Language Learning: Free Your Tongue - What Your Language Teacher Won't Teach You

By Graham Alexander

This book opens with a simple premise;
WE CAN all speak, but when it comes to a second language most often WE WON’T speak.
With over a decade of living in and teaching of a second language, the author has come to draw the following conclusions:

Most learners don’t know how they learn.
Most teachers don’t know how people learn.
Identical study does not mean identical language production.
More study does not mean better speaking ability.
We often sabotage our own speaking ability
Being able to speak a language is not a genetic thing.
There are only two driving forces behind being able to speak a second language.
Knowing and using a second language are totally different things.

`Free Your Tongue – What Your Language Teacher Won’t Teach You’ allows you to unlock your voice and speak with ease.
With simple, straightforward, and easy to understand explanations, this book is designed for anyone from the high school student and above to use.
By following the advice and recommendations in this book the reader will be able to take control of their learning and develop powerful, confident ability in language production.
With literally millions of second language conversations behind him, Graham Alexander shares his understanding of the habits we all have that sabotage our second language production. Included are easy to understand tips and exercises to help stop and remove these bad habits which negatively impact our abilities.
Within this book there are guidelines and advice which if followed closely will transform the humblest and shyest of speakers into a confident communicator.
Unlike most text books this book contains
No grammar rules
No vocabulary lists
No reading exercises
This guide gives understanding of how our mental processes positively or negatively affect our ability to use a second language and how we can take control of them.
This guide will take you out of the classroom and the library to where true education is performed and give you the knowledge to develop your speaking power.
Don’t waste another penny on private classes or text books until you have read and digested the knowledge contained within these pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graham Alexander
• Release date: Dec 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310006289

Graham Alexander

I was born in England in 1979 and lived there until 2002. Then with itchy legs ready for travel I left and found South Korea. After 12 years of teaching, travelling and studying it was time to move on. At the end of December 2014 I moved back to the UK with my beautiful wife to begin the next chapter in our lives :)You're doing life wrong if it's all hard work!

Book preview

FREE YOUR TONGUE

What Your Language Teacher Won’t Teach You

By Graham Alexander

www.freeyourtongue.com

Published by Graham Alexander at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Graham Alexander

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

INTENDED USE OF THIS BOOK

INTRODUCTION

1. Your First Language

2. Educo

3. Mind Magic

4. Changing Of The Guard / Developing Awareness

5. Understanding Thinking

6. I Want To / I Need To

7. Needs

8. Wants

9. Goal Setting

10. Affirmations

11. Understand How Resetting The Balance Works

12. Use The Tools You Were Born With

13. Exposure

14. Failing To Use Your First Two Senses

15. Make The Right Friends

16. Body Language

17. The Perfect Prisoner.

18. Volume

19. Time Delay, Thinking Time. Making Noises

20. Asking For Repetition

21. Nerves

22. Tell The Future

23. Grammar And Communication

24. Free Your Tongue

The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!

Maria Montessori

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it... Success is shy - it won't come out while you're watching.

Tennessee Williams

INTENDED USE OF THIS BOOK

Before you begin on the journey contained within this book, you need to understand the following points:

This book should be re-read several times.

It is a simple thing to understand that the more we repeat an action the greater influence it has on how we act and what we think about that particular subject. So often when we learn things we process the information just once. This processing is insufficient to effect change. To change the results we are getting in our level of language production, we must have repeated access to the information, and not only intellectually understand the information but also reflect upon it to develop deeper understanding. It is therefore advised that this book be re-read several times.

This book is not designed to teach you a language.

You will find no grammar rules or vocabulary lists inside, the work of teaching and learning language cannot be confined to any particular book. This book will offer you understanding of why you have difficulties in second language production and how to overcome these problems.

This book is for everyone

This book is written with the concept in mind that anyone from the high- school student and older will be able to both access and understand the information contained inside with relative ease. It is deliberately written in a relaxed and natural style that excludes professional, academic or formal language as much as possible. Whether your problem is at the basic or advanced level the information contained within will be of use to you.

This book is repetitive

The contents of this book are often repeated, in different ways as the concepts are expressed to you.

THIS IS INTENTIONAL

This book will improve your ability to speak / use a second language

The contents of this book are based on:

Over a decade of teaching experience

Over a decade of learning but not studying a second language

Research into understanding how we all work mentally

The lessons are not particularly complicated and are in actual fact easy to understand.

This book will be USELESS TO YOU IF YOU DO NOT ACT

upon the concepts and ideas held within

and complete ALL PRESCRIPTIONS.

Throughout this book as we deal with certain elements and lessons there will be exercises and prescriptions explained to you. These are designed specifically to adjust your internal language processes. It is important that you carry out the exercises as described to you. Understanding intellectually and doing are WORLDS APART. Just because you may understand something, it does not mean that anything will change. YOU MUST DO IT IN ORDER TO CHANGE THE RESULTS YOU ARE CURRENTLY GETTING.

The key here is to take an ACTIVE role, which involves physically AND mentally understanding rather than a passive intellectual comprehension of the information.

This book should be re-read several times

It is a simple thing to understand that he more we repeat an action the greater influence it has on how we act, and what we think about that particular subject. So often when we learn things we process the information just once. This processing is insufficient to effect change. To change the results we are getting in our level of language production we must have repeated access to the information and not only intellectually understand the information but reflect upon it to develop deeper understanding. It is therefore advised that this book be re-read several times.

This book is repetitive

The contents of this book are often repeated, in different ways as the concepts are expressed to you

THIS IS INTENTIONAL

Introduction

Everybody can speak. Just ask anyone above the age of five and you’ll get an answer! We do it thousands of times a day with different people about different things. We have no problem with putting our thoughts into words when we are with other people or when we are alone.

However, when it comes to learning and using a second language people have problems.

Why is this?

If you ask a student they will say: it’s different, it’s difficult, I don’t know the grammar or the vocabulary and other basic ideas.

If you ask a teacher they too have some ideas or a theory (which is just a fancy word for an idea). Most if not all of these theories rely on blaming certain circumstances or intelligence, suitability, genes, lack of motivation, a mismatch between teacher and learner styles, natural talents and so on.

The list of excuses for why we can’t speak another language seems to have been intensely scrutinized, but few of these ideas really focus on what we can do and try to understand this fully.

The simple fact is:

WE CAN ALL SPEAK.

So it is therefore within our possibility to learn a language; we’ve proved it by being able to communicate with our parents and friends in our native tongue.

Why, then, if we are able to learn one language, is it seemingly so difficult to learn a second?

I say to learn a second, because generally those that learn a second language to a reasonable level of fluency have little or no