Teach English in HejiAdong Zhen - Yongzhou Shi

I am a Chinese,so all of the following will be based on how a chinese people learn English well from my personal opinion.Talking about “the summative task should be original and must be your own work”,I think because of the whole human history and literature and experience are there,up to now,technically speaking,especially talking about how to learn a new language well,there is no thoroughly original opinion about it,all the opinions are based on so many others’.My work here about ‘How to learn English well through reading and listening’ refers to the lecture of a Chinese educater named CuiXian Yang a lot,I totally agree with her of her opinions on how to learn English well . We learn English from very young age in school,after two decades of hard work,when we finally get to university ,we find we could not communicate with native speakers,all we could do is getting through all kinds of English tests in paper which we did it wonderfully well.But if we can not communicate with other people effectively with the language we learnt,why we learn the language anyway. All kinds of uneffective ways of learning English end up to what we called ‘Chinglish’ or’ Mute English’.Some uneffective ways are as follows: 1 We put too much energy on learning Vacabulary and Grammar. 2 Listening time is too little. 3 When we do practice listening skills, we are given the listening materials that we usually don’t like,or all the materials are out of practical useage. 4 Reading time is too little. With such little time of reading and listening,we directly jump into writing,gap-filling,reading comprehension etc. That’s where ‘Chinglish’ or ‘Mute English’ comes from. How to learn a new language well？ We should return to the methods of learning our mother tongue.When a baby is born,he/she will spend a whole year or a year and a half or even two years in listening to all kinds of expressions of his/her mother tongue.And finally,he/she will speak a word or two,or simple sentences.Then,parents will help them to read all kinds of stories,cartoon books etc.It normally takes the child three or more years of listening and reading,then finally comes the writing. There are four basic skills in any language:receptive skills-reading and listening,and productive skills-speaking and writing.All are equally important,but when learning a new language from the scratch,receptive skills-listening and reading come first.Therefore receptive skills-listening and reading are important in learning a new language. How to learn English well through reading and listening? 1 Listen to authentic materials every day,as much time as possible,put oneself in an enviroment of English.There are extensive listening and attentive listening.When it comes to attentive listening,one should listen to every single word of a selected material and understand it,hit the ‘pause’ button at any time when one can not catch the word,till all the words of the material are understood.keep the attentive listening material short and easy at first. 2 Listen to the material that you can actually see or use in daily life. 3 Listen to the material that you really like,such as poems,songs,stories,novels,etc. 4 When it comes to the reading skill,all the above are all applied too.you should read every day,as much time as possible,read things that are practical and things that you really like,also,do the attentive reading regularly. 5 Sometimes when teach a very young beginner,besides Phonics,you can just point at the word and read it to him/her,just like whenever we company our baby on the street,we will point at whatever the chinese character we see and read it loud for him/her. Only through a lot of listening and reading,we can gradually produce the language in a more natural way,and eventually master the language in a more ‘integrated’ way.And,remember,enjoy the learning.