How long should it take someone who has never spoken in English to learn the language? A year? Two? Should there be a time threshold?
While it might be easy to claim prowess in teaching foreign languages and attach a timeline to the learning curve, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to registering real results. It turns out, learning a foreign language has a scientific twist that involves both the conscious and subconscious. After centuries of teaching English to Spanish speakers the wrong way, one young CEO has made it his life’s mission to revolutionize English learning.
Kale Anders grew up in an English speaking environment but he was particularly taken by the Latin American culture. That’s how he developed interest in learning Spanish. So when he went to Mexico to study, Anders decided to learn this much-coveted language.
While some people claim it takes approximately a Spanish speaker 3 years to achieve an intermediate level of English, Anders is proving otherwise. After delving into the science of language learning, Anders, now the CEO of the fastest growing Online English Academy in Latin America, developed a groundbreaking method to help Latinos learn English in just three months. In this article, we will be breaking down some of his philosophies to achieve the same result.
Finding the Right Kind of Motivation
According to Anders, it is possible to learn English in a very short time if you can find and master the right motivation. It is a fact that he has established from scientific research and pure experience. He maintains that the most motivated of his students are the ones who pick up the language the fastest. However, not motivated by external factors such as social or economic pressure, but rather with a genuine inner joy and interest in consuming the language.
Just like Anders fell in love with the Latin American culture and subsequently found the right motivation to learn a foreign language in three months, he encourages anyone who wants to learn English in the shortest time possible to focus on finding the joy first, before starting to study.
Laura, one of Anders’ students, says that his program has helped her communicate with her kids in English. She was motivated by the desire to communicate with her children who learned the language from being in an English speaking environment. “They are studying in a bilingual school, and you can imagine why I need to learn this important language,” she says. After just a few weeks with Mr. Anders’, Spanish speakers who previously couldn’t communicate in English are now finding the passion and are able to understand and communicate.
“I don’t know if I write correctly, but I understand very well and can make myself understood”, Laura reckons.
Change your Learning Approach
Come to think of it, when a student says they can understand and communicate in English very well but are still learning to write, you get the idea that Anders’ approach to teaching English is different. To him, any Spanish speaker can learn English faster by listening rather than by speaking or writing. Picture Laura sitting quietly in her house as she listens to her kids speak English, in a Spanish speaking home. Regardless of the fun involved, the language gets imprinted in our subconscious making us more efficient learners and eventually, proficient speakers. Anders’ approach has proven that while the methodology used in teaching English to a non-native speaker only accounts for between 20 and 30% of the learning process, the rest is accounted for by the inner joy a student finds in the consumption, together with the right attitude.
Change Your Attitude Towards English
The fact that proficiency stems from constant practice makes positive attitude mandatory for anyone who wants to master it in three months. Anders discourages learners from viewing the English learning process as a chore.
It’s not work. Rather, it is a gateway to opportunities that would have otherwise been unreachable.
Due to his widely accepted disruptive tendencies, Anders continues to revolutionize the online language education industry from the position of innovator and pioneer. He’s shared his discoveries on YouTube, and his work is available on his website.