The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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I want to get a sense of how to grok a language (Ideally English as a non-English speaker) really well in a short amount of time, including the grammar.I want to help kids from underpirvleved backgrounds learn the language. I tried to look into how French diplomats do it and did not find anything worthwhile. Watching tv or movies and then reading a grammar book is a bit too long a journey, so I would appreciate if you could guide me to a textbook that can help someone reach good proficiency, including grammar in a short amount of time. I have ero background in linguistics and the only languages I know are those I picked from my surroundings. Even the stuff that works (duolingo) probably works on some core thought process but I want something that is more comprehensive, ideally a book or some texts. I am aware of Comprehensive Input (CI) and the English File series, I was looking at the lingq app trying to see what it is that makes them good. Would appreciate inputs.
English is the easiest language to learn by far because once you give kids some basic resources and internet access they often tend to do it by themselves by playing video games or watching pewdiepie/music videos/netflix 10 hours a day. My girlfriend’s step brother in poor Hispanic country got pretty good at English in a couple years because the kid is addicted to smartphones and happened to install duolingo at some point to be able to watch English gaming videos
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I've sometimes spoken with people who grew up in poor villages where they were the only person who could converse in English, and were thus brought to talk with me. This is what all of them did. I've heard an interest in online gaming with a voice chat component is helpful, since it's interactive. Spaced repetition software is helpful for vocabulary. I've never heard of a Best Book for Learning English. At least English is a language with a nearly inexhaustible backlog of possible inputs.
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Your grammar and vocabulary are already superior to a substantial proportion of native speakers, and certainly to French diplomats. Further improvement will just be the natural result of reading more English media to develop flair and a personal style.
I'm not talking about myself. I want to help kids learn English
You're not going to see the results. Even if you're good. And by "good" a dozen possibilities could be inserted there for your imagination. You're funny. You seem cool. You look like the guy they knew one time. You tell great stories You sing. Whatever. For kids learning language is about making them want to immerse themselves in the language, and they want to do that because something makes them interested. A generation of Japanese girls "love English" because of One Direction, and not because Zayne knew anything about comprehensible input. You're not going to see the results because language teaching and learning is slow, and people get better or don't because of many, many reasons, but a specific method or methodology is way down on the list.
I taught English in the Peace Corps 30 years ago. In a country in Africa. I guess those kids were underprivileged. They seemed pretty resilient though. One girl messaged me on LinkedIn a year or two ago after having become a doctor. I cannot claim responsibility. If you want to teach kids, be interesting. Be amusing. Keep their interest even if it's just playing the lyre. Instill that interest in English and they'll do the hard part on their own. As we all do. Or don't.
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