WHY DO YOU STILL NEED AN ENGLISH TUTOR?
Having decided once to start studying English, we immediately begin to choose a way to learn this language by opting for the best English tutoring. Moreover, all our searches will most likely lead you to two main ways of mastering the language free. Each of these methods includes a number of certain techniques that have both their pros and cons.
For example, with a free method of learning, self-study techniques are most often used. It is understood that by choosing this method, the student will receive the knowledge he needs for free, or at least much cheaper than hiring a teacher.
Free Ways to Learn
The most popular methods of free learning English today are the following:
- Learning English from films – the essence of the method is simple to disgrace. You just sit down on your favorite sofa, turn on your favorite movie and set up subtitle output on the screen. Therefore, according to the assurances of the inventors of this technique, you must learn to learn English speech by ear, and subtitles should clearly show how a particular word is written. In fact, it’s not so simple why – read in our recent article “How to Learn English from Movies”
- Learning on YouTube – this includes all kinds of learning songs, fairy tales in English, learning and memorizing words, alphabet, colors, etc.
- Applications and programs for computers and mobile devices
- Communication with others – forums, e-mail correspondence, social networks (primarily Facebook)
Of course, it is worth noting that not all methods are suitable for learning English from scratch. Indeed, in order to read or listen to English, you will need the basic basics, without which the whole idea of self-study does not make any sense.
It is also worth noting that English is almost the easiest language to learn, and this is one of the good reasons why it has become a universally recognized language.
However, what if we are talking about learning Chinese or Japanese? Here, the vast majority of self-study techniques will suffer a guaranteed fiasco.
Why free?
All these techniques are united by several important things – they are free (of course, they are not 100% free, because you still spend your money on training materials and manuals, and even if not, your time is the same money, very important and expensive resource).
It is the absence of a mentor (tutor, teacher, whatever you like) that determines the “free” of these techniques. After all, you have to pay for the time of the teacher.
Cons Of Free Techniques
The main advantage of gratuitous methods is their low cost, this is where the advantages end and the disadvantages begin, which are quite a lot in number.
Here are the main ones:
- Lack of motivation – this is a very important problem due to which there are great difficulties in learning. The lack of a class schedule, the irregularity of lessons, and just plain laziness are not the best friends of an effective learning process. This is “free”, which means you can postpone the lesson until tomorrow, which means you can afford to relax and relax a bit, because nothing bad will happen, right? Tomorrow, I’ll definitely take up the lessons and then I’ll surely learn a new language – this is what most homegrown self-taught students think about that;
- There is no one to cheer and praise the student – a very important psychological aspect of learning, closely related to motivation. When you are not praised for your labors, it is very demoralizing; this gives up and does not want to continue classes. After all, you “plow like a horse”, you devote all your time to classes, and no one can evaluate your progress and praise for your great efforts;
- Lack of a clear program – none of the self-study methods will give you a training course that is 100% suitable for your specific situation. Properly choose a training program for your goals and objectives, by virtue of only an experienced teacher;
- Lack of speaking practice – in order to really speak well you need to, as if it were not obvious, to speak many languages. This is called “hone the conversation”, and in order to hone it, you need to have a dialogue partner. Favorite cat or dog is unlikely to do this. Your interlocutor, at least, must be at the same level of language proficiency as you, or even better – be superior to you many times. You can learn only from the one who knows better than you in the subject under study do; from the one who is worse, you learn nothing. In addition, this is the absolute truth not only in relation to the study of English but also in any other language, subject or field of science.
- Lack of an individual approach – it is a personal approach that makes English tutoring so valuable and irreplaceable. All programs designed for self-study are aimed at an indefinite, averaged mass of people. They do not take into account your initial knowledge, your goals, and objectives, your character, the pace at which you are most comfortable learning and other points that are very important for this process.
Paid Tutor
The obvious minus of paid classes with a tutor, according to many people, is their cost. However, if you compare the benefits of such classes with the disadvantages of independent free tuition, then there will not be the slightest doubt that choosing to learn English with a tutor will always be the best option.
Let’s figure out why. To do this, we simply compare the main disadvantages of the free method with the benefits of paid tuition with a tutor.
Indisputable Advantages
So, what are the main advantages of learning English with a personal tutor?
- Motivation – you have an appointment and you paid for it. How can you skip such a lesson – yes, when you pay money, the value of classes increases at times and this is very motivating to never miss them. More lessons completed – more reliable and faster result;
- support at every stage of training – a competent teacher will always find an approach to each student, always support him, praise and warn against possible mistakes;
- a clear training program aimed at speedy dividends and consolidation of the result;
- The constant practice of speaking is a matter of course. You will receive a highly qualified partner for the constant training of your speech and your pronunciation;
- The entire training course will be “tailored” exclusively for you. This is the whole point; this is the “whole salt” of training with a mentor. An individual program is not like the one that you went through before, giving the maximum benefit in a minimum of time – that is what you hire a tutor for.
Conclusion
Independent study of languages is good only when there is nothing else, on the principle of “better than nothing.” In all other cases, a tutor will be your best bet.
Learning a language on your own is like learning to drive a car without an instructor. Yes, it is possible, but is it worth it? Alternatively, another example – if you decide to go in for sports, you will also go to the gym and grab the biggest barbell and start lifting it? On the other hand, do you nevertheless go through coaching with the trainer and take a few lessons so that he will explain to you, which side to approach the sports equipment correctly, not to mention the safety measures and achieving some results?
The choice, of course, is yours. No matter how you decide to remember our simple conclusions and learn English, your desire for new horizons already eloquently speaks of you as a person striving for a new and better future, and this is very commendable.