Santiago Agudelo Gonzaez

MY PERSONAL METHODS TO LEARN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

My first attempt to learn English was at school. At home my parents had no interest in

my learning of a second language. My school was not an exception of the educational system,

therefore there was a lack of Method in the ways the teachers taught the language. I can`t recall

the exact names of the books nevertheless I do remember that they always used two by the same

publishing house; Express Publishing.

The method was unchangeable: filling and completing all the books from A to Z, this

caused that I never really became fluent but rather systematic in the ways of expressing myself.

The only thing that mattered for the teachers was to fill out the whole book, which were mainly

grammar based. They kept aside the speaking and pragmatic abilities. This justifies my present

inconformity with my lack of ability when it comes to express myself orally.

Despite all this inconvenient there is a bright sigh to this matter. Due to the books I

learned plenty of useful and globalize vocabulary, besides a decent amount of grammar

(although I have forgotten most of it). I approached and appropriated the English grammar due

to an extend amount of writing exercises, never without the studying and analysing of the

theory first. For instance most exercises were about filling out the blank space, multiple choice’s

questions, formulating sentences, questions or answering them. Others, more complex were

writing essays or conversations about the subjects learned in class.

 In addition, there was a big spectrum of reading and listening exercises such as Reading

Comprehension of specific articles or topics, most of the time school related. The Listening part

was a little bit more complicated, we had to pay careful attention to different types of

conversations in which the participants had different accents than American. Those were the

abilities I feel I acquire the most at school.

Concluding with my school experience, I think the Method my school had to teach the

language was not as effective as I would have wished it were. However it was enough to put a

seed full of curiosity in my brain.

Suddenly, a couple years after I finished High School I realized that I was beginning to

be able to understand some of the lyrics from my favourites bands. At that point I thanked school

for helping with the developing of my vocabulary and listening abilities. Apart from my

curricular English learning process, I started searching for the rest of the lyrics to complete the

blank spaces in my mind. Since then until today I keep doing that activity in order to learn and

enjoy all my favourites songs. I have to admit that this have enormously helped me to improve

also my speaking abilities since I, endlessly, sing along with the lyrics on the screen.

Finally, the most important method in the whole process, and also the one I consider the

main factor to my advance English Level is watching Audio-visual content in English, say TV

shows, like Friends and Breaking Bad, movies and even YouTube Videos, in channels like

PewDiePie and Tayler Oakley. This permanent exposure to Anglo-Saxon media contributed for

my familiarization to the language, meaning, my ear got used to the structures, the pronunciation,
the rhythm and the slang. I felt this exposure was more useful than the exercises in the books I

had back in high school, due that I found it rather realistic and adaptable on daily situations.

Alongside music, I find audio-visual exposure to an English speaking media one of the

best ways to learn a second language, because you get the chance to see actual native speakers

interacting with the language on a real context. At first I needed closed captions to help me

complete the information my ears where missing from the TV shows. Nowadays I do not depend

on them in order to fully comprehend the plot of the story. At the beginning I had to translate in

my head from English to Spanish. Today I’m entirely capable of thinking and undertesting

English without the long process of mental translation.

To conclude, I have the feeling that I have learned more independently, meaning,

listening to music and watching Anglo-Saxon Media than from my academic process at school.

The fact that I have never had an opportunity to properly express myself on a real conversation

with a native is one of the elements that might have caused my weakness and insecurity when it

comes to speak fluently.