Language Institute of Georgia
OUR METHOD
STAGE 1. RECOGNIZING COMMONLY USED WORDS AND STRUCTURES
You have to have a good overall recognition of the structure of the language and a vocabulary of 2000 words. We can give you this in less than six months. Going through 5 Graded Readers can get you through this. Please do not underestimate the value of understanding. Conversations can not take place without understanding.
STAGE 2. REINFORCEMENTS
You have to see a word or a structure multiple times (10 to 15 times on the average) before you can retain it permanently. Once you have retained a word permanently, you can recall it with ease. You can get through this stage by reading between 10 to 15 Graded Readers. You can do this on your own as well, with the understanding you acquired in stage 1.
HOW A VOCABULARY OF 2000 SPANISH WORDS CAN BE A GAME CHANGER
If your vocabulary is poor ( less than 1000 words ) and you see a seven word Spanish sentence, most likely there will be three or four words that you would not know. This would make the whole sentence look like a cryptic entity.
On the other hand, lets say, you have a vocabulary of 2000 + words. Its very likely that when you see a seven word sentence, you may know six words out of those seven words. So there is just one word in the sentence that you do not know. You can either figure out its meaning by the context or simply consult an online dictionary. You would have just improved your vocabulary by one word. The more words you know, the better you speak. Millions of Spanish sentences are waiting to be explored by you. You can find them in books, magazines and newspapers. Expanding vocabulary should not cost you anything.
You have to know what a word means before you can use it in speech. You have to know how to use the word properly in a sentence. Same word can have different meanings in different contexts. Lastly you have to retain the word before you can use it in speech. Reading covers all these three aspects of learning a foreign language.
There is a concerted move in academia to push reading out of foreign language curriculum. Reading may not contribute much to the bottom line of the language industry but it has the potential of making you a fluent speaker.
STRUCTURE OF OUR BASIC SPANISH CLASS
In the class, the teacher will go through each and every line of the level I Graded Reader, Soñar un Crimen. Its a complete story and is written with 400 unique words. The actual number of words used is 3000. The teacher will go through 300 to 350 sentences, explaining the structure and the conjugations of the verbs, both in present and in the past tense. Going through these examples will teach you how to connect words to build your own sentences. There will be some sentence building practice as well.
In intermediate classes, we use Graded Reader level II, III, IV, V and VI.
We will put together words to see how sentences are built. Its just like building a small puzzle. Doing so will teach you how to use pieces (in our case words). Than all the sentences will combine to give you a complete story. You will appreciate words and structures in a much better way than just by repeating them in isolation, as is typical in most language classes.
We use Graded Reader series Leer en Español published by University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain.
There is not really a big difference in Latin American Spanish and Spanish from Spain. Just a few words are different. Learning Spanish from Spain will cover a lot because many countries, like Colombia, have Spanish very close to the Spanish from Spain. there are more than 25 countries where Spanish is spoken and small differences would exist. Spanish from Spain is the main source. This is the reason we use the Graded Readers published in Spain.
BUT COMPANIES SELLING TECHNOLOGY BASED LANGUAGE LEARNING SYSYTEMS SAY THAT YOU CAN BECOME A FLUENT SPEAKER IN THREE WEEKS
If someone does not respect your intelligence, that someone is not going to respect your time and money either.
There are a lot of people out there who believe that technology can solve all the problems. This hype has created a market for technology based language learning systems.
Technology for knowledge transfer does not exist. Until then reading is your best bet.
LESS KNOWN FACTS ABOUT THE LANGUAGE INDUSTRY IN THE US
Compared to the rest of the world, the most amount of money is spent per language student in the US.
Compared to the rest of the world, least amount of results are produced per language student in the US.
Failed language learners pump every year close to $30 billion dollars into the language industry in the US. This the reason academia does not worry too much about the failure of the language learners in the US. It follows a corporate model of education.
TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS OF LANGUAGE LEARNING
Each year around 250,000 students enter the US for study. They have have to pass English proficiency tests to get admission to the universities. At one point English is a foreign language to them. Most of them learn English via reading. I can speak on their behalf because I have being one of them. I learned English via reading not via a language learning technology or Total Immersion (the nonsense in which adults are immersed in a language that they do not understand).
The US is a different world of language learning. It consists of billion of tax dollars being spent on language "research". Its billions of dollars in sales of language learning texts and technology based language learning systems. Its a world of poorly paid language teachers and overly charged language students. Its the corporate world of academia where failure is widespread among language learners.
SLOW AND CURIOUS VERSUS FAST AND FURIOUS
If you are slow and curious, you will enjoy reading a page written in Spanish. You will be curious to find out what is written on the page. This will make you learn new words and structures. Our teacher will help you go through the page. Initially the speed of reading will be slow. But since you are curious, you will enjoy learning new words and structures. If you read 500 pages, you will see speaking happen.
If you are fast and furious, the slow speed of reading in Spanish will bother you. Since you expect results fast and reading one page of Spanish can not make you a fluent speaker, you can get furious. If you are fast and furious, reading may not be your best option. You can try a technology based language learning system. They promise to make you a fluent speaker in less than three weeks. If the claims of the sellers of technology based language learning systems were true, we would not be in business.
A TECHNIQUE THAT NEVER FAILS
Take a six or a seven word sentence written in Spanish. Make a word-meaning list for all the words in the sentence. You can look up for the meaning of each word by using an online dictionary like www.spanishdict.com. Put the meanings of all words together and with some struggle you will figure out the meaning of the sentence. In this process you will learn new words, reinforce the words you already know and you will improve you ability to combine words. You have to combine words to build your own sentences in order to speak. This is the technique we apply to Graded Readers.
You can get Spanish sentences from sites like https://mundonow.com. You can copy and paste the URL. Sometimes we go through Spanish jokes to make our classes more interesting.
WHO TELLS HOW LANGUAGES SHOULD BE LEARNED IN THE US
It is an entity which collects 30 billion dollars under the pretext of teaching foreign languages.
It is an entity which pays language teachers a miserable salary. It follows a corporate model of education. Costs need to be controlled.
It is entity which charges an obscene amount of tuition from the students. It follows a corporate model of education. Revenues need to be maximized.
It continuously modernizes language learning systems. Government doles out billions of dollars for this modernization. Omnipotent academia can not be wrong.
Its insatiable greed has not bound. Go to the website of any language department of a university, it will be asking you for donations.
The sad part is that it also trains language teachers to further its corporate agenda.
WHY MOST LANGUAGE SCHOOLS FOCUS ON SPEAKING IN THEIR MARKETING MATERIAL
A vast majority of language learners are solely interested in speaking. They are not interested in struggling to develop an understanding of the target language. The reality is that no one has been able to speak a language without understanding it.
The marketing scripts of language companies will talk about some special conversational techniques that would make you a fluent speaker in no time. Language industry in the US collects each year $30 billion dollars under the pretext of teaching foreign languages. With thirty billion dollars at your disposal you look like a leader of the free market economy rather than a scammer.
TECHNOLOGY BASED LANGUAGE LEARNING SYSTEMS VS OLD FASHIONED READING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Those who rely on technology based language learning systems can not have sustainable conversations because of limited vocabulary and poor understanding of the target language.
Those who read a lot in a foreign language can have sustainable conversations because of strong vocabulary and in depth understanding of the structure of the target language.
AN INTERESTING OBSERVATION
While teaching Spanish at a major university, I observed that students with High School Spanish and those who had taken undergraduate level Spanish classes had a hard time speaking Spanish. However once they are in graduate school, there speaking abilities improve by a great margin. The reason being that they start getting reading assignments. The beauty of the Graded Readers is that they make reading possible and enjoyable for beginners too.
TURTLE AND THE RABBIT STORY MODIFIED FOR LANGUAGE LEARNERS
A turtle of the language learning would say that I don't mind reading 400 pages in Spanish at a rate of 1 page per day. The turtle knows that after 400 steps, he will be able to speak Spanish reasonably well.
A rabbit of the language learning would look down upon turtle for moving so slow. The rabbit would go for a technology based language learning system which promises to make him a fluent speaker in 15 days.
Rabbits of language learning pump billions of dollars into the language industry. The marketing material of most language companies caters to the rabbits of language learning.
WHAT HAPPENS IN A TYPICAL LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT OF A UNIVERSITY
If you go to a language department of any university, you may see language professors busy in their offices. They are not thinking about your language skills. They are working on their next book, their next conference or writing a research paper to build their resume'. They want to become published authors.
Each year government gives out billions of dollars for research. The more qualified a professor is via publishing, the more money he or she is going to bring into the University. Universities like money. That is the reason they pay most teachers so poorly while charge students an exorbitant amount of fee.
Our narrative of language learning is different. Although it is very logical, many among us would think that major universities can not be wrong about language learning. The universities want to make language learning problematic because problems lead to research and research leads to funding. The research may be fake but the money is real.
Many of us buy into the narrative of academia, because academia is fabulously rich. Ever since the dawn of human civilization wealth has been equated to wisdom. The language departments are rich not because that they have helped students learn a language successfully, but because they can force them to take expensive language courses to fulfill their degree requirements while paying teachers a miserable salary. Focus on the message not on the messenger. We are an 18 year old local language school in Atlanta. We are not rich enough to make an impression. One reason for that is that we do not have access to tax dollars. Our strength is our logical approach towards language learning.
A CONVERSATION WITH A LANGUAGE PROFESSOR
Once a language professor wanted to offer French classes at Language Institute of Georgia. I asked her about the format of the class. She replied that students will learn numbers, colors and rehearse some common greetings in French.
I asked her, how this will make them understand their conversational partner ? How will they be able to build their own sentences to express themselves ? She replied that this is not the focus of the class. What I was saying is philosophical and she also said that she has a PhD in French and has been teaching for 40 years.
Clearly there is a disconnect between language professors and the reality of language learning. Academia likes these professors because they bring a lot of money in form of grants. Professors like these are writing the language learning texts. Academia also like language learning texts because they pump billions of dollars into academia.
Most language learners who fail because of these professors, blame themselves for their failure. By default a language professor can not be wrong. The Omnipotent academia knows it all. For many language learners it is hard to imagine that academia would intentionally mislead them as far as learning a language is concerned. Academia will show you the most expensive path not the best one.
TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS OF LANGUAGE LEARNING
There are close to one million foreign students enrolled in the colleges and universities across the US. Most of them have to pass English proficiency tests to get admission in the US. They also have to prove their fluency in English in order to get a student visa. Most of these students have learned English via reading. I can speak on behalf of them because I have been one of them. I learned English via reading. I was not immersed in English to learn it. I was never forced to speak it. I never used a technology based language learning system. I was able to pursue my graduate studies at Georgia Tech without taking any English language course.
Academia in the US routinely fails language learners. Then it creates a narrative of failure and receives billions of dollars for "research". Failing language students does not have any consequences for academia. People believe that omnipotent academia knows it all. Language students are far more focused on maintaining their GPA than question the language learning methods used in the language classes.
ABSURDITY OF AN ADVICE
If someone comes up to me and tells me to start speaking Korean since speaking is the best way of learning a language, I would question the sanity of the person giving me this advice. Since I do not know Korean, there is no way I can put words together and build sentences to express myself.
Unfortunately vast majority of language teachers will tell their students to speak the language that they are trying to learn. The results of this nonsense advice are not hard to see. Millions of language learning fail each year to learn a foreign language. Since by default the language teacher can not be wrong, they blame themselves for their failure.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT PRONUNCIATION
Spanish is a phonetic language. In other words, the way it is written, the way it is pronounced. For example Spanish "a" is pronounced as English "a" in father. Spanish "e" as in English "e" in ten. Spanish "i" as ee in see. Spanish "o" as in the English word rose and Spanish "u" as "oo" in shoot. Spanish "d" as "th" in English word the etc. The rules of Spanish pronunciation can fit in one page and if you follow them, you will be able to pronounce words fairly well. Most adult language learners will have some degree of accent. A person who grew up in France will speak English slightly different than the one who grew up in Germany. In our courses each student will read a few lines and will be guided towards correct pronunciation.
You can improve your pronunciation by listening to Spanish radio and watching Spanish TV. You can only listen to what you can understand. With our system you will develop a good understanding of Spanish in less than six months.
FOCUS OF A TYPICAL LANGUAGE PROFESSOR
Language professors are busy writing a book or a paper to be published in an academic journal. As a published author they are far more likely to get money for the university they are working for, in form of grants. Universities judge professors not by the learning experience of their students but by how much money they bring in.
If you go to a language department of any university and see busy language professors, they are working on their resumes, they not worrying about your language skills. Modern day universities, in many countries including US, view students as a source of revenue. You should not trust an extremely greedy entity. Give language learning process some thought.
MODERN ACADEMIA IS AN HIERARCHY OF CONTROL
Teachers are controlling students.
Administrators are controlling teachers.
Greed is controlling the administrators.
Reading makes you an independent learner. Academia does not like independent learners because they do not contribute to its bottom line. Rarely a language teacher would teach students how to read in a foreign language. Give language learning process some thought.
HOW WORDS AND STRUCTURES ARE INTERNALIZED
When you see words and structures of a foreign language for the first time, they are meaningless entities. Once you relate them to their meanings in proper context, they become meaningful and you start retaining them. Nothing is more powerful than old fashioned reading in foreign language. When you read you repeatedly relate words and structures to their meaning in order to comprehend the text written in a foreign language. Once you have related a word or a structure 10 to 15 times with its meaning, it gets internalized. Once it gets internalized you can use it in speech.
A MESSAGE FROM OUR TEACHER
I have read at least 50 books in English and for this reason I do not run out of English words while speaking.
I have read at least 50 books in German and for this reason I do not run out of German words while speaking.
I have read at least 50 books in Spanish and for this reason I do not run out of Spanish words while speaking.
I have not learned these languages via immersion nor I have been ever forced to speak these language. I am wary of technology based language learning systems. Reading in a foreign language is a very effective way of learning a foreign language.
THE POWER OF 25th REINFORCEMENT
If you have seen a word 25 times in different contexts, it gets internalized. In other words it becomes an integral part of your memory. You can recall it in an instant and use it in speech. Graded Readers are rich in reinforcements.
25th reinforcement is the privilege of those who read a lot. Reading between 300 to 500 pages in Spanish will let you see its effects.
THE MYTH OF SPEAKING PRACTICE
If someone asks me to practice playing basketball, that would make sense. Even if I have never played basketball before, I can still shoot the ball repeatedly towards the hoop and if I do it enough times I can get better at it.
If someone asks me to start practicing speaking Russian, that would not make any sense at all. I don't know Russian words or structures well enough to build sentences. If I can not build sentences, I can not speak. If I can not speak, I can not practice speaking either.
Unfortunately this is the advice most Spanish teachers give to their students. Speak, Speak even if you don't know the language. Most students consider language teachers as an authority and blame themselves for their failure.
Getting to know the language is a stage of language learning and needs to happen before you can speak or practice speaking. Click on the text below for more on this.
"OH, IT IS JUST A READING GROUP"
Someone inquiring about our classes made this remark, when we spoke of our focus on reading. This shows that many people have a very superficial view of reading in a foreign language. Reading expands vocabulary. Reading improves the retention level of words and structures in your memory, a key component of speaking because when you speak, you recall and you can only recall what you have retained. Reading has everything to do with speaking.
Modern academia is an arch-enemy of reading in foreign languages because it wants to promote dependency on its "language learning systems". Language industry is $30 billion strong in the US. Big enough to shape people's view towards learning a foreign language. People do listen to rich guys, even if they are lying.
"DON'T WORRY ITS ALL POLITICAL"
Once as a graduate student of Spanish literature, I had to attend a course with the title "How to Teach Foreign Languages to College Students". In this course we were told to immerse students in a language that they do not understand (Total Immersion). In this course we were told to force students to speak a language that they do not know (Communicative Approach). We were also told to be strict with the students as far as grading was concerned.
This course did not make any sense to me and I asked the professor who was overseeing this "training". He replied "don't worry, Its all political". Academia is playing politics with unsuspecting students. Politicians are known to say one thing and do another.
HOW "TOTAL IMMERSION" CONTRIBUTES TO THE BOTTOMLINE OF LANGUAGE SCHOOLS
Since immersing language students in a language that they do not understand is not a skill and being able to speak your own language is not a qualification, language schools can get by by paying language teachers a salary close to $15.00 an hour. In corporate model of education students are a source of revenue and teachers are a cost, former needs to be maximized while latter needs to be minimized.
You can become a teacher of English in a heartbeat. All that you have to do is immerse unsuspecting students in English. You can also intimidate them by making fun of their accent. Many language teachers do that. The class would be very easy to control. Students will not ask you any questions, since it would be English only class and they would not know enough English to ask you questions. While students will be suffering at the hands of "Total Immersion", the administrator of the language schools will be looking for the next round of unsuspecting students.
IF THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TESTING, HOW WOULD THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TEACHING ?
A friend of mine once got lost in Miami. His son with four years of High School Spanish with straight A's could not communicate at all with a Spanish speaking person.
Another example is of a German language school. A friend of mine with a PhD from Germany with honors, who spoke almost perfect German, signs up for an intermediate level German course for refreshing his German. He takes a test and makes a C. A student who could not put two sentences together makes an A.
Language departments are funded by tax dollars and by the students who are forced to take language courses to fulfill their degree requirements. They are not connected to the reality of language learning. In the US academia collects $30 billion dollars under the pretext of teaching foreign languages. It meets and exceeds all its corporate goals while failing en masse the language students. Most language students do not suspect any foul play. Size = Credibility or Wealth = Wisdom.
THE MOST PROFITABLE "NONPROFIT"
A student who signed up for one of our classes told us that a major university in Atlanta wanted to charge him $3000 for a language course. Having taught for a short period at that university, I know that the university pays $3000 to the teacher to teach the course for the entire semester. Typically there are 20 to 30 students in a language class, Most of them to fulfill there degree requirements. You do the math. 5% goes towards teaching costs. 95% goes towards the "administrative" costs. Even drug dealers can not dream of these profit margins.
If the language teacher is lucky enough to get to teach 10 courses per year, he or she would make $30,000 per year. An entity which has the nerve to pay a language teacher a janitor's salary is not losing its sleep over your failure to learn a foreign language.
The same entity has been setting the language learning standards in the US. Its like a thief and the judge being the same entity.
A GREAT ILLUSIONIST
Education Industrial Complex (aka modern academia) creates an illusion of "cost" of education while paying most teachers $15 an hour. It raises tuition without a reason. Federal government complies and raises the loan limit. Its takes two to tango. This tango has created $1.7 trillion dollars student debt. No other industrialized country drowns its young generation into this kind of debt. The obsession of academia with money is out of bound. Per NPR adjunct professors make close to $30,000 per year. Most classes at colleges and universities in the US are taught by adjunct professors. Modern academia is not trust worthy. Its language learning systems are not trust worthy either.
THE BIGGER PICTURE: INSTRUCTION BASED LEARNING VS READING BASED LEARNING
In an instruction based learning model, the teacher writes some things on the board and students take some notes and are told to read some selected portions from a text book. Learning is dominated by the fear of a bad grade. Fear is not a friend of curiosity nor passion. Curiosity and passion are two hallmarks of excellence in learning. Students are far more worried about grades than actual learning. Instruction based learning works well for subjects like surgery. You can not become a surgeon by reading a book on human anatomy. However for subjects like philosophy, languages, psychology or history, reading based learning works really well.
In reading based learning, once you have acquired a certain amount of knowledge, you become curious. This curiosity makes you learn even more. You do not have to put up with an ego of a professor, whose interest usually does not go beyond labeling your intelligence with symbols like B, C, D or even F.
One man's meat is another man's poison. Instruction based learning is a very profitable business. Universities can easily make $100,000 out of a class and pay an adjunct professor $3000 to teach that class for the entire semester. Since education is a "noble" pursuit, universities don't even pay taxes on this profit. Since they are nonprofit entities, they call it surplus.
There is a concerted move in academia to push reading out of foreign language curriculum to promote dependency on its language "learning" systems. Use reading as a language learning tool and you will be amazed at your progress.
TOTAL IMMERSION = TOTAL CONFUSION
Few things in life are so absurd that you don't even feel like arguing against them. One such thing is Total Immersion for adult language learners. If you are starting to learn a new language, you will have a lot of questions about the structure of the language, since you have to use these structures to build your own sentences to express yourself. These questions can only be asked and answered in a language that you understand, namely English.
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Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
Language Institute of Georgia
5555 Glenridge Connector
Suite 200, Sandy Springs 30342
404-520-8754