Thinking Like a Native

We’ve been learning English for nearly ten years. But still sometimes we cannot communicate with foreigners fluently, especially when we talk to them.

I have found the crux of the problem: When we hear a sentence or a phrase, the first thing we do is to translate it into our own language, then to understand what the speaker really means. After that, we think of a sentence in our own language which we can use to answer, then again we do the translation work but this time into the foreign language.

But one thing helped me out. It was in my freshman year that a teacher once asked us: "When you see a person fall down, what's the first impression you get?"

Was it “What’s the matter with him/her??or was it the Chinese equivalent? Unfortunately most of us had the latter impression.

The teacher said that what we needed was to think as a native English speaker. That would be really helpful to your English study. From then on, I have tried in that way and I find it works nicely.

 - Zhu Xiao Qing -

Squatting to Learn English

I happened to find this way to learn English when I was in high school.

It is known to all that the last year in high school is extremely busy and tiring for most students. We are under great pressure from our parents and teachers. But we still have lots of homework to do and a long list of vocabulary to memorize. I always felt so sleepy when I held an English vocabulary book while sitting in my chair. I tried every posture and position to make myself more comfortable so as to memorize all the words. No matter how hard I tried - leaning against the wall or sitting in the tree - I still nodded off all the time. I also tried black coffee and strong tea, but it only stimulated me for a short time.

Everything changed in an afternoon.

That afternoon, I was sitting in my chair and doing my homework sleepily, when my mother came in to mop the floor. So I tried to squat on my heels. Suddenly, I found that the words in the book impressed me clearly. It really works nicely for me and I have kept this habit. However, you can keep this posture for, at most, half an hour, so anyone who would like to try this should take a rest every 20 minutes.

 - Shaquille -

Place Yourself in the Teacher's Role

As a college English major, English is an old friend of mine. I met it when I was in primary school.

Over ten years' of English study, I have gotten quite accustomed to the way that teachers output new words, grammatical points, and other relevant knowledge. I, as a learner, just made every effort to absorb whatever the teachers said and stressed. But I found that though I was no longer an English layman, I had apparently reached a plateau in my English studies. Last year, the teaching practice changed all this.

As a junior student last year, I was required to do a two-week teaching practicum. Although I only had to teach a group of freshman non-English majors, I could feel the stresses and strains, as I changed my role from a student listening to the teacher carefully to a teacher outputting knowledge to students.

Frankly speaking, I had been tutoring a middle school student for one year and accumulating some teaching experience, but I really was not sure whether I would be a competent young teacher on probation faced with a group of "particular" freshmen. I set about to prepare for my lesson one week in advance. The textbook was simple, so I consulted other materials with familiar content to enrich my lesson. I read grammar books trying to explain the grammatical points systematically. I fully prepared for the lesson, and gradually gained some confidence.

The long-expected day arrived. I walked to the stage confidently on the appearance but with a bit nervousness in my heart. I had already leant all things by heart, so I could give my lesson as naturally as a real teacher, facing with the students all the time, seldom lowering my head and repeating what the textbook says. I got more and more confident and I really appreciate the feeling of being a teacher.

Two weeks' teaching practice was over and I suddenly realized all the things about English learning having been puzzling me. As a teacher, I took all my initiative to learn things and infuse them into my students' mind. I was not a passive learner during the preparing and teaching period--- I found and analyzed all the materials by myself. This is an easy and efficient strategy for one's English study. Place yourself in the role of a teacher, and you will get somewhere.

 - Freekicker (Xiaopeng Shen) -

Japanese Cartoons

One year ago, I found it difficult making any progress in my Japanese study. Yet I did not give up. I still tried to memorize the long vocabulary list, but I always forgot all of the words the next day and my interest in Japanese was fading away day by day.

However one evening when i was walking past my classmate April, I found she was addicted to Japanese cartoons. The language the characters used was so easy to understand than and I could not help sitting with her and watching the cartoons.

From then on I fell in love with Japanese cartoons and I learned a lot of new words from them. It became really simple to memorize and I would not forget them the next day any more.

Every time I saw the lovely characters, I would be reminded of those words.

 - Chen Suping -

Practicing English

In my high school years, our English teacher always taught us grammar. The teacher didn’t address other aspect of English learning, such as reading, listening and writing. The English class was so boring that I always wanted to sleep. The more boring he was, the less understanding I got.

But, one day, I read an article in ‘China Daily?/i>. The author said: "Don’t pay too much attention to your grammar. When you communicate with foreigners, as long as you can be understood, that is ok, no matter how poor your grammar.?