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 Communicating is not the same as developing superior language skills.

Many language schools still use what is known as the communicative method. In these courses, adult students use up valuable time playing games and participating in simulated conversations, often resorting to body language, sounds, gestures, faulty speech, and other tricks in order to 'communicate'. When it becomes clear to all, however, that a superior level of performance cannot be reached using this kind of 'communication', students are usually asked to do more reading, more writing, and more grammar . Rather than provide a solution to the problem of inefficient performance, this approach seems to aggravate it .


                                   Will you end up doing more of the same in Canada?

You have already taken language courses in your country and you know a few things, but you lack confidence when you have to speak and you don't understand well when native speakers talk fluently.
You are determined to do something now.
Great!  
But you have to be really careful if you don't want to spend your time just fumbling with the problem, like so many others, without ever finding a solution.

Conventional Courses: Why They Don't Work

Activities in class are slow-paced and unchallenging, so people get accustomed to using the target language slowly and inefficiently. Here is how most traditional language courses jeopardize the progression of the students' oral/aural skills (speak/listen) by providing more and more unproductive knowledge:

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Students study (knowledge) but usually understand and say very little (efficiency). In order, however, to create an illusion of consistent progress, misleading exercises of role playing (I'm the doctor, you are the nurse...), topic discussions, and simulated conversations have become a standard routine in class. These and other games seem to be designed to entertain students with the notion that, although quality is marginal, they're doing OK because they can 'communicate'.

Since communication -even at the most inefficient level- is the proudly admitted goal in these courses, students often end up being distracted in a vain, unproductive classroom environment rather than receiving proper training in order to perform at top level in both social and professional contexts.

The problem becomes clear when these students have to cope with real-life situations: they realize that their level of comprehension is poor when native speakers talk. Furthermore, they know that they lack confidence whenever they have to say anything more than a few short, simple statements. They are able to participate in slow classroom activities but lack skills to face reality in the street, at work, in the movies, etc. where performance -not inadequate communication- is the key to success in the competitive world we live in.

For your next language course, don't do more of the same, make the right decision!

                     ATPAL® Westminster

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