First of all commit to enjoyment and make the decision that it’s going to be fun. Look for ways of making it pleasurable. Tell people what a great time you are having. Believe it and enjoy. The above could apply to anything of course. It might be another learning situation, a new job, helping at a jumble sale, organising a coach trip for your son’s football team.

Secondly – be positive. Remarks like “I’m hopeless, I’ll never learn this” tend to be self fulfilling prophesies. Better to say something like ” I am getting better and better at learning words”. Stop yourself when you hear yourself saying, ” I can’t ” about anything. Change it to a positive affirmation in the present tense. “I am becoming more and more confident at speaking”.

Thirdly try out some of these activities:

Use colour when writing words i.e. one colour for masculine words and another for feminine words, another colour for verbs, another for adjectives etc. This helps them to stand out and stay in your memory.

Start drawing and don’t say, “I can’t draw”. Everybody can in some form or other and “practice makes perfect”. Make the drawings funny, make them silly, laugh, have fun, show them to your friends. Be inventive. The act of drawing and thinking what to draw will help you recall these words later. And you never know you may discover hidden talents!
Plan what you are going to do. How much time can you spend? Five minutes a day is better than 30 minutes before your next class. How many words are you going to learn? Be reasonable. Make it possible. One word a day learnt thoroughly is better than aiming for 10 a day and never achieving it. Set yourself up for success.

Word association can help too i.e. el gato is cat in Spanish. Think of a cat sitting in the middle of a cream gateau.

Music is an aid to learning. Baroque music is particularly helpful. Or dance round the room chanting sentences or verbs (close the curtains and make sure that you’re alone in the house maybe!).

Last but not least find ways of listening to the language even if you cannot understand all or much of what is said.
Speaking another language means that you can talk to people more easily. You will find it opens doors in many ways and helps you learn about other people. It’s exciting. It’s fun. Enjoy.

P.S. Learning a language? Any problems or difficulties contact me and I will help you.
Anne V. Taylor
Director
Languages for All Ltd

Learning languages in a way that is fun and effective

27 Romany Road

Rubery
Rednal
Birmingham
B45 0LG
Tel. 0121 453 9969
e-mail:- anne.taylor@languagesforall.co.uk

Anne Taylor taught languages for eight years in a state school towards the end of her long career in teaching. Increasing frustration with both the content and the methods of teaching languages led her to set up her own business Languages for All.Here languages are taught in a way that is fun and effective leading people to learn more easily. She is now expanding the business to include products that will assist people to easily add to their learning.

http://www.languagesforall.co.uk/