Page 91 - EL108 Learrning Module

Checkpoint!

A. READING, GRAMMAR, SPEAKING, AND WRITING

Part 1. DIRECTIONS: Read the blog entry by author Stacy Hagen. Look at the
words in blue. Work with a partner and explain the article usage (or lack of an

article) for each.

BLUEBOOKBLOG An “Aha" Moment In Language Learning

When I was a college student, I went to Austria for a year to study German.
I had studied German for two years at a university, but I wanted to learn the

language in more authentic surroundings. I was a shy learner at first because my

spoken German wasn't very strong. There was a technique I found especially
helpful in those early days. I listened to the news on the radio in the morning.

Usually I listened for an hour a day while I was doing other things such as getting
ready in the morning or cleaning. I didn't listen carefully, and sometimes I just had

it on as background noise. But I always had on news or talk radio, not music.
People on the news use a lot of passive sentences. I had studied a lot of

complicated German grammar in college, and the passive was especially

confusing to me. I really didn't understand the rules, so it wasn't part of my spoken
German. But one morning I woke up after about three months, and I knew the

passive! I could use all of the forms effortlessly.
This was my "aha" moment. I realized that I had been learning even when I

hadn't been studying. The rules I had learned in college helped me, but listening
to the radio turned that knowledge into usage. And the radio was an especially

effective way to learn because it required listening. There were no clues from the

speaker's face or actions to help me. All of this was a powerful lesson for me.
Have you found some especially helpful techniques for learning English?

Have you had an "aha" moment?

Teaching and Assessment of Grammar 79