"Thinking" in English

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CatWrap

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Students often ask me how they can stop thinking in their native language and think in English. So many of them have told me that this prevents them from learning English. These students live and work with their native language; they do not use English until they arrive in the classroom.
I have suggested they listen to the radio, watch TV and see movies in English to practice hearing and understanding the language.
Also reading books with a Spanish/English, Polish/English, etc. dictionary and/or thesaurus in hand.
What else can I do to help them?
Thanks in advance!
 

danyboy

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I think throwing more light on culture would be of great help to get them to think in English. To know how the English actually respond to some FAQ's asked at home or office or how do they excuse themselves to get their work done and so on... I think this will work a bit..
 

neiltalkshop

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I like the idea of watching English movies, reading English newspapers and articles. This will improve their English skills, but they need to practice and apply it. I also suggest that when they are speaking in English, try to encourage them not to think in their native language. The reason is they are thinking in their native language and they will translate it to English and they will have grammar issues.
 

Tdol

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Many learners try talking to themselves in the target language, which can help make it seem more natural.
 

LordSH

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It’s a great way to learn English through watching movies, listening radio and reading.
It would be really useful for your students not to use bilingual dictionaries.
That way interference of their mother tongue would be minimal and it would strengthen their ability think in English. And recommend them to read books for young adults.These kind of books written in easy language. So usage of dictionaries would be minimal.
I hope it was helpful.
 

BobK

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Yes, monolingual dictionaries, used sparingly.

I'm attaching a slide I did for a Portuguese class once. The message is the same for any language.

b
 

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Cacille

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When I was learning German, in my 4th year of study I found myself naturally waking up thinking in German for at least a few minutes before I remembered I spoke English! That was really fun!

I had a great teacher and she got us reading a book in German. We could choose the book from her small library of natural German books. Then we had to do a report on the book.
That, and me listening to German songs and as much German speaking as I could find on the internet (when I had access) had my brain switching over.

To this day, I stand by that method. Get your students reading normal English books. I'm trying to with mine but their English is still rather low, being middle schoolers. The reading and thinking might be a little more tied together in the human brain, although speaking is in an entirely different section. Regardless, it worked for me in my senior year of high school.
 

SlickVic9000

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Once your students have sufficient reading proficiency, I would promote the use of all English dictionaries. My experience is that entries in monolingual dictionaries tend to be much more nuanced and than bilingual dictionaries, which typically give very basic definitions. I remember when I first started using a monolingual dictionary in my second language. It was an "a-ha!" moment. It clearly explained not only the basic meaning of the word, but it's connotations, and it also provided example sentences.
 

Minou22_

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As a student at a teacher training college I totally agree on the fact that it is difficult to think in a language that is not your native language. I do have the advantage of living in the Netherlands; English is used in everyday life here too. When you want to think in English there are a couple of things that you have to keep in mind.

Your native language is easiest and that is why you rather think in your native language than English. A good practice activity for this could be to let the student think aloud, so that they can practice it and you also hear their thinking-process which can be helpful when there is a problem with a certain topic.

I would not advise bilingual dictionaries, I speak from my own experience here again, because when you use them you have to switch languages in your mind all the time and this can slow the thinking progress.

Another thing that will help to think in English is listening to English radio-programmes,for example the BBC. Reading English books will also help, audiobooks are even better ; when you listen to an audiobook you hear how words are pronounced and you get a feel of sentence flow. This might not relate to thinking in English directly, but the better you get at a language, the easier it is to think in this language.

A final thing to keep in mind is watching TV-shows and films. This is a fun way to get the students to think in English without them even noticing. Not all TV-shows and films are suitable for the purpose of teaching English of course, but you can look for the ones that have a British RP-accent or the general American accent.

I wrote quite a lot but I hope this is helpful to you.;-)
 

BobK

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...
I would not advise bilingual dictionaries, I speak from my own experience here again, because when you use them you have to switch languages in your mind all the time and this can slow the thinking progress.

...

I'd go further, and discourage their use. Even worse are those electronic devices (which sometimes refer to themselves as 'dictionaries' but are at best approximate [and sometimes inaccurate] synonym generators). Nothing is more guaranteed to keep a student locked in a fruitless loop of L1 thinking (on the lefthand-side of the diagram I posted here).

b
 

istiharoh

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It is a good idea to teach English by using movie. The students can train their understanding and hearing in English. Besides, they also can take cultural awareness from the movie. As a teacher you should make sure that the movies which are watched by your students are appropriate with their age and level. It will give bad impact if they learn English only by watching the movie without facing the real world and learning in real context.
I say that as a teacher, we should able to provide a situation which can make students to be exposed to use English. There are some ways that you can do to make it. The first, you may invite your students to learn with native speakers. You may ask the native speakers to come to your class or invite your students to come to a region where there are many native speakers. By this situation, the students will be exposed to think in English. The second way, you may teach your students about English for specific situation. It will help them to understand how to use English and Think in English.
 

IQIsantiago

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Honestly i can't think in english if i don't know the meaning of some words i'm going to use on a phrase, in this case i think in my native language first and try to translate it in my mind or I search the words i don't understand on a dictionary that way i can think in english quickly.
 

DOTOKATA

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your students can listen to music watching its subtitle and advise them to watch series on condition that they wacth movies without dublaj, they can talk to each other in english at the school, Indeed I think they can learn easily making mistake, the students can improve their english skills w,th the help of each other
 

BobK

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Incidentally, the idea of dublaj (which I expect means 'dubbing'), another teacher told me that you can hide subtitles (if the TV doesn't let you just switch them off) by simply putting a strip of paper along the bottom of the screen. The static electricity keeps it in place.

b
PS I was told this a while ago, and the trick may not work with plasma screens. I don't know - worth a try though.
 
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