We are not used to thinking about the fact that language and speech are far from the same thing. What would seem to be the difference? Both are means of communication. The difference turns out to be very significant when we are going to learn a foreign language. Without understanding what exactly we need to learn and why, we risk being drawn into an endless learning process that may never lead us to the desired result. To make the story clear, let's look at examples. Listen to the speech of people who studied a foreign language, but did not master speech skills: Former Moscow mayor Yu. Luzhkov speaks English Prime Minister of the Russian Federation D. Medvedev speaks English People who were not limited by the budget for their education were deliberately chosen as examples and they clearly received not the worst teachers. The lack of time for managers at this level does not excuse the resulting result: a mother with many children or a working person does not have much more free time to learn a language. It’s great that a person speaks a foreign language to the general public - this is worthy of respect. Unfortunately, this is the only appropriate compliment here. In general, it seems as if the person speaks Russian, but in English words. This impression arises for several reasons: - the intonation and rhythm of speech remain Russian; - the pronunciation is below any criticism; - the text was written by a Russian person, without the slightest attempt to get rid of the tracing (transfer) of Russian expressions into English. We know from our experience what to teach leaders of this level is not an easy task for a teacher for many reasons. It is sad, but teaching skills in Russia have been lost for one generation. The Center for Language Psychology was lucky: we managed to pick up the baton, put it into technology and make a product accessible to everyone. CLP programs are designed to equip students with practical speaking skills instead of abstract “language teaching.” Speech is a specific human tool that allows us not only to convey information to each other about the present, future and past, but also to think. Human thinking is based on internal speech and does not exist outside of speech. Language is a system for encoding information. It’s not for nothing that there are programming languages, but there is no “programming speech.” With the help of a certain system of signs and symbols, people and even animals convey a variety of information to each other. Human language is clothed in speech as a form. Speech is a skill, a practical tool for communication, language is a system of knowledge. Speech can be oral, written and internal. Oral speech includes auditory understanding and speaking, written speech includes reading and writing, inner speech is thinking, a person’s conversation with himself. To study a foreign language, it is important to understand that the components of speech are physiologically related to each other in a certain system and sequence. It is impossible to learn to speak without listening to speech. At the same time, the better and more correctly you speak, the better you understand by ear: this is how the human auditory-speech system works, reinforcing itself on both sides. It is impossible to learn to write correctly if you do not read. But if you know how to read, you will master writing skills without the slightest difficulty. The opposite is also true: a person who writes a lot will be faster and easier to read. Parents of children who find it difficult to write correctly should take note of this: ask the child to read, including out loud! Under natural conditions, language follows speech. When mastering our native language, we actually start learning it only at school, that is, when we already speak it. With the classical approach to learning foreign languages, this principle is always violated: we are first taught the language, and then we need to somehow, “in reverse,” get to speech. Not everyone can overcome this tricky path. It is especially difficult to get close to oral speech. More precisely, learning to say something is not so difficult,.