You are a motivated adult with clear goals, and English plays a role in achieving them. You know enough English now to function and communicate. The question is: Will you stay here or are you going to continue on toward more sophisticated mastery and greater confidence in your command of the language?
If you choose to keep developing, it is time to start reframing how you “learn” and how you think about language. It is time to stop thinking of English as a subject or a discipline that you study, take tests on, and then are done with. Your journey toward full English mastery requires you to improve your language knowledge and apply it in real life activities with the support of the right resources. In other words, what you need is L. E. A. R. N. – Language Education, Activities, and Resources for Nonnatives.
A Complex Skill
A language is a complex skill, a behavior, and a habit. It is something you do as much as something you know. Your native language is one you developed largely unconsciously as part of a biologically programed process. You never have to think about it or make any conscious effort to use it.
A nonnative language, however, one that you learn as an adult, may start out as knowledge you receive in a classroom, by being taught, trained in, and tested on. But if it is going to become real in your life, you must view it as a complex skill that you exercise intentionally. You must make it into a habit, a behavior that you deliberately practice and continuously analyze in order to improve and perfect.
Active Engagement
The process of mastering a nonnative language is a type of learning that you will never finish, same as you will never finish learning how to be a great basketball player, chef, or musician. Mastering English requires active engagement so that you can become better and better at it.
The issue with phrases like learn English and study English is that they imply a passive learner who needs to be taught because we associate learning and studying with teachers and school. They suggest that unless you are taught you will not know and cannot do.
If you don’t redefine how you “learn” English to mean consciously applying what you already know to develop further, you end up focusing on activities that are not conducive to mastery, like translating, seeking explanations, memorizing definitions, imitating other speakers, or copying from other writers. Instead, you should be making the language your own and using it creatively.
L.E.A.R.N.
The posts on www.aomasterenglish.com are organized in three main categories:
These posts are designed to increase your language knowledge and provide strategies for how you can continue to improve your ability to communicate in English.
2. Activities
The posts in this category help you to expand your repertoire of activities to engage in in order to develop your skills.
This category helps you to become familiar with an array of resources (tools and materials) that are especially effective or necessary for nonnative English speakers.
Next Steps
- Read the post “Your Passions Will Lead You to English Mastery” in the “Activities” category.
- Check out the reading and listening selections below on the topic of redefining learning when seeking to master English. They will give you ideas on how motivated English learners engage and put their knowledge into practice to continue expanding and improving their skills.
Alex Oliveira's Master English 