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Come back and let us know your thoughts on this: http://www.allearsenglish.com/302\nGet our FREE IELTS Cheat Sheet: http://www.allearsenglish.com/evaluation\n\xa0\nToday we have a special guest on the show!\nOur guest will challenge your assumption that SPEAKING is the most important part of learning English.\nJulian sees learning languages as a simple, two-step process:\nStep 1: Learn the language that we need for our specific situation\nStep 1: Apply the language and use it\n\xa0\n\xa0\nJulian\u2019s 3 Tips- How to Keep it Practical:\nTry to do many different kinds of things in the language: English is a process. Spend time with it. You can\u2019t HAVE it. You can\u2019t GET it. You need to constantly maintain it.\xa0Julian says that there is no difference between \u201cexperiencing\u201d the language and \u201clearning\u201d the language, as far as your brain is concerned. By experiencing the language in many different ways, we can acquire chunks of English which will help us to sound more native-like. You should try to encounter the language through reading, speaking, listening, writing, etc. Get a more well-rounded experience of the language instead of just focusing on speaking.\n\xa0\nTry to get a balance between intensive activity and relaxed exposure: Some of your work should be deliberate, focused, practical, intensive study. At the same time, some of your work should be a more relaxed encounter with the language. You need to take it in in a way that is enjoyable and easy. You could try listening to music in the language or watching TV. The key is getting a balance between the two forms of learning.\n\xa0\nFocus on things which are useful to YOU: Exclude things that aren\u2019t useful to you. Don\u2019t bother to learn things that you won\u2019t need to use. According to Julian, we don\u2019t become fluent in English. We become fluent in specific topics such as cooking, law, politics, art, etc. Choose your focus and pursue English in that area. Drop the idea of becoming \u201cfluent\u201d in English in general.\n\xa0\nJulian\u2019s Bio:\nOur guest today is an English teacher from England, living in Japan. He is the father of three bilingual children, is halfway through a PhD program in Psycholinguistics and used his insight about language learning to go from speaking poor Japanese in 2008 to being a translator in 2010. Our guest today is Julian from DoingEnglish.com\n\xa0\nWhat do you think?\nHave you focused down on one specific area of English learning?\nWhat area are you focusing on?\nLet us know in the comments!\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices