It's back-to-school season again.
Whether you're a student or a parent, you're sure to hear or think of the term "think in English" a lot, because many institutions and teachers recognize this one:
People who have English thinking are good at English, and the purpose of learning English is to cultivate English thinking.
Based on this, they advertise that their curriculum or teaching materials can "shape English thinking", especially in the circle of children's English enlightenment, and they can always hear similar words. But every time I listen to it, I have to put a question mark every time: Is this really the case? What exactly is English thinking? How to cultivate?
A long time ago, I read an article by Eric Zhang Hailu "What is "thinking in English", and there is a sentence in it that I specially copied:
you don’t know a language, you live it. you don’t learn a language, you get used to it.
I didn't think much about it at the time, but now I think about it in combination with this question - sure enough,English thinking is a false proposition
Pseudo "in **? Let's analyze it through a few scenarios. Scenario 1: When you read English articles, you always unconsciously translate the words you see into Chinese, resulting in your English speed being very slow. You think: I don't have English thinking, I can't read English directly, I can't think about English. Scene 2: A child has mastered some English words and blurts out banana when he sees a banana. You think: children's English thinking is so powerful!
If you think about these two examples, in fact, everyone uses "looking at English and thinking about English" as a synonym for English thinking. Actually, it's just one of a kindFacing stimuli – reactingThe process is just one of the brainsPhysiological functionis physical, not abstract.
Scenario 3: When you are struggling with whether to use in Monday morning or on Monday morning, Xueba's answer to you is "I choose it based on my feelings, and it reads more smoothly". Do you think: Feelings? Didn't you say that thinking is good? Feeling, also known as "language sense", is the "big killer" of English students. It's not a mystical superpower, butA "habit" and "reasonable**" formed after entering a certain amount of English。It's like "musicality", that is, listening to one note knows what the next sound may be. If you are interested, you can learn about the working principle of AI such as ChatGPT, in fact, it is alsoThrough a large amount of corpus data, analyze what words may be followed under the word you say
Scenario 4: When you are learning English, have you always wondered: why are there so many "fixed collocations" in English that cannot be explained? Why do English teachers always say, "That's how foreigners use it?"
That's right, the fact that English speakers use it this way proves that it's an acceptable way to use it, that is, it doesn't need to be explained, and it can be considered correct. After all, all grammar, vocabulary definitions, etc., are used first and then determined. It can be said thatWhen speaking English, everyone does not use their thinking to direct themselves, but habits become natural。Scenario 5: I witnessed foreign friends learning Chinese, and they also need to translate sentences into English to understand first, and then use Chinese to do the questions. For example, use "I think, this afternoon, office, not there" to form a sentence, my friend first asked me how to say this afternoon, how to say in the office, make an English sentence, and then translate it into Chinese. It's not what many people thinkTranslation is not an abandoned method of language teaching and learning, but a recognized method。I've written an article on this before. In fact, in this scenario, we should think more about: why can everyone learn each other's language even if the logic and form of language are different? Even if you don't know the language, can you still understand the meaning of the speaker? This is becauseHuman minds are actually connected。Quoting Chomsky's theory, it is explained that no matter what language is spoken, human beings actually have a common meaning that they want to express. So, we can already think, and the result is the same whether we think in English or in Chinese. Is it still necessary to develop English thinking?
To sum it up:English thinking is not actually a kind of thinking, but a habit of using English. In other words, there is no English thinking, only the habit of using English. For native speakers, this habit comes from the tendency of themselves and those around them to use language.
For EFL ESL learners, this habit is generated by relying on a lot of input. A large amount of input creates a stimulus-response brain circuit in our brain, which then slowly solidifies into a habit. At the time of output, this habit can monitor the output content. In this way, people with so-called "English thinking" can think in English, reduce the "middleman" of Chinese, save time for code switching, and naturally have a higher level of language fluency, but a high level of fluency is better ≠than English. English proficiency requires a combination of verbal and non-verbal factors, because a language involves not only words and grammar, but also the cultural background, behavioral habits, and even national character behind it. Moreover, cultivating English thinking does not become the purpose of learning English, because it is a "habit becomes natural" thing, as long as English is used a lot, there is no need to deliberately cultivate English thinking; On the other hand, deliberately allowing yourself to think in English, without using English a lot, will not be able to solidify English thinking and become a habit that is beneficial to English learning.
So, how do you develop this habit of using English? Fluent in 3 Months is a book that introduces a method that is suitable for English learners of any ageThink Aloud, i.e. say your inner voice out loud in English
Here's how:
In your daily life, you should try to say the inner voice in your mind in English. The example in this book is: If you want to make coffee or make breakfast, you say it out loud in English - next, I am going to pour a cup of coffee to myself, then i want to fry two eggs and make a french toast i love french toast so much.In fact, the essence of this method is to increase the amount of English used. In the same vein, we can think of other training methods in Live English:Change all your electronic devices to English mode and read English newspapers, magazines and **Wait.
Let's work together to develop English habits, not thinking!
See you in the next article!