Every day I immerse myself in loads of
English. I do so because I want to and also because I have to. I simply need to
keep up. Judging by the hundreds of hours I've spent doing something in English
(reading, writing, listening, speaking, singing, teaching), one might think that
I should be a highly proficient and a native-like user of English. Why do I
feel I'm not? Why do I feel there are areas in which I still grope in the dark?
For me, a person having been out of school
for quite some time, it's really difficult to see some progress - some tangible
results of my learning. Yes, I feel I have improved, I have a hunch that my
English is getting better and I have an inkling that I know more vocabulary
than some time before. However, I can't anchor my feelings, hunches and
inklings to something firm and concrete. In other words, I can't say in
comparison to what and when my English has improved. I can't say that my English has improved, say, by
12% since 2012.
I'm not someone who believes all things
are measurable. But I'm someone who, from time to time, desperately wants to measure, count and compare. Sometimes I'd really like to know how much I've improved. I'd like
to know how many new vocabulary items I’ve learnt since 2000, for example. However,
not being a student anymore, there's no point in taking progress or proficiency tests. I'm not convinced they'd say much about my improvement, anyway.
I remember that three years ago, before I started studying at university again, I
struggled with lots of areas of the English language. I remember having serious problems when reading longer stretches of texts. The most plausible explanation is that I simply hadn't read very much in English before. Since then I've done a lot of reading - online, offline,
fiction, specialized literature, etc. But again, I can't say how much my
reading skills have improved. The improvement must have been gradual and almost
imperceptible - no big, noticeable leaps as one might imagine. But that's just another
inkling. Since the dark period I've also written lots of text in English - back between 2011 and 2013 as part of my MA studies, and
later on here on my blog. I can't see whether my writing has improved because
there's nobody to tell me. It’s just me and my hunches again. I do get feedback
from my readers but not the type which you expect from a language teacher. Mind you, this is not a way of asking for language feedback!! Yes, writing
doesn't seem such a toil now. Yet, I can't say it's easy to produce a text,
even after so many hours of practice. Am I more demanding? Is it why I can
never be satisfied with the current level of my writing proficiency?
To reduce my feelings of vagueness I
decided to take some concrete steps. I started recording new vocabulary and consciously
learn them. I describe some of my learning experiences here and here. However, recently I've come to realize that what I need is to work on advanced collocations, rather than
separate vocabulary items. Let me show you what I do. At the moment I'm reading a crime novel. The suspense
makes me stay awake when I'm exhausted after a long day at work, and from a language point of view, the fact
that it's set in modern times is a bonus for me as an
L2 learner (there are more useful, everyday expressions, slang, lots of
grammatical elision, no literary embellishments, etc.). I read a chapter or two
before I go to sleep and I just enjoy what I read without looking up any
expression whatsoever. The following day, when I'm alert and fully conscious, I scan
through the same chapter again and concentrate on interesting collocations I
encountered the previous night. Here's an example. A little warning in advance; it's pretty graphic.
lurched to his feet
stooped to find his centre of gravity
staggered forwards
used his head as a navigation aid and battering ram
the fountain of vomit gushed from his mouth
with legs akimbo
a low croak coming from the far end
groped between his feet
put the phone to his ear
All the chunks are taken from the same
section of the chapter. I deliberately chose this one because I believe it's rich in useful language and the scene is described vividly. Each of the
chunks somehow connects to the previous or the subsequent expression, which
helps me remember the context and thus the collocations. If I'm forced to
visualize the scene, it helps me remember more than if it was just a boring
bit. It sometimes helps to Google pictures to visualize the meaning of a word.
If you look up lurch, for example, you get lots of images of
zombies. I conclude that this is what zombies (and drunkards) do - they lurch
when walking. I do the same with other words if necessary.
This technique has proved to be pretty handy for me as an L2 learner. I learn new words but more importantly, I learn
the whole chunks - chunks which I know I would never choose to produce in my
own writing, for example. Not that I don't know the separate words but some of
the combinations are unique to me - I've heard them for the first time so
they're not part of my active collocations inventory. Although I may be able to
say legs wide apart or fumble for something, I may not have other synonymous
expressions at my disposal, which is crucial for me as an occasional writer or
for someone who constantly wants to work on their language. I should stress that, obviously,
without practice and repetition this technique wouldn't work at all. I need to
go back to what I've written and visualize the scene again and again while, at
the same time, adding new items into my notebook. Once I’m able to reproduce
some of the expressions naturally, in a different context, I know this is a real sign of progress in a particular area of my language learning.
My teacher self PS.: I notice that students usually find
recording collocations, especially those consisting of words they already know,
a waste of time. It needs a lot of convincing and persuasion to make them
believe that this is a terribly useful technique. Whenever I tell my students: Well, let’s go through what you have highlighted
in this text? They shrug their
shoulders and say: Not much, really. We
know all the words. And then comes the testing which shows how little they actually knew. I can't blame them though; if I hadn't gone through all the hardships of an L2
learner myself, I might find this technique useless as well ...
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