Saturday, August 7, 2010

INTRODUCTION


Very Brief History of Functional English

Or Manual How to Use a Material on a Page of This Blog Effectively

“It is essential to think of learners becoming functional in their English rather than thinking there is a vital body of knowledge known as functional English.”


If you have visited our center in Indore, observed our advertisments ot talked to someone from our 4Q Learning team, they probably must have paid attention to the phrase "We teach Functional English." What exactly does it mean? As we have the philosophy "If you don't know the meaning of a word, or have some doubts, look it up in a dictionary." Let's check the word ""functional.

Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary "functional" adjective
1. designed to be practical and useful rather than attractive (source)
Macmillan Dictionary "functional" adjective
1. practical and simple, with no unnecessary feartures or decorations, e.g. a house filled with functional furniture
2.operating in the correct way, e.g. The new hospital isn’t fully functional as yet but should be very soon.
3.relating to the purpose or function of something, e.g. A purely functional view of an organization
doesn’t work any more (source:
Macmillan Dictionary)


So, if someone tells you that you have a good level of Functional English, he will try to tell that your level of English is good enough to manage a variety of everyday situations. But it is not enough to...hmm...let’s say...to compete with Shakespeare or Hemingway by writing poems, sonnets, and novels that capture the whole attention of the reader.
In other words, you are able to communicate in an English environment: introduce yourself, people, make appointments, pass through an interview, talk about plans, share you difficulties, answer questions, fill in forms, writing official and business letters, etc (Curriculum details). Do you want to be relaxed in an alien environment? Well…If your answer is “yes”, than you can not just polish your speaking abilities. All components of English must be developed, i.e. speaking, listening, writing, and reading.
4Q Learning took these skills into account when designed the courses. Because it shows success on the lessons in our center, and because this blog has an educational goal, we want to follow this tactic here, too.

How to Use a Material on a Page of This Blog Effectively
A daily post covers different topics (if you have any suggestion, please share it with us). Each post has 4 sections: reading, listening, pronunciation, and writing. If you feel that you need to get more information on a theme or not all questions were covered by the author, than write your comments and ask to clarify. We will provide you with more information or give hyperlinks to other web-sites where you will find facts.

More detailed manual

Reading skill
How could we help you to master it? Every day you will get a small chunk of a text (don’t think that we will post only short stories- it will be a variety of text types).
How could you benefit from this part?
1. Vocabulary developed through word-building skills.
2. Understand not only the total idea of the text, but also its elements.
3. Understand the difference between what is said and what it is not.

Listening and pronunciation
How could we help you to master it? We will give you an access to video or audio related to a topic of a post.
How could you benefit from this part?
1. Listen to and understand mp3 and video files.
2. Extract useful information.

Writing skills
How could we help you to master it? Short tips on a topic.
How could you benefit from this part?
Comments, comments, and comments.


In our first post we tried to demonstrate the approach; you read the text, you watched the video. Now it is your turn…to practise the writing skills ) Go ahead.

0 comments:

Post a Comment