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Helping
learners in difficulty
Prof. Kev Nair knows what sort of difficulties a learner is
likely to run into —while learning by themselves from
his self-study books. He knows this from his experience with
hundreds of thousands of learners since as far back as 1974.
Through
constant observation and study, he’s found out the points
where a self-study learner might run into difficulties. And
we’ve identified the doubts that a learner might come
to have, and the queries and questions that a self-study learner
might like to get answered. And his self-study books deal
with all these difficulties, doubts, queries and questions
thoroughly and completely.
Fluency
learner’s difficulties are of a unique kind
Now, there’s something important that you must understand
here: You see, while you’re learning other subjects like
mathematics, computer programming or machine repair, you’ll
often run into difficulties that may need the help of an instructor.
But you won’t normally run into difficulties of that
sort while you’re learning the fluency skill. Actually,
by the very nature of things, you can’t.
Of
course, if someone who doesn’t know English is trying
to learn it, then they’ll certainly have difficulties
of the same sort as learners trying to learn subjects like
mathematics, computer programming and machine repair. But
fluency learners are people who’ve already learnt English.
And now they’re doing something different: They’re
now learning to be fluent. And while learning the fluency
skill, their intention is not to gain more knowledge of the
English language as such — though they’ll certainly
be picking up more knowledge of the English language along
the way. Their intention is to gain spoken English fluency.
So while learning the fluency skill, what they’re actually
doing is to learn the techniques of orally manipulating the
English they know in a skillful way — and of making it
work in the way they want it to. And they’re trying to
re-orient the knowledge they already have... to the needs
of the fluency building process.
So
while learning the fluency skill, the difficulties you may
run into are of a different type. And Prof. Kev Nair’s
self-study books deal with them effectively.
Knowledge
of fluency techniques
Prof. Kev Nair’s self-study books describe and explain
each aspect of each fluency technique
thoroughly and completely – in the simplest English you
can imagine. Every effort has been made to make sure that
you learn from them easily and quickly. And every effort has
been made to make sure that you retain whatever you’ve
learnt – and that you don’t forget those things
in a few days after you’ve learnt them.
Several
techniques have been used in
these self-study books to make sure that the things you learn
and retain do not remain simply at a verbal level, but get
absorbed into the deeper levels of your mind, into your whole
system. This has been done, so that the things you learn will
spring to your help whenever you need them. Several techniques
have also been used to make sure that it becomes second nature
to you to apply the things you learn from the self-study books
to real-life situations. You begin doing this instinctively,
almost without thinking. And you become skilled at doing whatever
needs to be done to process speech in your head – and
to produce it smoothly and continuously. Several techniques
have been used to make these skills become easy to you.
Now,
the aim of getting you to train in this way is to get you
into a state of readiness to deal effectively with speech-processing
difficulties and speech-production difficulties — while
speaking spontaneously.
You
put the fluency techniques to
practical use in real-life situations when you speak spontaneously
in those situations. When you speak spontaneously, you convey
your ideas in a way that you find possible at that point of
time — and not in a preplanned way. So you’re free
to adapt everything you say to frameworks that you then find
possible. Now if you find some difficulty while doing this,
as you speak on, you have to deal with it on the spot —
then and there.
You
see, these are not difficulties that are particular to learners
alone. Even fluent speakers face these speech-planning and
speech-production difficulties every time they speak spontaneously.
Yes, every one of them, without exception. The only difference
between a non-fluent speaker and a fluent speaker is this:
Fluent speakers know fluency techniques. And they’re
good at dealing with these difficulties on the spot —
by applying the fluency techniques unconsciously. In this
way, they’re able to prevent their speech from breaking
up. And when they do this, their speech gives the impression
of a smooth flow. But someone who has not learnt fluency techniques
does not know how to do this, and so they falter and can’t
speak fluently. In fact, the whole thrust of fluency training
is to get you to understand what sort of difficulties these
are, and how you can deal with them as you speak on —
on the spot.
The
whole point is this: The sort of difficulties that you may
have while speaking in a real-life situation are difficulties
that an instructor cannot realistically help you deal with.
They’re difficulties that you will have to deal with
yourself — on the spot.
Difficulty
studying by yourself
This is a self-study course. And so this course is meant for
people who are willing to study on their own – without
being instructed by someone else. And Prof. Kev Nair’s
self-study books make this quite easy to do.
It’s
almost impossible that the self-study learners may have difficulty
understanding things from Prof. Kev Nair’s self-study
books. Here are the reasons:
1).
The self-study books don’t use language that is unclear
or confusing – or that can be understood in more than
one way. They tell you things in the most simple and direct
language. The self-study books use words that are the simplest
that can carry the ideas conveyed, and grammatical structures
that are the clearest and most direct possible. The books
use English that is plain and clear to tell you things.
And they convey ideas from the instructor’s mind to
your mind quickly, easily and accurately.
2).
The topics the self-study books deal with are well-planned
and well-organized, so that they’re clear and sensible
and all their parts fit well together.
3).
The self-study books don’t tell you things in a hurry
or leave you wondering what they mean. They explain everything
slowly and patiently, taking their time doing it. The self-study
books say enough about each little point, so that it gets
firmly into your mind. The books give you plenty of examples
at every step and make it quite easy for you to understand
everything. Plenty of examples – a very large number
of them. And when they explain a point, they give you all
the information you need.
4).
The self-study books anticipate the sort of difficulties
you may run into while learning from them, and the sort
of queries and questions you may like to get answered. The
self-study books deal with these difficulties, and answer
all these queries and questions thoroughly and completely.
So while learning from the self-study books, you’re
not likely to get a feeling that you’re not certain
whether your understanding about some points is correct
or not. And you won’t get a feeling that you’ve
not understood any points fully.
So,
if you can follow simple directions in simple English, you’re
not likely to face any difficulty while learning from Prof.
Kev Nair’s self-study books. Even if you do, self-study
books themselves take care of those difficulties.
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