Hello, incoming freshmen and returning students alike!
I hope you are all doing fine and make the most of this time of crisis as positively and optimistically as you can. While we cannot go out and enjoy outside activities as much as we want to, this is in a way a great opportunity for us–not just students but also professors(!)–to do things and learn things that we may not normally have time or energy for. I hope my “mini-lecture” will give you a bit of an idea that you can take advantage of to make your learning life fruitful.
What it says basically is “jump into communication without waiting!” And communication means not just speaking, but also reading, writing, and listening as long as you attend to the meaning that is conveyed. So, read and listen a lot–which is really fundamental, but if you add some speaking and/or writing in the process, you can increase the amount of intake you can derive from them. Speaking and writing make you pay closer attention to how language is used when you read and listen. After all, you can only learn what you pay attention to. And output (that is, speaking and writing) is a good way to push you to pay close attention to what you have to learn. I hope you will enjoy this dynamic process of second language acquisition!
Here are the PDF slides for my talk:
Send me an email (<email hidden; JavaScript is required>) if you have any questions.
Best wishes,
Sean Izumi
