In four years, within the walls of our office, twenty people began to learn English, and only two reached the advanced level. For a thousand academic hours, they tried group classes, individual consultations, Oxford textbooks, podcasts, articles on Medium, even watched Silicon Valley in the original. Was it worth the effort? Everything is very ambiguous. Here I will give thoughts on what level it is useful to master as a programmer, and when to stop focused learning.
The international classification identifies six levels of English proficiency. As in programming, here it is difficult to draw a clear line between upper-junior and pre-middle - the boundaries are very conditional. However, most courses build a curriculum around these steps. Let's take a look at each stage in the context of development:
A1 (elementary)
The fastest and easiest level. Here you get to know basic phonetics, learn to read and pronounce words correctly. Closed-open syllable and all that. For some reason, many programmers neglect this, confusing accent and correct pronunciation.
Developers . Listen to your colleagues and you will immediately understand that all professional jargon is based on the distorted pronunciation of English words.
At this stage, make an effort on yourself and learn to separate the correct pronunciation and the accepted one among colleagues.
- Key
- hey!
A2 (beginner)
Familiarity with basic constructs and word order.
Make sure all interfaces and development environment are switched to English. Then you will stop feeling uncomfortable mastering new interfaces, you will understand what menu items are responsible for, and what system notifications are talking about.
You will begin to master compound nouns, these are . Your code will become more readable, it will not be so embarrassing to show it to someone.
B1 (intermediate)
English is a kind of βproxy languageβ that is used for communication between people for whom it is not native. Therefore, in English you will communicate not only with the machine, but also with the entire global IT community.
This is where you start reading the documentation in the original source, because no matter where the technology came from (Ruby, for example, was invented in Japan), the documentation will be in English. You will have to rely on electronic translators for this difficult task, but at least you will learn how to use them effectively.
At this stage, you can write a coherent message or instruction on how your code works, or how to use the software. Learn to make relevant search queries not only for keywords, but also in human language. You can post an issue on github, ask a question on stackoverflow, write to the vendor's technical support.
You can stop at this, seriously
When you get to the last page in the Inetrmediate tutorial, close it and skip the next one. At first glance, there is no logic in this, since only half of the course has been completed, but let's face it.
Firstly, if you work for a Russian company, then you don't need English to communicate with colleagues, and you are unlikely to be invited to negotiate with foreign customers. There is nothing wrong with working for the domestic market.
Secondly, by this point you will master all the necessary grammar and earn a normal fireproof vocabulary and phrases. This will be enough for what I described above. In other cases, there is a google translate. By the way, the skill of using electronic translators is greatly underestimated. To understand where the program gives you a good idea, it is desirable to know English at the intermediate level.
The biggest reason is that you will inevitably get stuck at this level anyway. There is even a name for this - Intermediate Plato. The plateau effect is observed in everyone, but only a few who have enough motivation and will overcome it. Fighting this is almost useless.
The thing is that up to this point you raised awareness - you listened to, read, recognized, memorized something, but this did not lead to the desired result. As you progress, your actions are less and less useful, because the skill is not being developed.
Skill development requires constant repetition of the same actions. There are exercises for this in English, but their effectiveness is limited. You can stubbornly open the brackets and substitute words in the gaps, but this has nothing to do with live communication between people.
It turns out that you are constantly being sold content, a lot of different information, how to do something. This will not help to pump the skill in any way. To feel this moment, let's take - more than half of the books have the word intermediate in the title (Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Intermediate Plus, Upper-intermediate). Each subsequent textbook contains less and less new information. Publishers are selling you the illusion that by repeating the material four times, you miraculously find yourself at the advanced level. In reality, textbooks and courses help few people get out of the plateau. It is beneficial for publishers to teach you inefficiently, creating the feeling that a little more - and you will speak no worse than a native speaker.
And last but not least, if you don't have time to hone a skill, or you can't figure out how to do it, then you don't need English. Don't torture yourself just because your friends, coworkers, or family members have signed up for a course. Without English, you can build a great career, become a tech manager, or start a successful business. If there is no time for English, it means that your life suits you. Spend your money on something else.
Source: habr.com