Student: Jaime Ignacio Bautista Henao / ID: 000234130Course: Communicative Competence IIIProfessor: Daniel Restrepo FernndezDate: April 13th, 2015.

EFL CONCEPTIONS AND LEARNING STRATEGIES:

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has always supposed for many native Spanish speakers, not only from Colombia but also from other neighboring countries, an almost unreachable challenge. Maybe because of the particular structures of any language, maybe because of English comparatively complex phonetic rules, maybe because of a lack of national investment on bilingualism or maybe because most of us just do not dedicate enough time to enhance and practice what we learn, monolingualism still seems to be an ongoing and discouraging situation for a high percentage of our population.

Fortunately, there have been, as well, some proposals of practical strategies to face and overcome the referred learning circumstances and to make English closer to anyone, no matter of their social and financial conditions. First of all, we must consider the four competences related to English proficiency: listening, reading, writing and speaking.

On one hand, listening and reading are known as comprehension skills and can be effectively developed by fostering learning environments that enable the immersion of the EFL learner among the cultural productions of the target English dialect (British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander etc.) such as close-captioned TV series with both the audio and the subtitles in English, audio books of the most representative authors from that nationality, bilingual English-Spanish magazines to recognize equivalent linguistic structures expressions between both languages and songs with their respective lyrics to enhance both listening and reading competences at the same time.

Now, on the other hand, writing and speaking are known as production skills and can be effectively developed by fostering communicative activities such as dialogue scripts, alternative book endings and journal entries for enhancing writing skills; pronunciation practices, dialogue, karaokes, oral speed reading and role playing for enhancing the speaking ones; and dialogue creation-recitation, feeling descriptions and life experiences sharing for enhancing both of them.

As a final insight, in this regard, we should recognize the importance of personal commitment and discipline that learning a foreign language, no matter which it is, certainly demands. As some of our ancestors would say: Persistence pays off what bare wishes just cannot afford.