I'd like to write about some of the ways linguists talk about motivation in language learning.To break it down into the two main categories, we have: integrative motivation and instrumental motivation. Of course, these two types of motivation can exist in the same person but in order to separate them in your mind, here are their traditional definitions: Integrative motivation: when you...
Learning a language is a task that is basically predicated on the learning of the four basic skills. Whenever possible, try and develop each of them simultaneously. (In fact, whatever 'exercise' you are doing will involve multiple abilities, whether you realize it or not!) Speaking: Develop proper pronunciation skills and the ability to produce spontaneous speech. Writing: Think in terms of phrases...
If you are a beginning or intermediate student with a new language, pick up a newspaper or magazine in the target language, and choose one article that looks interesting. Slowly work on reading that article and learning the words that you didn’t know. Similar to my points in other posts about movies or music, choose a style of magazine or newspaper...
Listen to music in your target language. Whatever your favorite style of music, it is practically guaranteed to exist in your target language. Invest some time researching your preferred style of music in the language you are learning and you will find an artist or two that you like. Once you start listening to their music (and reading their lyrics), the...
Language Learning Tips: Watch movies, and try to watch them at least twice each. It is very important to suspend your total comprehension. You won’t understand everything, but you will absorb valuable expressions from every movie you watch. Once you are somewhat familiar with the cinema industry in your target language/target country, you will have favorite actors/directors to look for. And...