Free English Courses Don't Teach You All You Need to Know

... they can't teach you everything. There are some skills that you can work on by yourself, and there are some skills that grow fastest with a teacher helping. Let's take a look at some of these.

Sure, Do Vocabulary and Grammar by Yourself

If you want to, you can study vocabulary and grammar by reading books but be warned. The books don't explain everything. Take dictionaries for example. Look up the word, find the meaning, and then put it in the sentence where it fits.

If you do this, you are almost certain to make a mistake fifty percent of the time. Unusual English. Strange combinations of words that grammar allows, but native speakers never use. Words collocate with each other, or they don't. This is different from grammar, and most books don't teach it.

Grammar is a large set of rules, but collocation is learnt by memorizing, and experience. Your teacher will tell you what is strange and you can learn quickly. Books will not tell you when your English is strange. It is faster learning with a teacher.

Listening Skills

You can do a lot of listening practise on your own, and improve your listening skills, but do you know what they are? And are you prepared to spend the effort it takes to improve them? Even if you study and learn what the skills are, can you do them? It is like learning to ride a bicycle by reading a book. Sure, its possible, but most of us could never do it. Look closely at what kind of instruction a free English course has for listening skills.

Speaking Skills

Speaking skills range from pronunciation through word usage, up to register. Pronunciation can be learnt with videos and lots of practise. Remember, you have to video yourself and compare it to the model to really see if you did it correct. Word usage is also called collocation, and I mentioned collocation in the vocabulary and grammar section.

One example of this is the word 'enjoy'. Grammatically, we can enjoy many things, but it still sounds unusual to say, ' Let's enjoy peace', or something similar. The word 'enjoy' does not collocate highly with 'let's';, yet many students learning English speak like this.

My Own Experience

I am a great do it yourself type. I thought I could do anything, if I put my mind to it. Well, it may be true, but I have since discovered that teachers can seriously speed up the process. I went to Africa in 1990 to live for two years. While I was there, I studied Sesotho, the local language. I was trying to make my own free English course, only it was for Sesotho. Well, I was only modestly successful.

Then I came to Japan in 1998. I started off by looking for the nearest Japanese language school I could find. I went there every week for over two years. The difference was amazing. Sure, I studied hard on my own between classes. If you don't do that, you just won't learn much.

But I can speak one of the most difficult languages in the world (sure, maybe I am not great, but I am okay) for English speakers to learn. My advice? Get a teacher. And work hard between classes.

But I Can't Get a Teacher!

Then you will have to work extra hard. You can do it, but it is very difficult. I can suggest you do lots of shadowing, and if you have to write English, then practise by copying lots of proper English (novels, perhaps). Now in the age of the Internet, there is usually some way to find a native English speaking English teacher.

Summary

Learning English for free by making your own course may sound like a good idea, but you will find it is much more difficult. Vocabulary and grammar, the two easier areas to study by oneself are still difficult. Listening is even more difficult, and speaking is very hard to master by yourself, unless you are comfortable speaking strange English frequently. The best thing is to learn with a teacher, and study hard between English classes.

If you absolutely cannot find a teacher to work with, then at least find some listening materials that include conversations to practice. You can get conversations to listen to right here on this site, if you subscribe to the e-zine. Once a month, I will send you a script for the conversation and a link to a page where you can listen to it. Sign up now!

Study the verb list below.

1. Try to imagine what the story will be when you look at the picture. 
2. Then listen to the story. 
3. Listen again while you read the story.
4. Finally, listen to the story and repeat the words at the same time.