Introduction to the course
Why is it so hard for non-native speakers to learn to speak English?
Learning to speak is a natural thing: we acquire language by being exposed to it, by listening to the people who surround us. Reading is not natural, it's a relatively recent invention of a system that represents spoken language. It is a more complex process that we could think of and many times it is pretty challenging even for children whose mother tongue is English. So why is reading harder than learning to speak?
Listen to reading specialist Margie Gillis on how the brain changes when we learn to read—and why learning to read is more difficult for some kids than others.
Course aims
For English as a Secong Language (ESL) learners the challenge is double: they are hardly ever exposed to the language in a natural way and therefore their reading skills resent. The aim of this course is to try to help improve their reading skills through listening to nursery rhymes in order to raise awarenesss of the sounds of English, they way they are connected (pronunciation chunks), focusing on stressed and unstressed words, rythmn and intonation.