think you’ll understand why guided repetition of 100% comprehensible messages, with visual and kinesthetic aids, is much more EFFECTIVE in TIME and USEFULNESS than unguided conversations.

What is CI? And a few more secrets to language acquisition…

 

CI stands for Comprehensible Input, and REPETITION of CI is the way you acquire language: 
Research shows that adults are just like kids when it comes to acquiring a new language: you only do this by hearing or reading comprehensible messages repeated MANY times. You don’t get that subconscious, deep fluency by listening to CD’s or even by having conversations with native speakers who will use a huge vocabulary and not know how to guide your learning with repetitions or comprehension checks!

What you NEED in order to acquire vocabulary and word structures (so that you can USE them fluidly and effortlessly) is to have a setting in which you have a teacher providing a lot of REPETITION of a limited set of words and phrases (INPUT) that is made 100% COMPREHENSIBLE through the use of gestures, visuals, text, and time for processing.

One other secret to acquiring the language quickly and deeply is to learn the language in a real context (more natural than a CD) and in a setting that makes learning funny and compelling and personal – like classes that involve silly, personal storytelling.  Of course you can practice with others…but, don’t expect to acquire NEW language structures or get the same results. So, if you want to speed up your results and not forget the Spanish this time…find a class near you that offers teaching through Comprehensible Input methods.

 

Fun, silliness, storytelling, and props make language acquisition occur more quickly & subconsciously & last much longer!

Comments are closed.