Tag: psychology

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Fake It Just To Make It: 4 Ways to Pretend to Speak Any Language

Okay, this post will not teach you how to fake any foreign language. But by posing the challenge itself – by asking “what would it take to pretend you can speak a foreign tongue?” – you can learn a lot about how languages are used, interpreted and learned. So let’s get to it – here are four secrets to sounding good in all languages (even those you can’t speak yet!)

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1 Simple Method and 3 Awesome Apps To Keep At Your Language Learning Habits

Depending on who you ask, habits are either very important to language learning – or absolutely crucial. Since there’s such a lot of stuff to learn, master and improve, it takes lots of determination to keep your linguistic aspirations alive. As with all habits, there’s stuff that gets in the way – and, fortunately, there’s also lots of help out there. Today, for those who feel that their language-learning habits could use some help – one simple method and three low-cost, nifty implementations to take with you on the go. Get ready to have your willpower boosted!

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Build On What You Know: Scaffolding for Language Learners

The problem I have with a lot of language teachers is this: the techniques, terms and strategies they use to teach languages cannot be easily transferred to the learners who want to do the work by themselves. I’m big on DIY language learning and on guerrilla solutions recently. That’s why today I’m tackling one of these techniques, and trying to describe it so that every language learner can at least begin thinking about using it!

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The Linguistics of Melancholy – Memory, Language and Loss

As I’m writing this, I watch the sun rising over my city. I see the roofs change colour and I see thin mist rising over the bay. If I opened the window, I could smell the sea from here.
I’m moving out in less than a week’s time. Which means that – despite my determination to keep coming back to this charming bit of land – there are some things that I’m currently doing for the last time ever.
It’s a powerful feeling, and I’ve noticed that it changes the way you perceive and remember things. Sights, conversations, meals – everything seems to have more value if you know this might be the last occasion for it! This made me wonder – is there a way to tap into this emotional state that would benefit your language learning?
As it turns out, there might be. Read on for a brief discussion of how melancholy impacted memory (several distinguished memories, in fact), how psychology defined what’s going on – and for a few suggestions that could make your everyday language learning a lot more memorable.

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Moving On: Post-traumatic Language Learning

“We’re going to take your questions to people. Go out there and ask them, and note down the answers.”

We got the pens, paper and umbrellas (Wales!). We walked slowly to the Tourist Information Centre.
Ms Y walked up to me. She was a young Saudi lady, dressed traditionally and covered up. We walked together for a while.
“I have bad experiences with these kinds of lessons,” she said in her intermediate English. She told me of the last time she went out to speak to people as part of her English lesson. One of the local teenagers she spoke to took her worksheet and scribbled his answer – a string of abuse that she couldn’t understand until somebody explained this to her.
“I couldn’t come to school for a week, I was so depressed,” she said.
And yet she was with the rest of the class, walking out there, ready to speak to strangers in a strange language. Ready to be at risk, out of line. Smiling and looking forward to it.
Moving on.
This post is inspired by people like her.

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Self-Reliance in Language Learning: 5 Lessons from Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

In the middle of a snowy, dark winter, many years ago, Yours Truly spent many days and evenings in a cafe near a university – drinking gallons of latte, smoking his lungs out and reading everything he could borrow, buy or photocopy. Such were the joys of university life.

Fast forward several years, and many of the literary gems read during that period are already fading from memory. I loved English and American literature, but there was just too much of it for one boy to devour at once. There is one essay, however, which I can still quote at length; one brief account whose clarity and boldness still inspires me.

Today, I want to try to connect my admiration for Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” with language learning. It is clear to me that Emerson’s thoughts are useful guidelines for most people – and that language learners could do worse than to look to philosophy for inspiration. I hope that by the end of this brief post, it will become clear to you as well. I have selected my five favourite quotes – and will try to explain how they link to language learning.

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