Читать книгу Unique English Course Speak real English. Часть 2 - Александр Чумаков, Иван Иванович Мазур - Страница 4

Why do we learn stories here?

That is a great question. You know, how much I love “The Why-questions”. Let me tell you why all my books, why all my English courses have stories and why the method I use when I teach English is called a story-telling method.

Story-telling is one of the best methods for learning foreign languages. We, human beings, are storytelling creatures. Our brains love stories and we all learn from stories. Stories are vital. We convey our feelings, our mood, our energy and the truth with stories. We convey the mystery of the language. And most importantly, we learn English grammar intuitively like children do. That’s why stories. I don’t mean, don’t learn grammar. No. Grammar is important. I am saying that grammar is difficult. Grammar is very difficult. Grammar is boring. It is hard to say anything interesting and comprehensible to people when teaching them languages and you have to focus on grammar rules a lot.

When you learn a language, a foreign language, for example, you learn English. You learn grammar rules, right? You learn all about the sentences and how words work together. And when you want to say something in English, you make the sentence in your own language first, and then you drag out of your memory the words you need and put them into the sentence. That is painful. That is difficult. That is boring and it takes time. When you acquire the language, you understand what you hear. You can only acquire the language when you understand the language, you understand the message. The message has to be interesting and comprehensible. In other words, the message has to be compelling and understandable. Only when you are totally involved in the story, the world disappears around you. You forget that it is in another language. You acquire the language. It means you get the language. You understand the language. Language acquisition happens.

I don’t mean, don’t learn grammar. I don’t mean, if you study grammar, go to jail. No, grammar is important. I am saying again that grammar is difficult. Grammar is very difficult. Grammar is boring. What I have to do as a teacher is say things that are interesting, comprehensible which means understandable, and then grammar will take care of itself. And this is hard enough. All I need, as a teacher, is to make sure that you are paying attention and you are interested in what I am saying. It’s a good story. That is why I sit down and create these compelling and comprehensible, interesting and understandable stories for you.

When you tell a story, something remarkable happens: imagination flies and magic begins. What’s why stories.