Learning English

[What's next 1]

How is your wife learning english. Tutor? Software? Anyone have experience with rosetta stone or other products?

[Teacher Mark 53]

I use the Pavlovian method. When she gets a word right she gets a treat, when she gets one wrong....well......

Actually my Wife learned English in High School. Like most Vietnamese that learned in school her problems are associated with conversational English. She reads and writes very well but has problems speaking. I don't have any experience with Rosetta Stone or any of the language programs. She has went one of the many English schools in Saigon, which is probably your best option. There is also this website:

englishbaby.com

It's free and is good for learning slang.

[KGSodie 0]

My wife is taking ESL at a local college, but she learns quite a bit at her job too. She had studied some English before coming so I would have classified her as an advanced beginner when she arrived, and probably of intermediate skill now (9 months later).

I study (hahahahahaha) Russian using the Rosetta Stone software, which takes some getting used to. There's no English in the program, it's all Russian. It just starts, with photos and a voice over and written text. It will introduce the words to you, then drill you on them, with no context as to sentence construction, parts of speech, or anything like that. You are supposed to figure it out naturally, as a child would, as you go along. It can be frustrating at first, but they say that such 'immersion' is the best way to learn a foreign language. I have the 'home-school' version of the software, so it drills me at a preselected pace and monitors my progress before allowing me to advance to the next lesson. Without this, you have to select what lesson you want to study, when you want to. My version is 2.x, and I understand there is a new 3.x version out now, but I doubt very much that the core of the software has changed from my description.

Good luck!

[YuAndDan 153]

My Yu studied English for about 1 year, the looked for a job as an English teacher in China, worked as an English teacher at a private school, kind of "Learned on the Job", after arrival in the USA she has been immersed in English for the most part, and has been taking ESL classes at the local College, as well as other classes that makes her stretch herself.

[Melrose Plant 1]

I will not comment about my specific spouse at this time, but I can tell you that Rosetta Stone works well for some things, and it works very poorly for other things.

It does build your vocabulary quickly. You learn all your colors, shapes, numbers, fruits and vegetables, animals, and other useful things like comparative and superlative words.

What it does not do is give much of any conversational language. You never learn to say, "Hi, how are you? How many kids do you have? What's your sign?" That sort of thing.

I like it, but not by itself.

[Marzy 1]

I learned basic English in Philippines with bad habits. My English teacher (public school) used our primary language during English subject. Anyway, I took ESL classes, after two weeks in that class they kicked me out, and put me in their regular class. When I'm at home I read out loud, watching news, and movies. I communicate with different people which is increasing my confidence. Edited February 2, 2009 by S*J

[Melrose Plant 1]

You know, now that the baby is born, it will soon be time to get down to business. Mai has worked all her life, and I know she is bored staying at home all the time. Trouble is, her English has not progressed enough to get a job she would actually want. I also find that I really can't teach her effectively any more, maybe because we are too close to each other, and our focus wanders rather quickly.

Sometimes, she doesn't want to do as I tell her because she feels shy suddenly. For example, I was trying to explain to her why the dog won't listen to her in English (she does fine in Vietnamese), and why our 9-year-old son doesn't listen to her. It's all in the delivery. She just doesn't sound like she means business in English. How do you teach that?

In a few months' time, I think we will look for a teacher for her. She might do better with a stranger.