How to learn English in New York, if you can not get into the language environment

These are Coming out - real stories of real people who came to America, but for a number of reasons did not get into the English-speaking environment. It takes a month, six months, a year, two, three, they successfully spoil their Russian by inserting English words into it, but in English itself they are marking time. To put up a cross or to teach? If you teach, then where and how, especially when you cannot change the environment for a number of reasons? Journalist ForumDaily approached the search for an answer to the question with all seriousness, because it is also a story about itself.

Photo by Lidia Kalinina

It's me. My name is Lida. I'm 33. I've been working in journalism for about 10 years. I am also a philologist by training. Teacher of Russian language and literature. And also (which is generally embarrassing to admit, because it was a long time ago and not with me) – a candidate of philological sciences. Well, that is, you already understand - I am a humanitarian to the core. I have always succeeded perfectly in everything related to “putting words into sentences.” Always. Before coming to America.

"They used to say the right thing"

It so happened historically that I did not study English either at school or at the university (I studied French instead), so I had to sit down at my desk again a year and a half before coming here. I had wonderful teachers - they hammered grammar into my head quite clearly, plus my philological background crept out, and I learned the language, not just by memorization, but by delving into the structure. I liked it. True, there was no way to speak. “The language is most difficult for philologists,” my teacher laughed, “they are used to speaking correctly.”

“Oh, it’s okay, if you come, you’ll start talking right away,” everyone around said. “You’ll be chatting for a month,” they convinced me, who had doubts.

Has arrived. A month has passed. Half a year. Year. One and a half. Alas.

Photo by Lidia Kalinina

The thorny path from Sheepshead to Manhattan

No, don't think that I'm not doing anything. My path to mastering English here is quite long. First I took courses at the library. I had just arrived then and didn’t really know anything. I chose one closer to home – on Sheepshead Bay. I passed the test, came to my group and - horror of horrors - found around only my compatriots. Several months of studying in the library can easily be classified as “thrown into the abyss.”

A large group, full of Russian-speaking people, who did not differ in their particular desire to at least try to speak among themselves in English. In addition, half of the students did not meet the stated level at all. Intermediate (libraries have only 2 level of study beginning and intermediate, if your knowledge of the language is higher, they can only offer you thematic courses, for example, business English). People who barely knew ABC studied with us, got bored and actively interfered with those who sincerely tried to babble at least somehow. In general, when they asked: “Will you renew?”, I refused.

Now I knew - to run, to run from the Russian regions. So it turned out that my work is connected mainly with communication with Russian-speaking immigrants, therefore, in the process of work activity, the language could not be tightened.

Well. I’ll go to Manhattan - I decided and went to look for courses where there would be no Russian speakers. Has found. Courses on 35 Street and 8 Avenue were different from the library, like heaven and earth. Here we really tried to talk. True, the topics chosen are strange. For example, how a worker should be able to listen to oral instructions using the example of a welder. I was amazed: no, everything is fine, but in principle at this life stage I don’t even need to know the word "welder". Why is this all? Then I understood. The courses were preparing cheap labor.

What should an emigrant who doesn’t really know English be able to do? Right. Listen to your boss, work with your hands and don’t philosophize too much. Once, however, I remember there was an interesting topic - how to improve the transport infrastructure of New York. Ha! I travel all over the city for work, and now I have something to say—and suddenly even my tongue loosens. But not for long. In general, I also left these courses.

Then I decided to try the paid courses. There, I had enough of a month for 2 - huge groups and a complete lack of desire among the participants in the process to do something: it was clear that here 99,9% of people were there to maintain student status. The result - minus 350 dollars from the family budget - and I am again in the free search.

I and classmates. Photo by Lidia Kalinina

I have very good courses now. During the semester, I learned how to write an essay in English (it turns out that if you can and love to write, it’s easy in any language), I learned a completely incomprehensible English punctuation before that and unexpectedly read a thick novel.

But in the conversation, I still confuse to and forI forget to put s in the verbs of the third person and when I start to get nervous, I can forget how in English “milk” or “keys”. “You have one of the best essays in the group, Lydia. I think it's time you move to level. know more.

Photo by Lidia Kalinina

Yes, definitely, in this group you will already be bored,” - dear, dear Mr. Lester, thank you for your trust, you really think that I write and speak well, but the whole secret is that I do this for one reason - you my teacher and I am not embarrassed by you. I’ll go outside now and won’t be able to carry on even a banal conversation about the weather - because in a second I’ll forget how snowfall or slush will be called in English.

I think such torments are not only mine. Therefore, I propose to look at how other people came out of similar situations - those who still talked, despite the inappropriate environment.

Yulia: let yourself be wrong

So, first we turn to the experts. This is Julia. Julia has two higher educations: in the first, she is an English teacher, and in the second she is a psychologist. And since the impossibility of "talking" is in many ways just a psychological problem - we are at.

“To understand how to overcome embarrassment, it is important to determine the causes of this embarrassment. As a psychoanalytic psychologist, I can say that it depends on personal characteristics, namely: speaking a foreign language means definitely making mistakes, it is presenting “not the best version of yourself.” For many people this is quite "unsafe".

I mean, for the average adult who was “allowed” to make mistakes, being imperfect—talking while making mistakes—is no problem. But an adult who has the experience of “non-accepting” his imperfection, his fallibility, seems to get stuck, fixates on this and does not allow another experience of experiencing his mistakes.

“The so-called “inner critic” “prevents” one from speaking, which evaluates the success and accuracy of potential speech and most often issues an internal “prohibition,” says Yulia.

Childhood is long gone, the environment, which was perhaps quite critical of the child, has long changed, but the mechanisms for “keeping oneself safe” remain. And most often it does not even occur to a person to reconsider his attitude towards the past, towards himself when he makes mistakes, to admit that the attitude of other people now towards my mistakes is more tolerant and tolerant than it was possible with my parents.

The people around me now are ready to accept (and do accept) me with the imperfections and fallacies that I have now. And they don't even want to correct me. The environment now is not my mother/father, whose task was to raise and educate me, the environment now is simply people who are often mistaken, just like me. They don't exist to evaluate me. When an adult is able to reconsider his childhood beliefs, then there is a possibility of changes in many areas of life, including in the field of speaking a foreign language.

Understand that we are more critical of ourselves than our current environment - why? It is important to understand that others do not expect us to be perfect and infallible. And then you can choose - continue to believe your childhood experience or look at the reality that is here, now, and it is very different from what it once was.”

Alexandra: in which case we play crocodile

And this is Alexandra. Alya is a photographer, and for the third year has been conquering New York. It would seem - for the photographer language is not as important as, for example, for a journalist. But in fact it is only at first glance.

“My work is 80% language dependent, and it is much easier for Russian-speaking clients to feel free in front of the camera thanks to my communication with them. If I spoke English as fluently and easily, I would be much richer already - that’s for sure!” Alya laughs.

The girl says: the most important thing is to stop being a perfectionist and start making mistakes. “My clients don’t really care what I say. Today I realized that you need to be less shy, less afraid, speak as best you can, and try to do it as well as possible.

I had weddings where people did not speak Russian, but sign language, the desire to understand each other and the desire to get good photos won.

As a result, we understood each other well and got a chic experience playing the “crocodile”. My level is enough to be understood, I just worry very much about the accent and mistakes, and I was silent for a long time just because I made mistakes, so now I have overcome this fear - and I believe that I too will succumb to English. ”

Lia: Four Rules of Success

And this is Leah. She arrived in the country with a minimum English three years ago. Now he works in a language school in Manhattan, and, according to her bold statement, “can lecture even at Harvard”.

“English, which is probably included in the top 5 vital skills, I have not gone since school years. As a child I taught German, which I don’t remember at all. Necessity came in adulthood with travel. Then there was work in an international company.

But the last straw was a failed novel. The young man was handsome, successful and very interested in me. English guy owned fluently and even graduated from college in Britain.

Every now and then English words slipped through our correspondence. Once, in response to my phrase “you need to take a tour along the paths untrodden by tourists,” he replied: “done.” And I went into the dictionary to look for what it meant... And I also shared with him my doubts about the translation. Need I say that the young man never wrote to me again?

And then I realized that I don’t want to be so dense in English anymore,” Leah laughs. Now the girl has clear rules for successfully learning the language.

Rule one: one thing is not enough

Three years ago I came to the United States to learn directly - I became an American student. What I want to say first of all about these three years of active study.

One thing is not enough. It is not enough just to study in a language school, just as it is not enough to read English texts.

Language changes personality, changes type of thinking and even behavior. If during the study of the language such major changes occur, then the approach should be comprehensive.

Rule two: do not want to learn the language - have fun on it

Don't get me wrong: an integrated approach does not mean round-the-clock cramming. Constant pressure on your already loaded brain will only push back the desired result. Treat new knowledge with curiosity.

Do not repeat a word a hundred times for the sake of automatic memorization. But pay attention to those words that attract for one reason or another, or sound to you in a special way.

Over time, vocabulary will expand automatically. The process is similar to picking up a puzzle, where inserting the last ten pieces is much easier than collecting the first hundred.

If you have no strength to learn, have fun in English. Watch your favorite movies in the original without translation (but with English subtitles). Feel free to pause and repeat the “tasty” phrases after the characters, imitating accent and intonation. Solve easy crosswords, install on your phone, learning games, offline dictionaries, grammar applications. Even five minutes of such practice a day matter. Well, you will not play one day in Tetris on the way to work, but learn a cool phrase or clarify for yourself the grammatical trick!

With books the same. Start with a friend and lover. I still occasionally reread the Harry Potter series, because for me it’s a sweet way to immerse myself in a fairy tale reality, and Rowling’s English is so good that you can always find something new in her books. Do not read those books that are difficult! So you will get tired of both the language and the process of study, from which no one will benefit. The time for more complex literature will come, no need to hurry.

Rule three: look for at least one interlocutor

Be sure to communicate. A friend or partner whose first language is English will transform your spoken language in six months. And do not hesitate to communicate via text messages.

Nobody forbids answering short and simple, if you have a grammar-Nazi who judges you for every grammatical miss. Be sure to install a translator on your phone. There are doubts in the written - test it there. Major blunders immediately manifest themselves.

Rule Four: Switch to English all around

Finding information on the Internet can also be of double benefit. Use Wikipedia in English. Information can always be re-read in the native language if the English version leaves questions. By the way, after that you can once again read the same text in English. How much clearer he will seem to you this time!

When beginners learn English ask me about the timeframe (the standard question: how much time it took to learn English), I answer that at least two years. Two years to learn to swim in this new sea of ​​grammatical constructions and idioms.

People are not machines, but our brain still resembles a computer. First you need to install the program (which takes time), then restart the machine and only then you can start using it. Give yourself time to dive, do not chase the horses and do not put super-fast deadlines. Knowledge from this will not increase, but stress will spoil all the pleasure from the process.

Be sure to listen to your desire. If you are not interested in reading political reviews, but you want to learn a children's verse in English, feel free to choose the second. Today I continue to learn English and see no end to this process. It's good? Poorly? I do not ask these questions. For me the main thing is the knowledge of the new. What a damn interesting!

Read also on ForumDaily:

5 free sites to memorize English words

How to learn English words quickly: 15 simple tricks

How to overcome the language barrier in English

How to learn to speak English fluently and competently: 16 simple tips

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