Scientific research tells that most of our fluency – our ability to use a language – comes from what we read and hear. Reading and listening have the power to improve vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension (understanding), writing, spelling, TOEFL scores, and more.*

The most important thing you can do to improve your English is to read and listen to as much interesting, easy-to-understand English as possible. Here’s why.

An explanation

Learning a language is a natural process. It’s something our brains do very well. When we read or listen to language that we can understand, our brains acquire, (pick up, or absorb) new language – new vocabulary, new ideas about grammar, new ideas about how to use the language.

This process – acquiring new language – has several interesting characteristics:

• It’s automatic; we don’t have to decide to do it.

• When it happens, we aren’t aware of it; we don’t know it’s happening until someone says, “Wow! Your English is so much better!”

If we do what we need to do, it will happen. We can’t avoid it.

What’s the secret?

The secret is something called comprehensible input.

While you are reading this article, you are receiving input, ideas from the words and sentences that I am writing. If you understand what I am writing, even if you don’t know all of the words, the input you receive is comprehensible. Comprehensible is simply a technical word for understandable. When we receive comprehensible input, our brains acquire new language.

Do you remember how you acquired your first language? When we were young, we acquired our first language from comprehensible input. Our parents and other people used simple language when they spoke or read to us. They used one word, then phrases (short groups of words). They spoke and read slowly. They used gestures (body movement), pictures, and objects. They did everything they could to help us understand our language, to make it comprehensible to us. When they did, our minds acquired, or picked up, the language. One day, when we were ready, we said our first word. And everyone got excited! You acquired your first language because your parents and other people surrounded you with comprehensible input – understandable language.

When we begin to learn a new language, we need to do the same thing. We need to surround ourselves with comprehensible input. We need to read it. And we need to hear it (If you’d like to learn more about comprehensible input and related ideas, look at The Basics.).

The advantage of reading = more language

Students often ask about watching television or movies. They can be helpful, but not as helpful as reading (or other kinds of listening). Reading has a significant advantage for language development. Here’s why: reading is full of language.

That may seem like an obvious, perhaps even a silly statement. But take a moment to think about it. When we watch a movie or television program, we listen to the dialogue (the conversation between characters). But we see the location and the action. The only language we hear is what the characters say to each other. But when we read a book or story, we read the dialogue and we read the writer’s description of the location and the action. We receive more language – more comprehensible input – than we do when we watch a movie or television program.

Think of it this way. When we watch a movie or a television program, it’s like having a language snack. When we read, it’s like sitting down to a full language meal, plus dessert!

Reading and listening that get results

If you want to read and listen to improve your English, here’s what you need to do:

• Read and listen a lot and do it often

Read and listen every day, even if it’s only for 15 or 20 minutes. If you can do more, it’s even better!

• Read and listen to anything that gives you pleasure

How can you tell that you’re reading and listening for pleasure? You are reading for pleasure when you don’t want to stop because you enjoy it so much. When you forget what time it is. When you don’t notice the people and activity around you. When you feel like you are inside of the story.

• Read and listen to things that are easy to understand

It’s easy enough when you know almost all the words. When you can read and listen without stopping. When you can understand the story or ideas without looking up words in the dictionary. When you don’t have to read slowly.

Some Suggestions

• Read and listen without stopping. If you are curious about some of the words, look them up after you finish reading or listening, but don’t stop in the middle of something!

• Read and listen more than once. If you enjoyed something so much that you want to read or listen to it again, do it! Each time you will acquire more English.

• Read and listen at the same time. There are benefits to seeing and hearing new language at the same time.

• Read and listen to things written by the same author. To articles, speeches, or lectures on the same subject. To the same genre (kind) – for example, historical fiction about World War II. This is called narrow reading or listening and it is very helpful.

• Read English books that you first read (in translation) in your own language. If you read a book in your language, you will understand it better – and acquire more – when you read it in English.

Begin today! And make it a habit. The sooner you begin, and the more you read (or listen), the more your English will improve.

Warren Ediger

Related reading: Using popular fiction to improve your English

*If you want to look at a summary of the effects of reading, look at Dr. Stephen Krashen’s list of 81 generalizations, or statements, that can be made about the benefits of reading. These statements are the result of more than 40 years of scientific research.

Developing language ability is a natural process. If we understand how this process works, we can cooperate with the process to improve our English more effectively (successfully) and efficiently (without wasting time, energy, or money). The purpose of The Basics is to help English students understand the process of language development.

There are different ideas about how we develop language ability. The ideas in this short course are based on years of scientific research. Teachers who teach from these ideas have been very successful. And so have students who have used them for their personal English development. I hope you learn from them and enjoy the same success!

5 explanations

In science, a hypothesis is an explanation about how something works. A good hypothesis can be tested to see if it is true. The five articles below describe five hypotheses (explanations) about how we come to know English or any other language. And there’s a lot of scientific evidence that tells us they are true.

These five hypotheses were first described by Dr. Stephen Krashen from the University of Southern California. Dr. Krashen taught at USC for many years and is now professor emeritus; he is a linguist and educational researcher. For those who are interested, a good place to find Dr. Krashen’s descriptions of these hypotheses is in his book Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use.

The five articles include:

1. Two ways to know a language
2. What comes first?
3. Quality control
4. Only one way
5. Don’t worry, be happy!

A short, imaginary trip

When we read and listen to easy-to-understand English, our minds acquire (pick up or absorb) more English.

• Inside the brain is a short, imaginary trip inside the English student’s brain to try to create a picture of what happens there when they read and listen.

The power of reading and listening

• Most of our fluency – our ability to read, write, listen, and speak – comes from what we read and hear. In The power of reading and listening, you’ll learn more about this important truth and how to use reading and listening to improve your English.

]]> http://successfulenglish.com/2009/10/the-basics-introduction/feed/ 0 http://successfulenglish.com/2009/10/two-ways-to-know-a-language/ http://successfulenglish.com/2009/10/two-ways-to-know-a-language/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:04:07 +0000 Warren Ediger http://gator957.hostgator.com/~wediger/?p=254

How do we come to know a language?

Language specialists tell us that there are two ways to know a language. We can acquire a language, and we can learn a language. Language that we acquire is very different from language that we learn. And if you want to improve your English, you should understand the difference.

Acquiring a language is a natural process. It is the way we all develop our first language ability. It is automatic and subconscious (we don’t notice it). And it is the result of natural experience with language. When we read or hear language that we understand, we acquire (absorb or pick up) more of that language.

When we learn a language, we study and memorize vocabulary and rules about the language. It is a conscious process (we are aware of it, or notice, it). And it requires a lot of work.

Why is this difference important? It’s important because scientific research tells us that most of our fluency (language ability) comes from acquired language, not from learned language.

I recently read an article by a well-known professor and researcher who has looked at hundreds of research studies on language acquisition and learning. In the title of the article, he says that subconscious language acquisition is “alive and well (healthy)”. In the article, he makes it very clear that we do not have to consciously learn vocabulary or grammar. He says that we acquire language as a natural result of reading or listening for pleasure (enjoyment).

Let me tell you a story that will illustrate (show) what I am talking about. Mr. M is a retired Japanese high school English teacher. About three years ago, he came to my ESL class in southern California. He knew a lot of English vocabulary. He could identify subjunctive verbs. He had learned a lot about English. But it was very hard for him to use the English he had learned to read, converse (talk with someone), or write in English.

I never ask my students to memorize vocabulary or grammar rules. I only teach grammar occasionally, when it helps my students understand something better. We spend as much time as possible reading and listening to understandable English. Mr. M’s English began to improve. When he wasn’t in class, he looked for opportunities to talk to people who spoke English. Today his ability to converse and write is much better than it was when he came.

A few months ago, I received an e-mail from Mr. M. In it he wrote a very simple message: “Thank you for teaching me a better way.”

Learn from Mr. M. Try a better way. Look for as much natural experience with English as possible. Read. Listen. Have conversations with English speakers. If you do, I think you will be surprised at how much English you acquire.

In the first article – Two ways to know a language – I wrote that most of our fluency (ability) comes from language that we acquire subconsciously, not from language that we learn, or consciously study. If you haven’t read the first essay, I encourage you to read it now, before you read this one.

The natural order

The second thing that an English student should know is that some parts of a language are acquired before other parts. There is a natural order (one thing after another), with some parts acquired early and other parts late. Let me give you two examples:

• The progressive – he is reading – is acquired early in the acquisition process.
• The third-person singular – he eats – is acquired very late in the acquisition process.

There’s one other fact: we cannot change this natural order by studying. We will acquire each part of the language when the time is right.

Why is it helpful to know this?

First, it is helpful because it might help you understand why you get frustrated when you continue to have trouble with the same part of the English language, like the third-person singular. Maybe it is to early for you to acquire that part of the language. Maybe you need to wait.

What should an English student do? I think you should use the same approach (method of doing something) you do when you eat! We all know that our bodies need certain vitamins and other nutrients (specific foods we need to live and grow). But we don’t eat only Vitamin A for one week, then Vitamin B the next week, do we? No, we feed our bodies a healthy diet that contains all the nutrients, and trust our bodies to acquire (absorb) the nutrients they need. We should treat ourselves to a good, healthy diet of understandable English and trust our minds to acquire the parts of the English language that it needs when it is ready for them.

Don’t worry about mistakes!

There is a second reason why it is helpful to know about the natural order. Many English students worry too much about their mistakes. For example, I recently received an e-mail from a student who apologized (said he was sorry) for his English. He wrote, “…from this e-mail you may know that I use ‘broken’ English.” What he meant is that he thought there a lot of mistakes in his e-mail. The truth is that he was easy to understand even if his English wasn’t perfect!

While we are acquiring a new language, we develop an “in-between” language. Language teachers call this inter-language. Inter-language includes three things:

• new language we have already acquired, the parts of the language we are confident about and comfortable with
• guesses about our new language: “I think this is how I should say this!”
• influences (effects) from our first language, for example, my Spanish students often put adjectives after nouns, just like they do in Spanish.

Our inter-language constantly changes while we are acquiring the new language. It’s a little different every day. If you continue to read and listen to easy-to-understand English, your inter-language will continue to become more and more like the English you want to speak and write.

It’s not broken!

Inter-language. It isn’t broken! It’s just different. It shows that you are somewhere in between where you started and where you are going. And it will continue to change as you move closer and closer to your destination (the place you are going): fluent English.

In the first essay I wrote that there are two ways to know a language. One way is to acquire a language by experiencing it naturally, by reading and listening. The other way is to learn a language by studying hard and learning rules. I also wrote that most of our fluency (language ability) comes from acquired language, not learned language.

Is it helpful to try to learn language?

If most of our language ability is acquired, is it ever helpful to try to learn language? Yes, it is. Let me explain.

Occasionally, when I buy new clothes, I find a small piece of paper in one of the pockets. On that piece of paper, I will see something like this: “Inspected by #38”.

Quality control is the process of checking goods (clothes and other things that are produced or manufactured) to make sure they are good enough to sell. When I find that little piece of paper, I know that someone – Inspector #38 – inspected (examined, or looked at) my clothes to make sure they were good enough to sell.

We could also call the inspector a monitor. A monitor is someone who watches an activity or situation to make sure everything is the way it is supposed to be. For example, an election monitor is someone who watches during an election to make sure it is fair and everyone has an equal opportunity to vote.

When is it helpful?

Is the language we learn helpful? Yes, it is, but only at certain times. It doesn’t help our fluency very much, but it does help us monitor our acquired language when we use it. It helps us to be more accurate, especially when we write.

Why is this true? Scientific research tells us that there are three requirements for using learned language.

1. We have to know the rule. And that is difficult to do because language is very complex (complicated) and there are hundreds of rules.
2. We have to be focused (pay careful attention to) on form (the way something looks or sounds).
3. We have to have time to think about the rule.

Usually the only time we can satisfy all three of these requirements is when we are taking a grammar test or editing something we have written.

Interestingly, none of the good writers that I know think about rules when they write. Mostly they know their writing is good by the way it feels or sounds. Recently I saw an interesting statement by a very successful writer. Here’s what he said:

“You may find it amusing to know that I…have never learned the formal rules of grammar. I learned to write by reading obsessively (enthusiastically) at an early age, but when it came time to learn the “rules,” I tuned out (didn’t listen or study). If you show me an incorrect sentence, I can fix it, but if I need to know the technical reason why it was wrong in the first place, I go ask my wife.”

How did he develop his writing ability? By reading. How can you develop more English ability? The same way: by reading and listening. There is no substitute for (nothing is as good as) reading and listening to help us acquire language.

In the first article we learned that most of our language ability comes from language that we acquire subconsciously (we don’t notice it when it happens), not language that we consciously study, or learn.

If that’s true – and it is! – how do we acquire more English? There is only one way: by reading and listening to understandable English.

Remember how I compared acquiring language to eating a healthy diet? I suggested that English students should treat themselves to a good, healthy diet of English and trust their minds to acquire the elements (parts) of the English language that they need when they are ready for them. If you didn’t see that comparison, it’s in the second article – What comes first?

Let me add a new idea to that comparison. When we eat, we are usually careful to feed our bodies foods they can digest (easily absorb and use). For example, when a baby is born, we first feed them milk and then soft foods. Later, when they are ready, we feed them fruits, vegetables, and meats. In the same way, when we want to acquire more English, we must feed our minds English that they (our minds) can absorb and use.

We only acquire (pick up or absorb) language when we understand what we read or listen to. If we understand what we read or hear, our minds will acquire the elements (parts) of the new language that we are ready for. We don’t have to consciously study them.

Many students believe they have to work hard to acquire new language. They read or listen to things that are too difficult. They stop frequently to look up words they don’t understand. That doesn’t work very well! We only acquire language when we understand the language we read and listen to.

Treat yourself to a digestible diet of English! If you have trouble understanding what you read and listen to, find something easier. Be patient. Slowly increase the difficulty of the things you read and listen to. If you do, your English will steadily (continuously) improve.

Have you ever heard of Bobby McFerrin and his famous song, Don’t Worry, Be Happy? McFerrin is a jazz singer who became famous for his a cappella (without instruments) music. You can find the song on iTunes. I’m sure it will make you smile!

There’s one line in the song that is important for language students. McFerrin sings, “When you worry, you make life tough (difficult).” We can say the same thing about acquiring new language. Even if you understand the English you are reading and listening to, you can still do things that make language acquisition difficult. Here’s how:

• By being anxious (worried or nervous).
• By having low self esteem (thinking “I can’t do this!”).
• By thinking of yourself as an English outsider (an outsider is someone who would like to be part of a group, but isn’t) rather than someone who is becoming a fluent English user.

How can you use this information to help your English acquisition process?

First, when you are looking for something to read or listen to, look for something interesting. Find books or podcasts that are so interesting that you get absorbed in them (they take all of your attention). If you are reading or listening to something that isn’t interesting, stop! Find something that is.

Second, relax! Read or listen for fun. You don’t have to study the things that you read or listen to. If they are interesting and you can understand them, you will acquire more English. Trust the natural process. It works!

Finally, imagine that you are becoming an English-user! Visualize (see the movie in your mind) yourself using English the way you hope to use it in the future. Ignore those things you call mistakes. They will slowly disappear if you keep reading and listening. Imagine yourself speaking or writing English comfortably and confidently.

Listen to Bobby McFerrin. Don’t worry, be happy with your English acquisition process! And welcome to the English club (a group of people who do or are interested in the same thing)!

Have you ever wondered what happens when an English learner reads and listens? I have. I know they acquire more English when they read and listen to understandable English … more vocabulary … more grammatical concepts … more of almost everything they need to improve their fluency. But what actually happens inside the brain? What does it look like?

We don’t know for sure. But there’s enough evidence, from psycholinguistics and neural research, to allow us to make some reasonable guesses. What follows is a short trip of fantasy. But even though it’s fantasy, it’s probably more truth than fiction.

In our minds, there’s a wonderful, complex (consisting of many different and connected parts), multi-dimensional language map. Let’s imagine that it looks something like this (click to make larger):

Now, imagine that the colored dots represent various language elements – orange for vocabulary and yellow for grammar concepts. The larger ones have been around longer, they’re older. They’ve seen more. And heard more. As a result, they’re stronger and better developed than the smaller ones.

The lines that connect the elements suggests relationships – one element following another, depending on it, always appearing with it, being related somehow in meaning or function (activity or purpose).

If we zoom in and look closely at only one element – let’s try the word “wine” – it might look something like this (click to make larger):

Wow! Look at all the connections from that one word!

Imagine that multiplied thousands of times for every bit of vocabulary. For every grammatical idea. For every language element needed for fluency. Imagine trying to teach that one concept at a time!

Let’s get back to the big question: what happens when a language student reads and listens to something they understand?

As we read, we try to make sense of, or understand, what we’re reading. Or listening to. Our mind reaches back into our language map and tries to make connections with language it has already acquired. It uses our existing language, our understanding of what we’re reading, and our life experience, to make sense of what we’re reading. And as it does, amazing things happen. Existing elements and connections are strengthened. New connections and elements are added. The map becomes more robust (strong and healthy), more complex, and our fluency increases.

I frequently watch my students read. I imagine that I can see and hear the connections taking place. Every word, every sentence, every paragraph they read feeds that wonderful language acquisition device that works constantly – when fed properly – to produce more language. Automatically. Subconsciously. Naturally. Just the way it was designed to work.