Tag Archives: Learning

What is the Ideal Age to Learn English?

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Learning English is something that you really have to do if you want to make it big in today’s world. Between the type of English common in the United States and the type of English common in the United Kingdom, most of the world’s population is represented in terms of people that know how to speak English. All of the major business is transacted in that language and everyone that happens to be rich, successful or otherwise powerful in the world today learned English at some point in their life.

Now that it has been established that learning English is essential, it is time to think about the different times in a person’s life that learning English can be ideal. While there is no one particular ideal age at which to learn English, there are times when it can be better to do so and those times are discussed at length below.

From Birth

The absolutely most ideal age at which learning English can happen is at birth. When a baby speaks their first words, if those words are in English, then English will be the first language that they learn. This also makes it the easiest language for them to learn as many babies never end up learning another language after they have learned their initial one. Some people just have a mental block when it comes to learning languages, which is why English as their first language is absolutely the best way to go.

During Primary Schooling

If a child has not learned English as their first language, then the next best time to get them to learn it would be during the time in their life when they are thinking about doing primary schooling. Primary schooling is extremely important and allows children to expand their knowledge and grow on multiple fronts during the second group of formative years in their life (the first being their pre-school years). Because of the rapid rate at which children tend to learn at this age, English language training is definitely a good idea.

During Secondary Schooling

If a child has gone through the initial and primary school years of their life without learning English, then you will want to make sure that you start them on an English language learning course right away. While secondary school students are still learning a lot, the information that high school gives them is largely specialized information. This is quite different from the formative study they undertake in primary school which in turn means that teaching them something as basic as a new way of speaking is a lot harder to do.

During Post-Secondary Schooling

While a large argument is currently raging across academic circles at which time is better to learn English between secondary and post-secondary schooling, most people tend to believe that post-secondary schooling provides an environment that makes learning a new language a lot easier to do. People are exposed to new ideas and concepts that might completely change the way they look at and think about life in post-secondary school and that makes taking on big new challenges like learning English easier to do than it would be in secondary school.

As an Adult

It is possible for an out of school adult to learn English, but it is at the same time a lot harder to do. The thing that makes it easier for adults to learn English sometimes is the fact that adults that are out of school tend to have a far more disciplined approach to things like this and for that reason have the ability to grasp information pertinent to their life at a relatively quick pace.

Online Distance Learning Schools

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Online and distance learning is the new kind of education that is growing immensely all over the world. It is the kind of learning that is done over the internet across different countries and even across different continents. Students who want to learn on a flexible schedule, such as professionals already involved in regular jobs, often prefer online learning over the traditional type of classroom and face to face learning which account for the increasing popularity of this kind of educational program.

However, partly because of its fairly early stage of development, online and distance learning has not yet been structured to fit everyone. There are a few basic attributes that one must possess to be better suited at learning through online classes.

The most important characteristic that is needed to succeed in distance education is the ability to stay motivated and focused on a task without the need for external encouragement from others such as a teacher or classmates. An online education student must be able to motivate himself, set his own goals, and track his own progress.

A successful online student should also be very aggressive and very zealous in completing his online assignments and projects. Procrastination will never work well in online and distance education. It is true that online learning lets students work at their own pace and on their own time, which many take to mean that procrastinating is ok. However, this would also mean that several months or even years would probably be added to the total time that the student will need to complete the course.

Another vital characteristic for online and distance education students is very good reading and comprehension abilities. Although there are some lessons that are covered by video lectures, most of the learning will still be through reading a lot of written text. Thus, students who learn best by taking notes in class and asking questions from a lecturer will probably not do well in an online and distance education setting.

Students who want to try online learning should also have a very high sense of focus that enables them to shake off distractions easily. Studying an entire course at home means that there will be a lot of times when family members and children could easily become interruptions in learning. There will also be times that turning on the tv and enjoying the live broadcast of a game could be very alluring. All of these disturbances should be easily filtered out by a student who wants to be successful at completing a course online.

Lastly, online students should also understand that one of the biggest differences between an online class and traditional face to face class is the element of social interaction. Online and distance learning set-ups provide very little of this element because there are no such things as a school dance, a varsity game, or even a student government and elections in this kind of educational program. Online and distance learning students should be able to satisfy this part of education on their own: either by having extracurricular activities outside the online learning structure, or by being able to discuss and expound on what they are learning with their friends and coworkers.