83 – English teacher Hamid from Pakistan shares his wisdom

Introduction to the tips and tricks

So for the first one week I don’t teach them the course or the syllabus. I give them general lectures about language learning. So it’s again what I have learned for the past 20 or 30 years I would say as a language learner. So I can share these tips with you if you’re interested.

Daniel: Yes. I am very, very interested in those tips and tricks and methods.

Okay. Fine. I have jotted down these steps and I’ll be enumerating them one by one and I’ll be pausing a little and I would like you to comment on these. Okay. So what I do when I get a new group of students on the very first day after the introduction, I ask the question and the question is: Language learning falls into two categories. Let’s say first language learning and second language learning, first language learning and second language learning by adults like you and me.

So, Daniel which group is more successful as a language learner? First language learning by children are second language learning by adults?

Daniel: definitely the children because they are exposed to the language as much as possible.

We come to the reasons later, yes. First we need to establish this, that children are more successful than us as language learners, adults are not, adults are successful. They do well but not as good as their children. So then I ask my students: why is it when you were seven, you learn the language effortlessly, effortlessly… so successfully.
Maybe we don’t even remember how we learn that language but now we have the same children. We are struggling to learn English or maybe any other second language. So I tell my students, there are a few reasons for that or maybe secrets to a child’s language learning process. Dig deep into this, process, the child’s first language process and try to know why children are more successful than us.

Listen to the whole podcast to learn more about these tips and tricks or in other words, why children are more successful than us adults

If you liked this interview, you might also like episode 81, where we intervivewed Anthony Metivier from the Magnetic Memory Method podcast. Anthony taught us that we should not struggle when it comes to learning a language.

Hamid recommends

engVid

Luke’s ENGLISH Podcast | Learn British English with Luke Thompson (teacherluke.co.uk)

If you already know Luke, you might also like the interview with Luke Thompson that we conducted. For that, have a listen to episode 28.

Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries | Find definitions, translations, and grammar explanations at Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries