Dr. Edward Cornelius' Advice
"Learn English like a child. If you hesitate or are afraid of making mistakes, you cannot learn English," advises Dr. Edward Cornelius, 76, a world authority on English teaching. The author of "English 900," the best-selleing English conversation textbook that swept the market in the 1960s and 70s, Dr. Cornelius is visiting Korea.
He has taken the lead in the education of English for 50 long years, traveling the Asian countries of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and China, and Latin America, Europe and Africa. "There is no royal road to learning English. It depends on how one tackles it," he says. "Results differ according to how strongly one is motivated to learn the language and how hard he or she tries. But there is no secret method of learning English overnight, and the most important is to hear and speak it incessantly."
"Some time ago we conducted interesting research in the Congo. A Congolese who didn't utter a word of English commanded English completely in three months. He spoke English just like a native English speaker," Dr. Cornelius reminisced. "What was the secret? It was possible on the back of the African tradition of informing one another by word of mouth."
"They didn't think in a complicated way, but unconditionally imitated words and pronunciation. The study clearly indicated that information by word of mouth, in which learners don't get educated in writing, but listen to others, memorize words and repeat them, is the best in learning a language," he explained. Think about how children learn a language, he suggested.
Dr. Cornelius recommended that every opportunity be utilized to hear and speak English in a country where English is not used in daily life, saying, "Speaking is more important. Grammar learned in school is all stored somewhere in the brain. It's bound to come back later. Doesn't English flood out from not only TV and radio, but cable and satellite broadcasts?"
Cornelius, who studied Russian in his Yale University days, is now studying Chinese in earnest and also Greek. It is to understand difficulties inherent in learning foreign languages as well as proving that age is not a stumbling block to studying a language, he said.
"These days there are a lot of excellent video texts available. I personally prefer audio material. It's effective to use earphones in a bid to concentrate more on speaking and learning pronunciation."
It's no use to learn English in class for several hours a day, if the lessons are not reviewed in daily life. Like Korean elementary school kids who first learn English, Dr. Cornelius speaks to any Chinese person he happens to meet. Even left to himself, he thinks out dialogue in Chinese and incessantly recites it to himself.
The intensified learning method Dr. Cornelius has recently developed aims at helping a beginner become skillful in English in six months through "total absorption." It's used in a course meant for businessmen who need to muster English in a limited period of time.
The method is featured by modeling after a teacher and repetition designed to absorb the contents of a text fully.
The founder of the English Language Study center, Dr. Cornelius served as an English learning international consultant for the State Department of the United States. He has also developed a number of study programs in English teaching including Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).
"Once one becomes old, it's not easy for one to learn a new language breaking an established pattern. So grapple with English like children," he advised. "Koreans don't seem to hesitate talking to foreigners positively. The Japanese are passive in speaking English to foreigners, fearful of making mistakes."
"Although there is no royal road to learning English, one can learn the language quickly if he or she learns it with joy," he added.
