Thread: online discussion club for training conversational Enfglish

I have a problem in learning English. I can't switch on all parts of my brain to make my conversational English ABSOLUTELY fluent.
I think that regular contacts ant talks with English speaking people can help to solve the problem.

But these talks should have the following pecularities:

1. Themes of talks should be much more (!) difficult than "My name is Vasya. I'm from Muhosransk..."
For example, economics, politics, software development, recollections from personal life, psychology, science and other.

2. All people participating in discussions should have at least intermediate level of English.

3. The number of participants should be at least 5-10. In another case it will be very difficult to collect all people in the same time online.

Does anybody here need such kind of English-speaking-listening training?

Вы в Москве или Питере? загляни в http://www.efl.ru/forum/ .

Interesting site!

Originally Posted by yankee26

I can't switch on all parts of my brain to make my conversational English ABSOLUTELY fluent.

That's no problem switching ALL parts because only three of them take part in it, and all of them are in your left hemisphere if you're right-handed person.

You can't become "absolutely fluent" just reading different posts. Natural language acquistion goes through these stages: first, listening; second, speaking; third: reading; fourth, writing. You'd better find a professional language training school which might satisfy your big needs.

This is probably not helpful to you, but there has been some interesting research on this subject in language acquisition. The idea is called "sheltered classrooms." This is apparently somewhat common in Canada. What happens is that a number of ESL students are all put in a class together in school to learn, for instance, biology. No native speaking students are allowed. The class is then "biology", but with special emphasis on learning the language.

The research on these programs is that the students in these classes learn English JUST AS FAST as students who take an ESL class instead, plus they learn biology. This saves money and classroom space for the schools.

So you are correct that studying some subject in English is a very good way to improve your English. If you can find a group to do this with, I think it will be a big help to you.

When my Russian is better I would like to see if I can do something similar in Russian. My level is far too low right now

Thanks for the information, paulb, they have an interesting approach in Canada.

As I know from my experience you really learn foreign language fast (or at least in a more relaxed way), studing some subject. While I'm still not fluent, I feel more comfortable expressing my thoughts and I increased my vocabulary all right, but I see one small problem here.

I noticed that some words and terms I know in English I can't translate in Russian. I know what they mean and have a mental image of the subject or an idea they represent, but when somebody asks me to translate something, my mind goes blank, when I stumble upon these words.

So it's a nice method if you want to get a practical knowlege or communicate in a foreign language, but that's not the best method, if you want to be an interpreter (i.e. to be able to express the same thoughts in your native language), imho.

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

Thanks for the information, paulb, they have an interesting approach in Canada.

As I know from my experience you really learn foreign language fast (or at least in a more relaxed way), studing some subject. While I'm still not fluent, I feel more comfortable expressing my thoughts and I increased my vocabulary all right, but I see one small problem here.

I noticed that some words and terms I know in English I can't translate in Russian. I know what they mean and have a mental image of the subject or an idea they represent, but when somebody asks me to translate something, my mind goes blank, when I stumble upon these words.

So it's a nice method if you want to get a practical knowlege or communicate in a foreign language, but that's not the best method, if you want to be an interpreter (i.e. to be able to express the same thoughts in your native language), imho.

Yes, but translation is an entirely different skill than language fluency.

My friend used to work for a large Swedish company. As you may know, everyone in Sweden is equally fluent in Swedish and English. My friend was sent a long email (many people had sent it back and forth) and the first part of it was in Swedish. So he asked a Swedish colleague to translate it for him. His colleague had a lot of trouble doing this. He was very comfortable speaking or writing in English or in Swedish, but not in translating from one to the other.

The practical value of such studying is doubtful. Students just learn how to express themselves between each other, and they are just EFL students. Maybe it is all right for communication on biology topics since it is just specific talk. This method is similar to those for ESL students in Russia studying English according to their speicialty.