[MUSIC] In this module you're going to learn how to become a more efficient language learner and what you can do to advance your spoken English skill. We'll start by taking a look at a common system of standard for language proficiency. Here you see the levels defined by the Common European Framework of Reference, CEFR for short. You also see here how those proficiencies align with Cambridge Language Test Certification Level. The Cambridge Certifications are recognized worldwide. Find yourself in the fourth column from the left, under Professional, and you see that professional business English begins at B1 and extends through B2 to C1. That's why the levels for this course begin at B1 and move up. Of course the higher level proficiency you have the better you'll be able to perform in an interview and on the job. The number of hours shown on the far left scale refers to what are called guided learning hour. The guided learning in the best case happens under the tutelage of an expert language teacher who can adjust the activities to align with your learning need. For each guiding learning hour you complete there will be some number of additional hours needed, let us call them reflective learning hours. Homework is the time honored staple here under reflective learning. But the key is any thinking about learning coupled with practice activities that realistically improve your proficiency. If you're working on your own to improve your competency, the guided learning has to happen through your initiative. You're watching this video, you're taking initiative. Your reflecting learning comes as you think about these lessons and how you can apply them to your language needs. But it's a mistake to think of the learning process as linear. Although Cambridge rightfully says that it takes roughly 200 guided learning hours to move up a step, the reality is you don't make progress from B2 to C1 or C2 in the same way and at the same rate that you make progress from beginner to B1. Now take a look at this slide. This, I think, more fairly represents the language learning cycle. From beginner to B1 can happen quickly. Bennie Lewis is a popular language learning blogger on the web. He reports reaching to B1 level in as little as 90 days and that's possible when using the right language approach. It's possible to reach point A on this slide and make rapid progress to the B1 level in as little as 90 days, using the right approach. There still follows typically a period of disappointment and frustration. That's the downward slope you see here from a to b. In this period it seems you've gone backwards. You don't seem to be able to make progress. You're painfully aware of what you cannot do and what you do not know. I trust you've successfully made it through this period, past b and along the slope of enlightenment to point c. I hope that you gained insight into your language learning process, how it works best for you. I trust you're moving forward along the path of productivity to ever greater competency with English. But if you don't feel confident it could be that you're stuck in traditional ways of thinking about language learning. Maybe it's time to go back to that slope of enlightenment and rethink how languages are learned. You see, the prolific language learning bloggers like Bennie Lewis, Catherine Wentworth, Richards Simcott, and others aren't making it up when they write about learning to speak a foreign language in as little as 90 days. That is certainly possible with the right effort and approach. The approach is what I want you to think about. These bloggers are all using an approach called the Communicative Approach. It focuses on learning language to communicate. You see, you don't need to study grammar to learn to speak a foreign language. Polyglots, people who speak many languages like these bloggers, rarely, if ever, study grammar for the languages they learn. It's certainly not in the early learning phases to point A. No verb tables, conjugations, or syntax, and they don't memorize vocabulary lists. So if you have been learning English for years, yet still do not feel confident in your spoken skills, you feel you still can't communicate effectively, then stop and think about that. Think what that means. Something about the approach you and your instructors have taken doesn't work. Assuming that you're a motivated learner, which if you're here with me, you are. At the University of Maryland, I teach graduate students who have been conditionally admitted to the university. Their grades are good enough but their English isn't. So they can take classes in their field, but they have to improve their English skills. Most of these students, especially those from Asian countries, can read fairly well, can pass a grammar test. Yet they can barely speak. These are students reading academic articles and advanced textbooks, graduate students. Yet when a native speaker, like myself, tries to engage them in a simple conversation, they can't respond. They've got nothing in the way of conversational fluency to show for all their years of English language instruction. Maybe that's where you are. Maybe you can understand the spoken language and can read at a fairly high level. I assume you can otherwise you couldn't reasonably expect to work in a English language environment. But if you can understand spoke language but do not fee confident in your speaking skills, here's a secret. Native speakers don't study grammar until after they know their language. Grammar rules are what fluent speakers use to describe what they already know. I guarantee you didn't become a fluent speaker of your own language by studying its grammar. The main reason native speakers study the grammar of their language in school is to improve their reading and writing skills, not to make them better speakers. So how do you become a more fluent speaker? We'll take a look at that in the next lesson. [MUSIC]
