WHY CAN’T I LEARN ENGLISH AT HOME, WITH THE HELP OF MY COMPUTER AND SOME GRAMMAR BOOKS?

You can. Of course. You can learn a lot of vocabulary, study the structure of the language, practise the pronunciation and even work on listening comprehension.

However: the fact of having a teacher in front of you, and a good one at that, is more than just having a person with the necessary experience to explain things and correct your mistakes, it is a matter of BRINGING THE LANGUAGE TO LIFE. English is an extremely irregular language.

Perhaps it is not so complicated to learn a bit of English “How are you?” “Where is the station?” – Easy. SUBJECT-VERB-OBJECT.

Learn where to put the auxiliary verbs, DO, HAVE etc, and you can just about communicate.

With English, though, it’s not always that easy to know when to use what and how. That’s why it is more than just studying the rule. Of course, grammar is important – I am a big fan and friend of grammar! But, the language needs to be brought to life, used, mistakes made… it is important both to be corrected and also to learn to correct yourself with your internal language sense.

The intuitive side of learning: FEELING THE LANGUAGE: listening, watching films, reading books and articles, speaking to people, all these activities develop what I call the “inner ear” and instead of spending 5 minutes thinking “must I use DO or HAVE” you suddenly find yourself just speaking and the words flow – perfect or not, you are communicating with the world, IN ENGLISH!

So is the teacher the guide to all of the above? Yes. And more than that: a teacher is a living, breathing person with his or her own story. So aside from being your guide to becoming an independent and confident English speaker, he or she is able to bring your learning process into a real context – his or her life story and experience.

You are able to share ideas, discuss current events, issues, films, books, work and family… and while doing all of this, you are naturally practising the target language that lies on the page in books, but now comes to life in a real one-to-one context.

You overcome problems of comprehension, accent (an excellent method is when a school offers students the chance to have lessons with various mother-tongue teachers with a range of different accents and life experiences) and new vocabulary because you are engaged in an interesting and challenging process of real, human communication with another person.

So that when you find yourself in a situation, abroad or in your own country, speaking English with someone, you are much more able to talk with and understand them, on a variety of topics, and not just the chapter you have studied on the computer, about cars or trains and only in the accent that your CD drive has provided you with.

The world is becoming more technological and what wonderful changes it is bringing to our lives… but some things can never be effectively replaced. Teachers are high on that list.
Get yourself to a school, find a teacher, find a good method. And start studying, communicating, listening, speaking. Soon you’ll be having a great time… in English!