We were about six students and Christo, the professor, was setting on a student’s desk when he asked me about the topic I could choose for my research project. Many educational issues came to my mind at the time, but one seemed to interest me most: Neuro-linguistic Programming, as part of my ex-interests, and TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), as part of my profession—I raised and proposed that very topic in the discussion group. As a matter of fact, I did not prepare any materials for the very topic prior to the research topic consultation session, unless some previous readings in the field. Nevertheless, the doctor agreed and immediately asked for a preliminary proposal. Then and there I started my journey searching for all possible thoughts that relate neuro-linguistic programming to English language learning, jotting them down on my PDA2, the great companion. It took me almost one year to construct the note-list below, which was as challenging and interesting as tiresome. As some of these notes were derived from scholarly-reflections, others were merely no more than personal thoughts about the topic. Some of these notes were incorporated and discussed in my research project. Others still require further discussion, which will definitely lead to accentuate or attenuate the thought itself. As a TEFL expert, or an NLP specialist or therapist, or perhaps just a curious reader, you might find these notes about relating NLP to TEFL interesting.
- Learning English in classrooms does not contribute much to the overall L2 (second language) learning process.
- Repeat: I'm a very good language learner, and I have outstanding skills in memorization.
- Unconscious mind works better in memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules.
- At the beginning or even before, language is basically easy!
- Draw a picture of the vocabulary, and you will not forget it!
- Make your thoughts in English (think in English)--'Privet Speech theory in SLA [Second Language Acquisition'.]
- Imagine a native speaker speaks about something. The words you imagine are good words and can not be said by you if you speak, for some reason. Connect, using the unconscious mind, your way of speaking to the model of the imaginary native speaker in your mind.
- Use the unconscious mind to learn pronunciation of new vocabulary. Only listen, don memorize pronunciation.
- When you make an error, think and believe it is only a mistake or a slip of tongue.
- I never make errors. I'm always right.
- Words [vocabulary] other English speaking individuals use represent their thoughts. In order for a learner to speak like the, one should copy their thoughts more than copying their vocabulary.
- Nativeness is to speak out the words you've got, appropriately, accurately, and without recalling information in a conscious way.
- English is an accent. It’s instrumentally-based without it, and instrumental-L2 speakers sound less elegant than integrative-L2 speakers. (had lots of arguments with a PhD candidate about this very point—can’t tell who used to win J )
- Make your few vocabulary sets express your big thoughts.
- Don't speak as quickly as you do in your mother tongue.
- There's no such accurate pronunciation of vocabulary. Try to sound the word in the way people can understand you, develop your pronunciation until you reach full capability.
- Try to produce new unheard sentences in order to be creative in using the language. L1 (first language/mother tongue) usually does, but not L2 learners. (it will take 300 billion centuries to compose all possible sentences in a language. [Christo, 2007])
- You say it your way, the receiver tunes up their audio receivers to perceive your message--not necessarily quite understandable.
- Speak your thoughts, but not the structural forms of language.
- Testing mental ability of language behavior can not be authentic.
- To learn a new word at the unconscious level, one should put them in practice. In many instances, one learns the new word just to know its meaning for comprehensive reasons, and not for productive reasons.
- To get the accurate pronunciation of words, try to remember how they were said by a good speaker of the language, as well as what the dictionary says.
- To memorize a new word, look at it, read it, and try to function it in a physical manner: the role of representation systems (VAK: Visual; Auditory; Kinesthetic).
- Correct Pronunciation is what we hear from a native speaker of the language, but not what we pick up from the dictionary. (easier for the memory to remember how one has pronounced the word rather than remembering the transcript of the word in the dictionary).
- Three different types of pronunciation; dictionary-based, native-human based, and wrong pronunciation. Which would you prefer to use in learning an L2?
- By learning some parts of the language, other parts can be automatically fixed; pres'ent and 'present [v & n].
- Thinking in English will accelerate the flow of English words in an easier way, as well as to fill up the missing linguistic gaps.
- Learning to speak English is a non-end milestone event in life. It's a life-time process that achieves enormous amount of objectives within the process of learning.
- I have strong memory, so I can remember easily and cannot forget easily.
- Don't think, linguistically, before you speak.
- Thinking in English, constantly, will trigger the mind's abilities to pick up larger variety of vocabulary, from every valid source, that you may, one day, need to use. If this method is not used, a remarkable shortage of vocabulary will occur to the learners’ vocabulary storage, due to the dependency on the only-encountered voc items through the learning journey. In this context, forming thoughts in English can take the exact same effort as the obtaining vocabulary items may take.
- Don't set a time limit to be enough for learning English. But set certain objectives; in 3 months I will learn 300 vocabulary, etc.
- Learn little English but often, and not much but rarely.
- Fossilization may have a chance to occur when a learner sets a time limit for the learning journey.
- When I face a bit of English that I don't understand, I feel happy because I am going to learn something new. When I face a bit of English that I already know, I feel happy too, because I'm harvesting what I have learned before.
- What others can learn in years, you can learn the same thing in months, or maybe in weeks, etc.. This will give the learner a good hope, and will not make him feel frustrated by long periods of other people's learning journeys.
- Be friendly with the target language; anxiety-wise, attitude-wise, motivation-wise, personality-wise. [From Monitoring theory by Krashen]
- Get rid of the monitoring component in Krashen's theory.
- Taste and sense the English language will enable you to produce similar patterns of English in a productive and creative manner and style.
- Learn English in a very unlearning setting. This setting resembles the real life setting where you'll be practicing the language.
- Believe that linguistic skills are like humans--they grow over time.
Muhamed Abuzaifah, 2007
Newcastle, the Land Down Under
Updated on 17.05.29 AH
24.05.08
Riyadh, KSA
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