2 - A Look-Listen-Speak Learning Approach (PSE)

What we mean by 'learning' is an act or a process of getting an experience.

A Learning Approach: Look, Listen and Speak

We will understand what we mean by 'learning' as an act or a process of getting an experience. A good learning experience is memorable -- an experience that we can remember for a long time.

We will not start our learning of Plain and Simple English by memorizing the roman alphabet (A B C ...),  how these letters in the alphabet combine into words; how we combine several words into sentences; and so on.

Did we learn to speak Thai that way? No!
We learn Thai by listening and watching people around us. All babies learn their first language --their mother tongue-- the same way. And most babies can speak and make other people understand them when they are two years old.

We will use this baby learning approach. Because we have already learned how to use this baby learning approach, and we know that this approach has worked for us in our learning of our first language.

We can summarise the techniques in baby learning approach by three words: "look, listen, speak".


Here is a suggestion on how we can use this approach to learn English.

We look around our home, we can see things, animals and people. For each thing we see, we will say a word that we use to call that thing. For example when we a pencil, we will say "a pen cil".

In the same way, when we see our mother, we will say 'ma der'. When we see a chicken, we will say "a chic ken".

We have learned in our first language, what we call things, animals and people. But what do we call things, animals and people in English?

This is a problem for everyone in our class.
 
Wouldn't it be wonderful, if we could touch any thing and it could tell us what it is?

Let us find out what we call things around us. Let us label each of these things in English.

How do we put a label on our cat or our dog?
That is another problem that we will have to work out.

Just for fun, everyone in our class will pretend to be a chair, a table, a window, a cat, a dog, and so on. We will put a big label in English on our left hand. Now we will stand up in a circle. When I go around and touch your shoulder, you will tell the class and show your left hand what you are pretending to be. The rest of you, please look, listen and learn. Are we ready?

[Dear teachers, do you understand the game? We want to put 'word and sound' together so we can learn both to spell and to say simple words at the same time. We want to see how we spell words correctly. We want to say those words aloud. So, we see and hear the words at the same time.

Teachers should also pretend to be a thing and play.]

Now we will try this game. Instead of touching, we will ask
    "What are you?"
and you will say and show us what you pretend to be.
Are we ready?

Next we will try this game. Instead of asking, we will guess what you are.
  "I think you are a cat."
You will say
  "No. I am not a cat."
or
  "Yes. I am a cat." and show your left hand.

[Dear teachers, please let everyone in class take turns to ask and to guess. And please keep the guessing in check. Sometimes, someone will guess ... you are a monkey, an elephant, a bowl, a fan, and so on. Words not on left hands should not be accepted. The reason is that we want to have a game where one student has one word and say one sound at this time.

Later on we may try two words -- one word on each hand, three or more words on cards students can hold. We will work out a few more complicate games together.]

[Nopparat Pongsuk]

I read your blog for improve my language.

[ไอดิน-กลิ่นไม้]

• "The Look-Listen-Speak Learning Approach (PSE)" is such a practical way  of learning to speak English, sir. As you mentioned, all babies learn "their first language : their mother tongue", that way. Then, following "the Look-Listen-Speak Learning Approach (PSE)" wil help students learn to speak English successfully.    

• Further, the game you showed is very interesting, for it sounds joyful and easy to play, as well. I will advice my 4 supervisees who have been teaching English in two secondary schools to adopt your approach and game in their  English classes. And I myself will do the same thing in my classes ; an activity for my undergraduate students to promote their English skills.
• Thanks sir, for your valuable article.     

[sr]

Hi Nopparat Pongsuk

Thank you for your visit.

I am glad you found this is useful to you.

I do read my writing aloud sometimes --when no-one is around ;-)

[sr]

Thank you for your kind words Dr วิไล แพงศรี

I think putting "name" tags on things (desk, chair, door, window, ceiling, blackboard,...) is a good start. Most learners can learn to call everything (some 30 items) in a class within one hour. There are some issues on pronunciation (eg. เดส คื, ทืแช รื, ดอ รื, วิน โด้ วื, ซีวลิ่ง, บะแล็คตื บอรืด, ...) that I would suggest that we over-accent in the beginning. [How I wish to do it in person ;-) ]

May be we can work on a "sound-like" dictionary.

This is what I mean:

เดส คื (noun) desk a table for studying

ทืแช รื (noun) chair a utensil for sitting; แชรื (verb) share

ดอ รื (noun) door

...

The issue here is a 'common way' to write English sounds in Thai.

If we can come up with a standard 'sound-like' dictionary, English teaching may be different from what we ;hear' today.