How do students best learn a foreign language?

  • by ‘doing’
  • talking to natives
  • solving real problems (traffic ticket)
  • experiencing culture
  • TPR (Total Physical Response) – (opening the door, putting something on the shelf)
  • ‘real-world’ activities (going shopping, ordering in a restaurant)
  • mingling
  • thinking in the foreign language
  • speaking (inside and outside the classroom)
  • listening (including tapes, ‘real’ speech, TV, radio, music videos)
  • reading (books, blogs, magazines, newspapers, stories with morals)
  • writing (class assignments, letters, journals, reports)
  • learning vocabulary (using words in sentences, using dictionary, watching TV with closed captions, reading, asking the meaning of words)
  • practice (including homework)
  • learning grammar
  • grammar/idiom/vocabulary games
  • repetition
  • class interaction (pair work, group work)
  • preparing a learning plan