English teacher Nataliia Pinkevych

THE LIFE OF AN ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNER

Many people when hearing about some research concerning building a good habit or eliminating a bad one expect one and only formula on how to do that. I wish it were so simple. The problem is there is no single solution. Every bad habit acquired by us through our lives differs from another. A habit of smoking is different from a habit of procrastination in its nature, therefore, it needs a different approach.

MIT researchers have found that a habit consists of 3 components:

1. A cue (a trigger)
2. Routine (performing a habit)
3. Reward

Taking this into account, Charles Duhigg, a writer of the book ‘The power of habit’ provides us with a theoretical framework that we need to adjust to our own lives if we want to build a new good habit.

1. Identify the habit routine
2. Experiment with the rewards
3. Find the cue (trigger)

As an example let’s take a nasty habit of many language learners ‘Not having enough time for learning a language daily’ So, the good habit here would be ‘Having 25 mins every day for learning', which might seem easy-peasy, but it’s not as experience shows.

Then:
1. CUE - ?
2. ROUTINE - Killing one mistake (as a language teacher I will give it to you, promise)
3. REWARD– 365 mistakes eliminated from your speech (looks like you are a quite fluent speaker now)

It’s a WOW, isn’t it? I would start to miss my students’ ‘Present Simple’ mistakes 😉
But how to find that CUE?

There are a few experiments Charles Duhigg described in his book worth mentioning.

A group of people was taken as a sample and was asked to do sports every day. Not only was the result of the experiment the improvement in physical health but also in people's other habits, related to the initial one. It seemed like people’s lives improved on various levels, they started eating healthier, had better relations in their families, and were more productive during the day.

The researchers were only partly satisfied with the result as it might have all been caused by the endorphins as a result of doing sport. Luckily after imposing other habits in the following experiments, the result turned out to be similar. One habit triggered the improvement in related habits. People were asked to write down their expenses every day, as soon as it became their habit they also started eating healthier, doing more sport, and improved their relations in families.

The main takeaway here is perhaps we should start with some simple habit, see the result and let it automatically improve our other ones, who knows, maybe one of them will be getting down to learning a language every day.

Another experiment, mentioned in the same book, concerned elderly people who had gone through hip surgery. The next very important step in post-surgery treatment is exercising even before the hip gets fully healed.
Many of those patients gave up on exercises within the first weeks as it was insanely painful to do.

In the experiment, two sample groups were taken, both of them were provided with leaflets, where their further rehabilitation plan was described. The leaflets differed though. One sample group was also asked to write down their detailed plan additionally to the provided information. They wrote when and how they would exercise, what they would wear, and what they would do if the hip started aching out of a sudden.
One patient wrote that he would stand up from his armchair (cue – the time when his wife comes back from work), put on a tracksuit, given to him as a present by his wife and then walk to the bus stop (routine – performing the habit) to meet his wife (reward – hugging his wife). Moreover, on his way to the bus stop, there were many benches he could sit on if his hip started aching, additionally he planned on taking pain killers.

The conclusion here is as we often give up on the tasks, like language learning, a deliberate plan and being ready to act when we encounter a desire to give up might be a solution to the problem.

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

Link to the book in Polish:

http://tidd.ly/632b35cc

Link to the book in English:

http://tidd.ly/358417db

More on habits and goals:

https://fs.blog/2017/06/habits-vs-goals/

THE LIFE OF AN ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNER

Do you feel lazy and guilty when you commute by public transport? Many people do, therefore nowadays everyone opts for, as they think, a better solution, which is scrolling through social media. When we do that we tend to think that we are not wasting time but instead we are getting new ideas and learning something new.
Unfortunately, this activity doesn’t really let us mind-wander, though it gives an impression of having a break.

Barbara Oakley, a professor of engineering and a writer of 2 amazing books, ‘A mind for numbers’ and ‘Mindshift’ explains why mind-wandering is as important as intense work.

According to the Professor, there are 2 modes of thinking, a focused mode – we concentrate intently on the task, and diffuse mode – when we daydream, during walking, staring into a window, listening to music, etc.

Both modes are equally valuable and it’s the harmony between them that really matters while learning a language as it is a complicated process.

We master the details in focused mode, then comprehend how everything fits together in diffuse mode. It’s similar to the way your mind works when you read a sentence in a book, you are in a focus mode while concentrating on it, then your brain shifts to a diffuse mode when you step back and think of the entire work. Those processes are strictly connected and can’t either happen one without another or happen at the same time.

Another example of a diffuse mode is a micro-nap, lasting less than a second, this technique was used by Thomas Edison and Salvador Dali and helped them generate new ideas and see how they can fit their projects.

In a nutshell, when learning a language our brain will eventually beg us for a diffuse mode, so don’t consider it as a waste of time, instead, let it wander and analyze what you have just learned. Use every opportunity of day-dreaming, as this is when our mind recognizes the new ideas.

You can buy the book 'A mind for numbers' by following the affiliated link:

http://tidd.ly/a30dac36

You can buy the book 'Mindshift' in Polish by following the affiliated link:

http://tidd.ly/6cf24b95

You can buy the book 'Mindshift' in English by following the affiliated link:

http://tidd.ly/c6b65ebc

Additional information:

https://fs.blog/2019/10/focused-diffuse-thinking/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26869943

Photo by bradley pisney on Unsplash

THE LIFE OF AN ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNER

‘At the end of a long day of d o o m-s c r o l l I n g about coronavirus news, 2 c o r o n i a l s decided to organize a
v i r t u a l h a p p y h o u r where they would take sips of a q u a r a n t i n i or a c o r o n a r i t a and chat with their friends about how they can spend time profitably and how they could motivate other c o v i d i o t s to stay at home. At the end of the party, all of them concluded that as many people get z u m p e d by their partners these days they might want to organize z o o m d a t i n g to entice people to stay at home. They were sure that this activity would make people’s lives more fun u n d e r the r o n a.’

During these trying times, we need some relief, and what is better than some wordplay to bring some welcome humor?
To remember this vocabulary one of the best ways is to come up with hilarious and ridiculous stories as those ones stay in our memory the longest.
I’ve created mine, now your turn.

https://www.dictionary.com/e/s/new-words-we-created-because-of-coronavirus/ #1

THE LIFE OF AN ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNER

Taking into account that very often adults cannot afford to have 2 or 3 English classes a week, either because of lack of time or because it’s quite costly. In any case, the exercise which, I am about to share, helps improve speaking skills, and is neither time consuming nor costly, on the contrary, it’s free of charge.

Recording yourself speaking English is powerful, however, most hated by my students. No wonder it is so. According to various studies, there is likely anyone on this planet who doesn’t cringe when they hear their voice. Perhaps, if we dig in a little deeper and try to understand the reason for that we will stop hating it so much.

According to the common explanation, we receive both sounds externally, while speaking, and internally, the latter channel makes an impression that our voice is rather deep, low-pitched. On the other hand, when we hear our voice not produced by us but by the recording, the channel of the sound is only one, it’s external, and there is no more deep effect, therefore, our voice sounds different, and it seems to be high-pitched.

However, even if our voice makes us cringe we will anyway rate it higher than the other person’s voice, as was published in the study on PubMed. People were asked to rate the voices they heard from the recording without being told that one of those was their own. The result was that they often picked their own one and liked it the most.

Taking all that into account we can get rid of our fear and move on to the benefits of self-recording:

1. You get more chance to speak, which means more language practice
2. You will be able to estimate what are the areas for improvement
3. If you do it regularly and then after some time compare the last recording with the first one you will notice huge improvement, which will motivate you to learn the language.
4. As I ask my students to read an article before a lesson, you can also self-record, the outcome will be the saved time and the better-learned material, moreover, you will motivate your teacher with your progress
5. It will grow your confidence
6. The teacher will not have to correct the same mistakes over and over again

So, why not give it a try?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24386714
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jul/12/the-real-reason-the-sound-of-your-own-voice-makes-you-cringe
Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

THE LIFE OF AN ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNER

According to Dr. Lorenzo Garcia-Aretio, the UNESCO Chair Holder in Distance Education, there are some differences between adult and young learners.
• The prospect of achieving high teenage goals is reduced.
• There is often a purely pragmatic requirement.
• Youthful curiosity decreases.
• Adults are rather not interested in abstract and theoretical ideas, they prefer real-life examples.
• The sensory and perceptive reaction is reduced, therefore they need a different pace of learning.
• They find it more difficult to adapt to new situations, educational settings.
• There is concern about failure.
• Because of the higher level of tiredness and lack of time they avoid devoting time to the intellectual effort.
• There is a higher possibility of being susceptible to criticism, thus feeling insecure.
• They often drag the weight of frustrating learning experience that convinced them in having no predisposition to language learning.
• They are more concentrated in class which promotes efficiency.
• They have a hands-on experience they are eager to share.

So, if adults are so much different than teenagers or children, why are the system and educational approaches so similar?
No wonder the adult student continuing education reacts with bewilderment at the number of tasks that are in the class materials, showing early fatigue to the lack of originality of the teaching method, which reminds them of their previous attempts and failures and one more time persuades that they will never achieve success.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lorenzo_Garcia-Aretio2

Photo by Emma Matthews Digital Content Production on Unsplash

THE LIFE OF AN ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNER

To achieve fluency in a language, one needs to acquire 4 skills, writing and speaking, reading and listening. Writing and reading fall into one pair as well as speaking and listening fall into another. Writing gets nowhere unless it is read, one might as well shout into the wind if what one says is not listened to.
How many of these skills were you taught at school? Have you ever been at least explained the difference between ‘speaking’ and ‘talking’?

The word ‘talk’ is often misused as a synonym for ‘speech’, as when someone says ‘I was asked to give a talk’ instead of saying ‘I was asked to give a speech’. Strictly speaking, you cannot give a talk, you can have one, as when you talk, the other person is involved. When you talk, it is always 2-way traffic. On the other hand, you can give a speech if the audience that is physically present only appears to be listening to you. Therefore, there are such set expressions like ‘small talk’, ‘to give a speech’, ‘to have a heart-to-heart talk’.

However, if one knows such a collocation as a ‘pep talk’, a short speech intended to encourage people to work harder or try to win a game or competition, I would want to say that this is rather a ‘pep speech’ (such an expression is incorrect), as usually when, for instance, a boss gives a pep talk to his staff, he/she speaks and everyone nods, though it’s not necessarily always the case.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pep-talk
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/speak
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/talk
Photo by Kyle Smith on Unsplash

THE LIFE OF AN ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNER

Laura-Ann Petito, a cognitive neuroscientist known for research in early language acquisition explains how adults learn languages in comparison to children.

Imagine that a child is exposed to 2 languages, then the part of the brain responsible for processing and generating that native one also processes the 2nd language at the same capacity. That is why such language skills as building sentences and native pronunciation come naturally.

However, that part of the brain doesn't process the 2nd language when we're exposed to it as adults, which explains why we get the sensation that it's a different type of task and it's harder.

The reason is that our brain distributes it across other tissues, calls in for help and pulls in other parts of the brain to accomplish the task.

This doesn't concern our ability to learn new vocabulary, good news here, this skill is open for life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura-Ann_Petitto
Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

THE LIFE OF AN ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNER

For decades we’ve been following the myth that kids learn languages so much better and faster but only a few of us have asked a question why is that so?

Ellen Bialystok, a distinguished research professor of psychology at York University will help us debunk this myth.

‘Everyone the kids interact with, interacts with them for the purpose of helping them learn the language. If adults had this opportunity to quit their jobs for 5 years and were provided with a mentor who would speak to them at exactly the level they need and talked about the things that a mentor already knows they’re thinking about, they would be very successful’.

Unfortunately, life rarely gives us that chance, so the main difference in learning languages as a child and as an adult is LIFE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Bialystok
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash