3542. Reading Books to Learn a Language Is Great

Reading books is so good and convenient for learning and acquiring a second language, as I said on the previous post. It's great. I personally do it myself – I’m learning and acquiring English. 

On the last post I described some techniques you can implement to read in order to learn a second or foreign tongue. 

Something else I sometimes do is focusing on some words, phrases or sentences I already know but my students are learning as something new. They’re some more basic expressions I learned years ago but my learners are learning now. 

As well and as a consequence I prepare myself to teach those expressions to my students, now considering next school year. 

Some of my students – well, few of them actually – tend to translate those books they are to read into Spanish, our mother tongue. No way, they have to read and enjoy directly in English. 

The point is to have books or readers that are in accordance to their levels: they understand them and also there’s some new language: words, phrases and idioms. 

Enjoying is convenient. If reading is too threatening a burden, that is no good for learning and acquiring a new language. 

Often after they’ve started reading a book eventually they get interested in that book. 

So as to finish, I said “acquiring” on this post on purpose: while reading we also acquire the language – we learn new language we’re not aware we’re learning, we learn unconsciously. 

Usually my students read graded readers and I read unabridged books. Well, some of my students also read some unabridged books because they can cope with them. On other posts I've written about other skills different from reading, to learn a language. Have a nice week.

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