Techniques of learning a language

The world nowadays has become a global village. It is easy to travel from one country to another for business or leisure thanks to the advancement in technology in the past few decades. The world keeps on evolving technologically and as it does so, world interconnectivity becomes more and more realistic and human interactions between people of different continents is more real than ever. It goes without saying therefore that there is an ever-increasing need for effective communication between the humans and learning a language abroad is one of the ways such objectives can be met.

The ease of communication has elicited curiosity to explore other parts of the world and people are traveling more and more to countries abroad for vacations and tourism unlike in the early 1900's whence there was little technical interconnectivity. Education has also expanded beyond confined borders of a country and many students are now streaming into foreign colleges to acquire competitive skills from more advanced countries.

English is one of the world's recognized official languages and the learning of English by more and more person's from different corners of the world; has been attributed to the hastened interconnectivity in the globe as communication barriers become less and less of technological impediments.

It therefore goes without saying that there is an increased need to learn English as a foreign language and I dare say it is mandatory to learn English today if you want to be globally competitive in whatever field.

You realize English is an official Language to half of the European Continent, to the Whole of the American Continent, to almost all countries in Africa and therefore its importance as a world unifying language cannot be underestimated. The English I am talking about is business English that is grammatically and structurally correct and not like normal college English which we speak that is distorted and cannot be used for business or effective communication in foreign countries.

We need to teach formal English to students in colleges to assist them remain globally competitive and some of the ways we can effectively learn English is as follows:

• Reading; Reading as many English books and publications as possible can help you acquire the proficiency in English as continuous practice makes perfect. You are encouraged to read as much as possible and you will find your understanding getting better and better.
• Listening; another way of learning English is by listening to it via tapes, radio, movies, music etc. listen to English programs as much as possible and you will find familiarity, applicability and pronunciations become practical and understandable.
• Talk it; make a point of talking to other students who are also learning English .You can dedicate an hour or so of practical speaking to other learners or English natives in order to have practice on its applicability.
• Visit an English speaking country; Visit an English speaking country, take a vacation there and get to experience the use and application of English and this shall definitely enhance your skills. You can visit Britain, the United States of America, …