Why Are You Learning English?

This is the first thing we ask people when they start classes with us. The answers are usually similar.

"I need it for a promotion." "I want to change jobs." "It's for my child."

But ask again a few months later and the answer has changed.

"I want to be able to talk to people when I travel." "I want to say what I actually think in meetings." "I want to watch my favourite series without subtitles."

The first answer was not a lie. The second answer is simply the original one moving back into place.

Test English and language have different purposes

English for a score has a clear finish line. Pass the target score and it is over. That makes it efficient: memorise the question types that come up often, reduce the ones you get wrong.

The problem is that the method does not carry over into speaking, because choosing the right answer and building your own sentence are two different abilities. That is why it is so common to score highly and still not manage a first sentence.

The original purpose of language is not a score. It is connection. Talking with people who use another language, finding out what they think, getting across what you think. Approach it with that purpose and the standard you study by changes. The question stops being "will this expression be on the test" and becomes "do I want to say this".

When the purpose changes, the method changes

Set connection as the purpose and certain changes follow naturally.

You stop postponing until you are perfect. If getting through is the goal, then slightly wrong grammar that still lands is a success. That single change of standard multiplies how much you can say.

You listen differently. The other person stops being a dictation exercise and becomes someone telling you something. Concentrate on what they are actually saying and, oddly enough, you hear more.

You keep going. A test ends and you stop, but the things you want to talk about never run out. There is always a reason to continue.

What "your world gets bigger" actually means

We have heard that English makes your world bigger so many times that the phrase has gone blurry. Written out concretely, it looks like this.

What comes back when you search in your own language and what comes back when you search in English are not remotely comparable in volume. Most of the up-to-date material in any field you care about sits there untranslated. One short exchange with a local while travelling changes your whole impression of a city. Learning how people in another country are living through the same problem changes how you see your own.

Having one more language means the number of people you can talk to goes up. That is all it is, and it is reason enough.

So we will ask you again

Why are you learning English?

A promotion or a score is a perfectly good answer. Reasons like those are genuinely useful for getting started. But around the time studying starts to feel like a chore, it is worth taking out the reason that was sitting behind it.

Who do you want to talk to, and what about? The people with a clear answer to that are the ones who last.