Language Learning Blog
How I am trying to improve my English skillsThe End?
Dear readers,
This is the end of the assignment for my English course but not the end of my language learning blog. I found it really useful to write about the processes I am going trough during my language learning and to read this again gives me also a lot of motivation. Furthermore, it is also really useful to read the blog of my peers so I hope they will also continue with their blog. However, there are going to be some changes because I do not have more compulsory items for my blog that means that I do not have to publish things on this blog or have to write about my progress. I do not think that this leads to major differences on my blog but I wanted to tell you about this so you understand it better. Furthermore, I think I am going to publish less because I am now in my exam period and besides this I do not get a grade anymore for this blog so that would have some effect on me. This does not mean that I will never publish anything here because I love to write things and publish them so the whole world can read them and think about it. That is also why I published during the blog assignment also things I would like to share, although they where not compulsory, like my presentation page or the things I wrote about 500 days of summer. In the end I cannot say what is going to change on my blog but we will see what happens.
I hope to publish something next week to conclude the assignment and to tell what my opinion is about the end result. Furthermore, I gave last week a presentation about my blog and I will also inform you about that. I hope you are looking forward to read these things on my blog but first I have to focus on my exams.
Have a nice day
Juliet
500 Days of Summer
During my days on the university and especially during the hours working on my blog I came to the conclusion that practice is the most important thing in learning a language.
When you practice more and more your vocabulary will extend and you’re going to improve your English skills.
But the thing is about practice, it is not always so much fun because when you practice you make mistakes and I think that almost nobody likes making mistakes and I also do not like making mistakes although I know I can learn from making mistakes. Now, I found a way of practice a little bit with English and enjoy it at the same time. I started more to watch movies in English without subtitles. The last movie I saw in this situation was 500 days of Summer.
I really liked the movie, the story but especially the language. In this movie a voice tells us in the beginning:
‘You should know up front, this is not a love story, this is a story about love.’
Again, I realize that English is a language that is so much more beautiful that the Dutch language is. Maybe it is because you have to think better about what you are hearing and reading and then realize more what they say. At the other side, this kind of phenomenon of remember and understand things better if you hear them in English is something that does not happens during tutorials and lectures. That is a sad thing and is in fact disapproving the things I just wrote. So, why then is the English language some times more beautiful than the Dutch Language.
Maybe it is because of the feeling and image you get when you hear a word. The word ‘story’ makes me also think about movies, love and romantic situations that are I think because I read often these kinds of books when I read English books and I often watch these kind of English movies. Compared to the Dutch word ‘verhaal’ that has the same definition but this makes me think about a whole different image. About a dark and silent night in a big wood where you here only the wind that is going trough the top of the trees and makes you shiver it is so dark that you can see almost nothing only a few meters around you and in the distance you see a faint light that is wagging. A totally different setting but the right translation maybe that is because the stories I heard on the primary school where stories like this.
Language is more than just a combination of letters that we give to a situation or object.
But if we use these words it could give a different image to the person in front of you than you have of that word. So, language is difficult and especially when it is not your native language because than you miss so much of practice with the words. Especially, listening and reading the language and by doing this you also learn more about the image of the word that it has in the other language instead of just a translation.
So just learning vocabulary and practice in class, listening to persons who are no native speakers and understanding the grammar of a language does not mean you understand the language.
So, the perfect excuse for watching a lot of movies and reading a lot of books during the days that you have to study for exams.
Juliet
I also included the trailer of the film ‘500 days of Summer’, I recommend it to you and try to listen carefully because I found this film full of beautiful words and sentences.
Interesting blog
Dear readers,
This morning I found a really interesting piece of writing of a classmate. The specific part is her language learning history. I found this really interesting because there were some findings I also have but did not mention in my blog but the main thing that I found interesting is that she came to the same conclusion as I did.
Meryl says: “Do not be shy, go out there to speak English and practice!” *
And that is what I have to do but it is difficult to get rid of being ashamed when you make mistakes in English. There are so many teachers who pronounce words wrong or have other problems with English and that is also not a big problem.
Just try to speak as good English as possible but almost none of us is a native speaker so help each other and make together the best of it!
Juliet
* http://merylslearningjourney.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/language-learning-history/#comment-27
Presentation
Dear readers,
The next important assignment for English is a presentation that counts for 25% of my final grade. To show you more about the whole process I decided to describe in detail the things I do in making the presentation, thinking about the presentation, preparing the presentation, doing the presentation and at the end review the whole process. All information about this whole process of holding a presentation can be found on the Presentation page. On these kinds of pages I can only add a message once by editing this every time I can add new information and that is what I am going to do. The reason for this is that the lay-out of my blog, is a lay-out I really like but the problem is that the edit column is really small what makes this front page look like one big mess if I publish everything here. It takes some more effort for you, my readers, to go to the new messages I published but I do not think this is really a big problem, please tell me if I am wrong.
I hope you like this new idea and that you will go along with me during this kind of process. Furthermore, I hope that you not overlook the underlying thing during this process and that is my process in learning English. I still experience big barriers when I am talking English and especially when I am presenting and I really want get rid off these barriers. I am going to try this by focusing especially on this problem and because this is my main goal I also provide all my experiences about it on my blog. The last thing I want to mention is this quote that inspirers me and I hope it can also inspire you:
“What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.”
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English poet, critic, lexicographer, creator of first English dictionary.
Juliet
Hazel
Curious about what we are doing during English class?
Go to the Hazel page and see one of our cases.
Juliet
My language learning history
Dear readers,
A couple of seconds ago, I published my Language Learning History. Just click on the button that can be founded on the right side of this message or click on these words: Language Learning History .
I hope you really enjoy this part of my blog because it will explain my history of learning English and will also briefly describe the goals I want to achieve in the next three years.
Kind regards,
Juliet
Hello world!
Welcome to my blog, my language learning blog.
First I want to tell you something about myself. My name is Juliet and I am first year student on the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. I am studying International Business & Management (IB&M). The program of IB&M is totally in English, and for me is that a big challenge. Fortunately, there is an English program for al IB&M students to support them at improving there English skills. For this English course every participant has to make his or her own Language Learning Blog, which means that we have to write up a blog during the following weeks about how we are improving our English skills.
So, here it is, my Language Learning Blog, and you just discovered it!
It is a great honor to write this for you and all those other people who are reading my blog and who are going to read my blog. Next time I will inform you about how my English skills where before I started this course.
Kind regards,
Juliet
Language Learning Blog 