A SENSE OF ENGLISH

The importance point about Your Social Life

Make English friends. Develop a social life with native English speakers. That’s the real way to learn English.

That was the end thrust of last month’s article. Actually, I cannot emphasize this point enough. If learning English were a religion, then I would ALWAYS be preaching this message:

You MUST interact with Native English speakers as much as you can. Here’s a story:

A Korean student has been renting a room in my house for the last four months on a temporary basis. We’ve been good friends for a couple of years, and he came to England in 2006 with a very particular purpose.

He wanted to learn English because it’s the ‘world language’, and he didn’t want to be limited in his life in terms of whom he could communicate with directly. In other words, he realized that if he didn’t learn English, he would only ever be able to speak to fellow Koreans.

He has a plan to do a Masters course at a British university, but he always insists that that is only a ‘highway’ to his final goal of learning English for the sake of gaining a wider scope of communication.

However…observing his lifestyle as I have done over the last few months, he is going about things in completely the wrong way.

90% of his social life is with other Koreans. Every time a Korean student leaves Eastbourne (where we live) – either moving to another place in the UK or going back to Korea – there is a ‘farewell party’.

This involves a meal, usually lots of drinking, it lasts all night and - the key point – which language is being spoken? Not English!

So, one day to party. One day to recover. Two days lost of your time in England. (Time is not only precious, but also, in England, as you all know, extremely expensive.)

It costs a lot of money to be here; therefore for students of English, time should be used very wisely.

Students of the same nationality do have the tendency to hang out together, and this is a problem.

If you are serious about learning English, you should limit the time you spend with other people from your country to the absolute minimum. If you are strong enough, don’t meet them at all!

I have spent years observing students coming here with good intentions to learn English and ending up enjoying a ‘holiday’ with other students in which they all give up the serious business and console each other about how hard it is to learn English!

Of course it’s hard. But if you are serious, take my advice: Avoid other people from your country during your stay in England. However hard it may be, make ENGLISH friends.

That’s difficult, I hear you say. My answer is that it depends on you. There are always people out there who are ready to be your friend. It’s your job to go and find them.

Join a club. Go to a church. Invite your neighbour to eat some food from your country with you. Just do it. Try. Take your chance. Make things happen.

My English isn’t good enough, I hear you say. When is it going to be good enough? That’s what we call a Catch-22 situation. Following my advice is the quickest and surest way to improving your English.

Be professional about learning English. Be selfish and single-minded. Remind yourself constantly why you are here.

Are you spending excessive time in a library or at your desk studying grammar books? Why are you in England then? You can do that in your own country!

While you are here, make the most of it, for goodness sake! Do the things that you can’t do when you are in your own country. Make a decision to approach your life in England differently in 2009.