Category Archives: Knowledge

Tips, ideas, activities, methods and all the know-how you will need to be a successful language learner.

The Everyday Language Learner Interview Series: Gaby Cortinas

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics I love being able to hear the stories of language learners throughout the world. The inspiration and new ideas I get whenever I am able to interact is always amazing. And over the last few months I have been hearing a bit of the story of one of the readers of the blog –…

How To Learn Language Through Food

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics Today’s guest post is from Lizzie Davey, a language learner and writer at Languages Abroad.  Enjoy! Travel and food go hand in hand, so incorporating the local cuisine into the language learning process is a great way to discover the traditions and culture of the native-speaking country whilst picking up new vocabulary and learning…

The Everyday Language Learner Interview Series: Alan Park of FluentU

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics After my recent post, 10 Free Resources for Learning Nearly Any Language, I got a lot of great feedback on other resources not on that list.  None was mentioned more than FluentU.  I’ve probably gotten ten emails from the EDLL community saying how great of a site that it is. I had to do…

Language Learning Activity: How Word Field Practice Can Help You

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics If you are looking for ways to grow your vocabulary, today’s guest post by Kerstin Hammes will give you a great new tool to do just that.  Kerstin writes at Fluent Languages and is a great resource of information and new ideas.  Enjoy! _________________ “Oh, I know this word…. “Arghh…..let me think…. “I can’t…

The Everyday Language Learner Interview Series: Stephen Krashen

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics My article about comprehensible input is one of the most popular posts on The Everyday Language Learner blog.  I believe that comprehensible input – and indeed massive amounts of comprehensible input – is an absolutely essential part of learning any language. Comprehensible input is an idea first popularized and pushed forward by Stephen Krashen….

The Everyday Language Learner Interview Series: Dr. James Asher

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics This past week I had the priviledge of sitting down via skype to talk with Dr. James J. Asher.  Dr. Asher is the creator of the Total Physical Response (TPR) technique which is used across the globe to teach foreign languages to everyone from children to adults. In our interview we covered a lot…

The EDLL Interview Series: David Mansaray

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics I had the priviledge of sitting down with David Mansaray this past week and had a wonderful conversation with him.  I first came across David online a year or so ago and have always been impressed with his focus on self-directed learning. David’s thirst for learning is inspiring and his writing at www.davidmansaray.com reflects…

Resurrecting My Spanish While Maintaining Turkish

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics Trilingual.   Trilingual is an idea that I aspire to but cannot currently claim. But I’d like to work on it. In 1996 I graduated from college after taking a year of German.  I wasn’t into the idea of learning German at the time needing it only in order to graduate and so I…

Climbing the Listening Ladder to Learn Another Language

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics As a language learner, it is important to engage with your target language through all four language modalities at all stages of the language learning journey. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced learner you need to be reading, writing, speaking and listening on a regular – even daily – basis. I have…

Distilling some insights from Second Language Acquisition Research

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics Today’s guest post comes from the voice behind the Leaky Grammar blog, Gavin Lamb.  Since its inception, I’ve wanted the EDLL blog to be among other things, a portal into the academic world of second language acquisition research, distilling the lessons and findings of researchers into actionable ideas for everyday language learners.  Gavin does…

A Lesson on Foreign Language Literacy

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics Today’s post is written by Wesely Farrow, creator of Soltura Languages, an up and coming new language platform which I’ll be featuring in the coming weeks. What does it mean to be literate or fluent in a foreign language? Too often people think simply that literacy means reading and fluency means speaking. Let’s have…

Emotions and Language Learning

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics Priscilla Vail in her article, The Role of Emotions and Learning, tells the story of sitting at home alone one evening enjoying a good book when she begins to hear noises coming from her basement. Convinced that she has intruders below, she frantically tried to find the police department’s number in the phone book…

10 Ideas for Learning a New Language Five Minutes At A Time

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics We live in the most hurried, busy time the world has perhaps ever seen. We have more engagements, more work, more distractions to fill more hours of more days and if you are like me, you still find yourself wishing you could accomplish – just a bit more. Amongst all this business is a…

Language Learning Activity: Dialogue Generation

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics Every language uses the ebb and flow of dialogue.  When we communicate we both talk and listen. Creating natural dialogues then can be an effective way to practice for the regular interactions that take place as we speak in our new target languages. What is a dialogue? If you been through any formal language…

Language Learning Lessons from Rocky IV

Tweetgovernment,politics news,politics news,politics One of the great American film series of all time are the Rocky movies.  Few Hollywood blockbusters do well on the path to anthology.  Sequels rarely pan out. But the Rocky movies were astoundingly successful.  Rocky I, II and III were great stories, well written, compelling and fun to watch. But Rocky IV was…

Enter your email and get free resources and updates from The Everyday Language Learner.