What is the best way to learn a language?
Sorry, but there is no easy way to answer this...
However, I do believe that finding out what makes a student tick, what sparks an interest in them, is the key to helping them learn.
From my experience a good way of finding out what pushes their buttons is to give them a projects instead of a text books. Sometimes a book can offer lots of different subject matters that could appeal to a wide range of students, but will that small section of the text book capture their imagination? I seriously doubt it. Text books have a place, they live in the classroom. I rarely come across a student who reads their text books for fun. I don't argue the fact that they are a good learning tool, but they belong in the classroom. iFriendly believes that project work is the best way to learn outside the school as an extra-curricular activity.
From my experience project work has the ability to bring out the best (strengths) in people and the worst (weaknesses). If you can identify your strengths early on in life then that will be a fantastic advantage in many aspects of your life. The same goes for your weaknesses, if we can identify our weaknesses early on we can try and improve on them. iFriendly believes that if we don't improve on our weaknesses then they could turn into fears.
When we start work on a project, we must think of;
How to go about it?
Where to start?
What tools are needed?
These questions alone give us the motivation to start work on the project and discover what we are good at along the way. As an individual working on a project, we could discover that we are good at prioritising, organization, research, etc. As part of a team we could discover if we have leadership skills, or if we are good at building rapport.
During the chosen project you will find that you learn English in a natural way, not because you have to fill in the gaps or answer a difficult grammar question about the 3rd conditional, but because you have had to read about the given subject, research and investigate the ideas in order to complete the project. The end result is a finished piece of work that you have learnt from and above all you are proud of your effort.
I recently watched a video about an educational programme in the United Kingdom, which has been an inspiration to this iFriendly project...
Please click on the link below:
I do believe that taking anyone out into the wilds or countryside could have a tremendous affect on their self esteem. Learning out in the open through project work could bring out other qualities you didn't know existed! Whether you or your children are learning a language... iFriendly wants to help you find out how you can learn and enjoy learning.
