r/languagelearning: What are some hard truths that every language learner should know?

General discussion about learning languages
User avatar
Steve
Orange Belt
Posts: 169
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:53 am
Location: US (Wisconsin)
Languages: English(N), Spanish (Intermediate), Ancient Greek (Intermediate), Hebrew (Beginner), ASL (Beginner), German (Beginner)
x 801
Contact:

Re: r/languagelearning: What are some hard truths that every language learner should know?

Postby Steve » Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:47 am

kelvin921019 wrote:The trick to "learning xxx language to fluency in [insert a short period of time]" consists of 2 steps
1 - redefine the concept of "fluency"
2 - learn the language

[amended as suggested]


Actually, I took the original order as meaning "spend a bit of time working on a language, and then call however far you've gotten as fluent." Fluency guaranteed every time. :)
5 x

User avatar
tangleweeds
Green Belt
Posts: 449
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 7:09 pm
Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
Languages: English (N)
beginner: Irish
clearing cobwebs: Japanese
on the shelf: French, Latin
wanderlust: Norwegian, Vietnamese
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=705
x 1226

Re: r/languagelearning: What are some hard truths that every language learner should know?

Postby tangleweeds » Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:28 pm

Here's one that's been approached here but not quite reached:

When interacting with native speakers, it's important to be able to laugh at yourself, especially as a beginner, because you're going to make mistakes no matter how long and hard you've studied.

Regarding the learning process:

If you're not enjoying what you're doing, finding some way to get into a flow state in your studying, go out and try new things until you can achieve that flow state where the subject becomes fascinating and deep learning flows.

Also

Not all teachers or tutors or conversation partners will be right for you. Shop around for a good fit.
Of course, the same is true of textbooks, programs, apps, etc.
So in general: don't fall for the spent cost fallacy.

Which leads to:

Find what works for you. It might be totally different from the way your class/book/teacher/app works, the way your friend/sibling/classmate learns, or how anyone on the internet says is the best or only way. Only you know you. Only you can do you, and while you can acquire new skills, in the end, you can only do you.
10 x
Neurological odyssey is going better! Yay!

kelvin921019
Green Belt
Posts: 388
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 12:11 pm
Location: Hong Kong
Languages: Cantonese (N)
Chinese Mandarin (Semi-Native)
English (C1-2)
Spanish (B2)
Japanese (N1)
Russian (B1)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16306
x 1228

Re: r/languagelearning: What are some hard truths that every language learner should know?

Postby kelvin921019 » Thu Jun 10, 2021 3:24 am

- There is no shortcut in language learning, just numerous innovative ways of wasting your time
- there are a**h***s on the internet who will laugh at every aspect of your L2
- don't feel sad if you just finish A1 course and can't understand anything spoken by a native. You are not supposed to understand any
- CEFR level is like manhood - any "self-assessment" should be discounted by 1 level
7 x

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4960
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
x 17566

Re: r/languagelearning: What are some hard truths that every language learner should know?

Postby Cavesa » Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:14 am

tungemål wrote:I prefer to avoid discussions like these, but now I feel compelled to defend teachers as a profession, since some people seem to have had bad experiences with school. Even if I'm "only" a music teacher.

There is nothing "only" about this. Music teachers are important and I'd say the current trend to underestimate music classes both in main schools (where they were always less good and really treated as an unimportant subject) and in the evening art schools is a problem. If only most language teachers I ever had learnt teaching from the instrument or singing teachers.


Cavesa wrote:In various ways. Some teachers like to humiliate the students, shout at them for mistakes, humiliate them in the eyes of classmates on purpose, and so on.

I completely agree. That is unacceptable behaviour, especially for a teacher. A teacher should always be encouraging and positive


I wouldn't even say positive all the time. That's not natural either, and false sense of positivity can just lower the value of genuine praise. However, constructuve criticism should be the norm, not humiliation. Also, raising prestige of the profession and getting better teachers would help. No wonder so many teachers are burnt out and depressed, if they teach only because they've failed to do something else. Hard to encourage other people in such a situation.


And even if a teacher is kind and mature enough to not do that, the school system is very often not encouraging, but rather punishing for any failures. Many students simply look for the mistake at their end (whether or not there is a mistake in them) and come to the "I am simply not talented at this or that" conclusion, which can last for a life time.

Agree, it is important to avoid the feeling of failure, but it can be difficult because of a reason I mention later.

The problem is not failure at something. The problem is the generalisation of failure. The atmosphere, in which a part of the students starts feeling predestined to fail again and again, and the teacher sees it the same way.


The third reason is the lack of guidance on how to learn efficiently, and how to pick a learning style for you.

Again I agree, and believe me, how to learn and learning styles are discussed in schools. It is a challenge to optimise for everyone since often you have a class with 30 students and that is too many to be able to differentiate between the students, who are often very different in how they learn and what level they're on. Ideally one should have one teacher for each pupil.

That's not necessary, even though I agree it would be the best to just individualize learning completely.

You cannot optimise it for the whole group, but you can encourage various paths and self teaching in the free time. Many teachers do the exact opposite, because they don't want a class full of people performing to the best of their ability, they want a homogenous class that is easier to work with.


It's a bit weird of you to ask such a question, as if you didn't believe me.

No, it's not weird, it was an honest question, since you casually put out that statement. Now you're doing what you critise your teachers for: trying to humiliate and ridicule me for asking a question.

No offence meant, I wasn't trying to ridicule or humiliate you. It is just something so obvious that I really find it surprising that you could be suprised. No humiliation intended, sorry if it sounded that way.

However I don't see that you say anything about how education could've been better, unless you mean that we should just close all schools. Leave the pupils alone? Let them do their own thing? I know enough about my pupils (I teach 16-18 age group) that if we just leave them alone, 95% will do nothing. That is just how humans are - we are naturally lazy. Only a small percentage are independent and driven anough that they could structure themselves and learn everything by themselves.


Well, leaving the 5% alone would already be a step in the right direction,leaving the teacher also more time for the 95%. Or perhaps there are ways to improve the numbers. I don't think only 5% of the pupils are good enough to work independently, I'd say at least twice as many people could do it, given better tools. I think we've just missed out on a huge opportunity during the pandemic. Everybody was talking about distance classes, about zoom and alternatives, about contact with the teachers and so on. Important stuff, sure.

But I haven't seen any public discussion about stuff like whether the coursebooks (or online support that is not a videocall) are sufficient for self study with only a bit of guidance. Whether you can learn stuff from them on your own. In case of most language coursebooks for teens: you cannot, they are the worst part of the "communicative" and grammar hating obsession that is for some reason fashionable right now.

The 5% of totally independent people will suffer through school and succeed in spite of it. But the biggest loss for our society are the 5-20% (or perhaps more?) of students, who could learn much more independently and efficiently, given the right tools and a more guidance based approach. But sure, at least half of the students will not do anything and basically needs the slaver, not just support.


I think school before university should present a broad range of subjects, but in a way it doesn't matter what those subjects are. School is an exercise in how to learn, and a taste of a different fields and (ideally) different ways of working. So that maybe one of those subjects might catch the interest and passion of a pupil who will continue with it more in-depth later.
Edit: I forgot to mention that one important purpose of school is as a meeting place between the pupils, and a place where they can learn cooperation and how to function as individuals in a society.

That's a noble idea, but a part of the problem. Number 1 problem of my teen sister at school now? She is going back to school from distance classes and sees how inefficient it is, and how toxic are the relationships. It doesn't teach how to cooperate, it teaches how to bully or be bullied, how to become the same clone like everybody else, and how to waste tons of time. Is this the goal? Perhaps it is, and it explains a lot of stuff about our society very sadly.

I agree there should be a broad range of subjects, but the main purpose is knowledge and preparation for further studies, with some minimum standards in everything. Individualized education should be the goal and groups only a necessary evil to cut down the costs. What most teachers see as cooperation and functioning in a society is actually the most toxic kind of structure.

One reason I thought people would mention: In schools we normally have to grade pupils, and I'm often conflicted about this. It can create feelings of failure. In my school we grade the level the pupil has reached. The effort the pupil has put in, is (or should be) irrelevant in the grading process. It's tough to grade pupils who worked hard, but didn't reach a high level, with a low grade. Especially since it's very easy for some pupils who just coast along, working very little but still achieving good grades.

It is a bit more problematic in music, I see. But in general, grades are important. It is extremely naive (no offence meant, I criticise the idea, not you or another person) to blame just the grades for a whole range of problems. If you get rid of the grades, it doesn't solve anything and it creates worse problems. How do I know? First hand experience.

I had the bad luck of being in class without grades for a few years (a school that was supposed to do some new way of teaching, but it turned out to be a hell). It was horrible, lack of grades was worsening everything. Any report was 100% subjective, the teacher (a mean and very dumb woman. But you cannot invent a system just for exceptionally clever teachers, you need to count with the existence of the dumb ones too) was mostly judging character of the students in her reports (it was obvious even before the start of the year who would be praised and who would be condamned by the end of it. You could read very little about the actual skills but a lot of judgmental trash), no way to defend yourself (because there was no objective part), everything depended on her choice of words (the same skill can be describe totally differently, we'll probably agree on that). As a high iq pupil, at the level of people 5 years older than me in most subjects (except for physical education, ok), I was humiliated, my relatives thought I was failing in the first grade, and I never felt rewarded. I had no internal reward, because I was learning nothing new at school, and no external reward, because I couldn't even get the excellent grade I deserved. What should have been my qualities and advantage was my burden, until I got to a better school (and finally was getting grades! So even if I was bored sometimes, I got some reward)

The competition is also very important, because it prepares you better for the real life, where you simply get graded all the time in one way or another.

Grades and diplomas are the most valuable part of school actually, even though I agree the system could be improved. Five grades in my country, that's not enough (people getting the same grade can be vastly different), and there could be an effort grading part for example. But getting rid of the grades never ends well, it only gives power to the teacher without any corrective measure, and it further punishes the clever and/or hard working kids, while falsely reassuring the lazy and/or stupid ones. Grades have their problems, but they set at least some limits to the teacher, and they give at least some guidance to the student in regards to how well they perform.


I agree with the sentiment that one should take responsibility for ones own learning, but it's hard to get pupils to realise that. They're normally waiting for instructions on what to do. I can't force anyone to learn anything - the pupils have to take some initiative, especially the age group I'm teaching. Actually, even if it can be hard to remember in the day-to-day grind, my philosophy is to try to inspire and guide the pupils, not only to teach them a lot of facts, because they need an inner drive if they are to become good at anything. With the right drive it is easy to learn.


Is it really so hard to trasmit to the pupils, or is it a problem of the whole environment? Perhaps they need more rewards and punishments. Why take initiative, when the initiative doesn't matter? Why take initiative, when it only leads to disappointment, boredom, or bullying?

The least school can do is not stand in the way of the pupils with the drive. It is harder to find some drive for the rest, true. But even that could be done, at least for a part of the population. But it is hard to even think about it these days, we'll keep feeling the results of the covidworld for years,perhaps decades.
5 x

FrenchHero
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2021 3:40 pm
Languages: French (B2), Spanish (Native), English (C1), Portuguese (Native), German (A0)
x 43

Re: r/languagelearning: What are some hard truths that every language learner should know?

Postby FrenchHero » Wed Jun 30, 2021 6:07 am

The harsh truth I’m trying to deal with lately can be summed up into:

- Just because you don’t like a language doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be useful to learn it, even if you can get away with it.

I live in a region that has a local language. I’ve been living here for about five years and I’ve refused to learn it. I just don’t like it. Even my kids know it by now. :roll:

Lately since I’ve started with my French quest and I’m taking on English C2 I convinced myself that I can get away with postponing it for a while longer.
2 x
Grammaire Progressive Perf: 40 / 85
Assimil French Perf: 50 / 70

C1 French: 2 / 6


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Beli Tsar, emk and 2 guests