When I was in school, my town was experimenting with new teaching methods for English and chose my class as one of the experimental classes. As a result of all the experimentation that followed us through the years, my class fell through the gaps in some areas which made understanding English really difficult for me.

Because I had trouble understanding the ins and outs of my native language, when learning other languages, I could not grasp the ins and outs of the new language because, although I was, most likely, taught the information as a child, it was taught without many of the complex labels such as present subjunctive, past participle, and predicate nominative. There was no checking for understanding by the teachers, and students’ questions were redirected to the textbook. This made learning tenses, conjugations, and other essential bits of Spanish, German, or French that I tried to learn later on in my schooling nearly impossible because my brain had no reference, nothing to compare new information to similar information I already had. Since I was missing these pieces in my own language, I struggled endlessly to make sense of the rules and grammar of other languages.

No matter how hard I tried to mimic the structures and examples of sentences I read or heard, I felt like a failure because I still didn’t understand what I was doing or why I was doing it that way.

Finally, I was so tired of trying to hide my insecurities and of feeling like an imposter, that I dug deep within myself and found a way through. I finally figured out how to make sense of my native English. Language has to make sense to each individual in our individual way.

Now, I want to share my methods with others who struggle to learn English. We’re not changing the rules. We’re simply changing the way we look at learning the language so that we learn it in the way that suits our individual learning style.