Since the listeners of our Center often have a desire to quickly learn a foreign language and english to hindi, we want to talk about this topic in more detail. There are many common misconceptions associated with the rapid study of a foreign language, or intensively, which simply need to be dispelled.
1. Intensive (quick learning) is often identified with immersion (and very little is known about the immersion method itself).
2. Some people think that if you study foreign day and night, you can learn a language in a month.
3. In the view of many, the rapid study of a foreign language (intensive) is the usual conversational courses.
Let’s start with the basics. What is it – to quickly learn a foreign language? This is to learn as much information as possible and get stable foreign language skills in a minimum of time. Conversely, an extensive way of learning is the presentation of information in small portions, respectively, over a longer period of time.
Intensive learning methods began to develop rapidly in the 2nd half of the 20th century, which was a requirement of the time. At present, the need for the rapid development of any skills has increased even more.
Pay attention to the word skill, which carries a significant semantic load here. This is not the first time we have spoken about the difference between knowledge and skills.
Why is this extremely important to understand? Because that’s what you spend your time and money on. And how much you will be pleased with the result depends on what exactly was invested in you – knowledge or skills. Learning a foreign language is not the most important thing – the main thing is to turn what you have learned into skills.
Unfortunately, we have an order of magnitude more skill-oriented methods than knowledge-oriented ones.
The skill is possessed not by the one who has learned something and knows how to do it, but by the one who knows how to do it practically. Even if he does not know the name of what he does. Does a person who knows how to communicate in a foreign language, i.e. has the skills of speech, be sure to know which particular grammatical rule he is currently applying? Not necessary. And most of the time, you don’t need to. You need to learn a foreign language, master it.
Therefore, the first rule of rapid language learning that needs to be learned is that the intensive should be aimed at practice, i.e. on the formation of very specific conversational skills (listening comprehension, thinking in a foreign language, speaking, etc.).
If the task is to put some information into memory instead (to learn a foreign language), you should not even think about learning quickly. The extensive way in this case will be much more productive. Everyone once prepared for exams, studied something, did not sleep at night (they acted intensively!), And now, after passing the exam successfully or not, no one remembers what was discussed. Those. as a result, the hard disk of your memory was completely formatted (what I had to learn was quickly forgotten).
SKILL – this is what is worth acquiring quickly, accelerated, intensively. By the way, the CLP method is built in such a way that training is intensive in any case (a large array of vocabulary is acquired at the skill level in a relatively short time). But there are also special programs for faster learning of a foreign language – Sprint, even more intensified: as much as the informative features of the listener allow.
The next rule of rapid learning of a foreign language: after intensive learning should be followed by practice and / or the next stage of learning, which will be more in-depth and measured.
Otherwise, the quickly acquired ability to communicate in a foreign language, without being fixed, can disappear just as quickly.
The question often arises: how long, given the intensity of training, can you quickly learn a foreign language?
There is no definite answer to this question. First of all, it is very individual and depends on the informative features of the personality (psychological aspects that affect the speed and quality of information processing). Therefore, in particular, the programs of the Center for Language Psychology are developed strictly individually. In addition, a person’s previous experience in mastering languages also plays a role – it does not matter whether we are talking about this particular language or any other. Just like that, someone who has been involved in sports all his life and has good physical fitness will learn to skate, for example, faster and easier than someone who is not used to physical exercise. As practice shows, it is possible to learn a foreign language using the Sprint personal program in 3.5 – 5 months, and this is quite fast.
In addition, it all depends on the specific task. It is impossible to learn a foreign language from zero to a level suitable for admission to a serious business school in a month, even if you study 12 hours a day. This is a pointless waste of time and money. The information will not be able to be assimilated, and, most likely, will be rejected completely. So set yourself realistic goals and plan your time. Consider your individual characteristics and capabilities: what will be useful for another person may not suit you at all, because you have different features of perception, memory, etc.
How long does it take on average to develop a speech skill, in other words, the ability to understand, speak and think in the target language in a communication situation? At least 3 months. And to consolidate this skill – at least another 2 months. And it will be a very intensive solution to the language problem!
Let’s touch on a summer theme here: trips abroad, for a summer intensive conversational course. The most important rule to follow in this case is that such a trip makes sense for a person who already knows how to communicate in this language. For a “zero” or a beginner, such a trip will most likely be meaningless. You can get the most out of such language practice only when you start it, already having a certain base: it is impossible to practice what you do not have. Spending precious practice time building a conversational base is pretty unwise.
It is also necessary to say about the method of immersion. Immersion is always intense, but intensive is not always immersion. The essence of this method is that a person is completely and completely immersed in a foreign language environment. Any communication in the native language is excluded completely. This method is also good, firstly, for advanced listeners, and secondly, for people with certain individual characteristics. And in the same way, it will be bad (up to the almost complete loss of language skills!) For a person with other mental characteristics. In other words, the application of this method requires an individual approach much more than any other.