In my lessons, I never use the word ''homework''. Instead, I talk about flow.
By that, I mean the flow I encourage my students to create during, and in between lessons, by actively focusing on the four skills at the core of language learning: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
If all you do, is bury your nose in a grammar book, you're only learning a language in theory, which is a contradiction in and of itself.
If you use the grammar book to understand the logic of the language you're learning and as a starting block to launch you into:
reading simplified stories, which gradually get more complicated,
listening to short dialogues, songs, then the radio, then into watching films/series,
making short conversations which become longer and more nuanced with time,
then you have flow and, crucially, communication.
There will be pauses, hesitations, questions, doubt, fumbling even at times, but communication will inevitably take place.
You cannot go from not knowing a language to seamless conversation. The many steps in between to create a flow are what makes language learning so rewarding and so much fun. That is, as long as you let yourself go... with the flow!
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