BE CREATIVE TO LEARN

It is good to be informed about not only themes of the units but also different ones. Nowadays, Wikipedia also helps me to learn the things I am interested in. I continue to read in English with the help of blogs written by businessmen/women and instructors who teach English as a foreign language. I can learn some tips about methods of learning English and business life. Besides all these, I found a website (http://spreeder.com/  ) that helps me to improve my reading speed and comprehension. In these days, I am spending my time with this website and I am choosing reading texts among the blogs( http://www.twingly.com/top100?lang=en ), news site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ ) and magazines in English. In short, I try to read more informative and attractive texts which are about my areas of interest.

Listening: I really needed to improve my listening skill. At first I wasn’t good at listening so I tried to find some websites. I benefit from a news site (http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/  ). I can read and listen to the news at the same time. This is the most useful practice to improve my listening skill. Another thing I like is songs. I listen to songs and tried to understand their lyrics. Apart from these, I listen to some people who have made speeches in conferences about their business experiences ( http://www.ted.com/speakers ). Even though I can’t understand meaning of all sentences, I don’t give up. Finally, I listen to the news and other programs which give information on various subjects (http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/ ) instead of watching movies/series with English subtitles. When I do these activities, I am happy and I can enjoy  all of them except for the podcasts  we listen in class.

Writing:  That was the most problematic area for me because of my way of thinking. From the beginning, I tried to use different things in spite of my instructors’ feedback but they couldn’t prevent me using different words and sentence patterns which I didn’t learn in my writings. I was eager to write better. I insisted on using them and while my instructor was giving writing feedback, I always said that “How can I write the new words or patterns in the correct way?” I am happy now to do that because it has opened new doors to me. I have a learning diary in a website (https://penzu.com/p ) due to instructor Beyza’s great idea and I benefited from this in all levels. There is no doubt that it has been the most significant and effective thing in my learning process.

My recommendation to other students who learn a foreign language is that to be eager to learn a language is the most crucial thing in the learning process. If a language learner regards learning something as unnecessary, s/he won’t learn better. Learning language is a long process and during this time learners shouldn’t give up and lose their hopes. They should be aware of their skills which they are good at or bad at and they should improve imperfections of their learning skills. Another noteworthy advice is that they shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes and they should be risk takers to learn better.