Word webs

Hello everybody

 

Today I want to talk about a new idea I have had to do some language practice on our own with no more than a piece of paper and a pen.

 

I call this idea “word web”. With this idea, you can practice:

 

Thinking in a language

 

Writing

 

Reading and grammar

 

Speaking/Listening

 

You can do this anywhere, whilst travelling, at home, with friends. I had the idea when I was flying to Germany and I wanted to practice German but I had nothing with me except a pen and paper. The idea is simple and you can do this in any language.

 

I will demonstrate it here using English. You start with a simple sentence:

 

“My friend has a car” – you write it down

 

Next, you quickly think of extra words to make the sentence bigger.

 

For example: “My good friend has bought a new car”

 

– you write this down under the first sentence. Now, you make another sentence from your head – don’t worry about making mistakes

 

“My good friend from London has bought himself a new red car which he likes very much.”

 

You write this down also Then you make a bigger sentence.

 

“My very good friend from London, with whom I spoke with last week, told me he has bought himself a new red car which he likes very much.”

 

4 sentences are probably enough although you could write more.

"My very good friend from London, with whom I spoke with last week, told me that he had recently bought himself a new read sports car which he really likes very much indeed."

 

You can then check the sentences as well as you can for grammar and spelling and then read each sentence out loud and listen to how you say it. So, from four sentences, you have a lot of chance to practice many different language skills. I believe that this will help also improve fluency

 

If you wanted to, you can say the sentences the other way round:

 

"The new red car that my very good friend from London bought is something he likes very much, as he told me last week when I spoke with him."

 

(Same idea, just a more complicated way to say it)

The important thing is to think of it like a game and enjoy it, getting the words from your head as you can. This will make you think more clearly in the language and help you to think of the words you need when you have conversations with people.

 

Enjoy your word webs, you can keep them and look at them again a few weeks later and try the same sentences again to see if you can think of words more quickly than before. You can even make other sentences from the same sentence:

 

the roses are red -> the roses in my garden are red -> the beautiful roses in my small garden are red and in full bloom.

 

 red roses look nice -> red roses look nice in my garden -> the red roses that I bought last week look very nice in my garden.

 

Bye for now

 

Alan