Introduction:

This workshop is mainly informative to guide you to adapt the adequate method to the kind of learner you are.

Once you know you are a visual or audio learner you are on the right track to improve your learning conditions to expose yourself to the foreign language learning process which is long but extremely rewarding. It takes discipline and practice, lots of it. After all, practice is the mother of perfection. If you still do not know the kind of learner you are it is a good idea to test yourself.

When you remember words that are repeated out loud to you more than once without writing them down, you are probably an audio learner. Therefore, you should choose audiovisual materials to acquire, drill and practice language. On the other hand, if you learn and register information very well by taking notes, writing down data, reading and looking at images and written signs, you are like most people, a visual learner. Based on the aforementioned simple and quick evaluation of yourself take into consideration time, environment and alternative and combined ways you have to practice structures you learn in a given language.

Methods:

There are several methods that can work for different people depending on the kind of learner you are. Most people are visual learners. Actually, statistics say that most students need visual aids to enforce the learning process. People who are sensitive to sounds and are musically oriented are not disturbed by visual aids but they have a tendency to need audio references to be able to register information in their long term memory. Hence audio visual content and context based methods are the ones in vogue. They are effective and precise. If used frequently context/content based methods are the key to success in foreign language learning. There are essential aspects necessary to whatever method that you adopt. They are the following:

• Perception of the language (skeleton)
• Knowledge of phonetic patterns
• Sentence structure
• Choose an instructor who uses a method that does not cause you stress and who makes you feel confortable to make mistakes

When not being instructed, instruct yourself by mentally reviewing and raising questions

• Force yourself to think in the target language
• Organize your simplest thoughts in the target language
• Create your own context
• Confort: emotional and physical
• Combine techniques
• Combine goals
• More emphasis on culture

Desired Skills:

• Oral proficiency
• Listening Comprehension
• Reading and Writing

Suggestions to enhance your knowledge:

• Watch Satellite Broadcast "Scola": news from all over the world.
• Rent films in the target language with subtitles
• Get somebody to help you improve your language skills (a friend, a tutor or a relative

Success depends upon

• Awareness
• "Linguistic Fitness"

"Practice is the mother of perfection"

fin

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