Learning process 2

Consider the steps in the learning process described above (or any process when you have had to learn something):

Step 1: Once again, the first step could be considered to be identifying your motivation. The student must want to learn. Without this component, no learning will occur. As a student, you determine how much time and effort you invest in the learning process.

This fact is critical for you, a student of English. Your success depends on the extent that you invest your time and effort to think about the language, to acquire new vocabulary words, to learn formal ways of expressing yourself, and to adjust to the rules of discourse in an academic setting.

Success is up to you!

Step 2: As in any learning/teaching situation, the specific terms and concepts that govern the task must be clearly defined. Whether you are learning to play football, to bake a cake or to read and write English, you must be aware of the vocabulary appropriate to these tasks.

Step 3: Understanding both the whole and the parts of what is being learned. There is a saying: "one must be able to see the forest and the trees".

A forest is made up of many trees. The student of the forest must study each tree individually, in order to understand the differences in the way each grows, how each one looks, and what each needs to live. In this way the student learns about each tree.

Yet the student of the forest must also be able to "rise above" the individual trees and see the entire forest as important.

Is the whole forest safe or is it in danger?

Is the whole forest growing or shrinking?

Is the forest threatened by human development?

Do not let yourself be stuck only looking at trees; make sure you sometimes see the entire forest.

Do not be someone who "cannot see the forest for the trees" (someone who only looks at the trees and doesn't see that they, taken all together, are a forest), that is, do not be someone who forgets about the 'bigger picture'.

Step 4: As a learner (student), it is your task to ask questions.

Your teacher will spend some time explaining the entire situation or task, but will look for clues from you as to whether you actually understand what is said. One way, as a student, that you can make sure that you understand is to ask questions.

It is important to realize that there are two types (or categories) of questions:

those that seek to clarify a specific fact, term or concept and

those that show that the student is thinking on his or her own and is attempting to understand the subject as part of a general body of knowledge.

Only you know how well you understand.

In order to communicate this to the teacher, you must ask questions: whether to clarify your understanding or to demonstrate what you understand.

Whenever I am teaching, I make sure to tell my students that they must ask questions. Without this, I am liable to think (I may think) that the students have not understood: you see, I don't think that I am such a great communicator that everything I say is clear as a bell (perfectly clear) the first time I say it. Sometimes a single misunderstood word or idea can affect the way in which a student understands.

For this reason, I warn my students: if they don't ask questions, I am likely to repeat what I have said. To avoid this, I tell them, ask questions! In your case, Look it up!