Gabriele Oettingen’s Theory of Mental Contrasting

Gabriele Oettingen was one of my professors at the University of Hamburg. She teaches also at New York University.

She and her team studied how the way we think about the future influences our achievements.

There are two unproductive strategies:

-          Indulging in dreams about a positive future;

-          Focusing on the negative present reality.

The strategy of mental contrasting consists of:

-          Making a list of three positive aspects of the desired future;

-          Making a list of three negative aspects of the present reality.

Elaborating first on the first positive, then on the first negative aspect. Then on the second positive and the second negative, and so on.

By this, you will increase the likelihood of

-          Taking action

-          Preparing for obstacles

-          Getting rid of completely irrelevant or impossible goals.

Just apply this technique to your language learning.

Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/opinion/sunday/the-problem-with-positive-thinking.html
https://positivepsychology.com/mental-contrasting/

The GO Method

 “I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Has helped more than 1200 students advance their studies and professional career by obtaining excellent German and Spanish skills.

Psychologist and language teacher, from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Speaks 21 languages.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.

The advantage of speaking slowly

Photo by Song kaiyue from Pexels

For many language learners speed is an important issue.

They complain that people in that country speak “so much faster than in my language”.

They feel incompetent because they cannot speak as fast as “native speaker”.

There are several advantages to speaking slowly.

1.       Even if you speak correctly, people may perceive you as being nervous, not as being a highly competent speaker.

2.       In most cultures, people that are high up in the social hierarchy speak slowly. Speaking slowly is a sign of high status. Low-status people typically speak like a waterfall.

3.       Speaking slowly allows you to master the language. The same is valid also for playing a musical instrument, or doing certain sports, or typing with ten fingers. Almost all serious teachers recommend practicing slowly, if you want to get rid of mistakes.

Attention: Speaking slowly does not mean that you should make many pauses. Of course, your speech should flow uninterruptedly.

The GO Method

 “I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Has helped more than 1200 students advance their studies and professional career by obtaining excellent German and Spanish skills.

Psychologist and language teacher, from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Speaks 21 languages.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.

Foreign languages and mental health improvement

Photo by nicollazzi xiong from Pexels

For many language learners, the process of learning a new language involves a lot stress.

·         We feel incompetent.

·         We are impatient with ourselves.

·         We are no longer in our comfort zone.

·         We compare ourselves to better students and we feel envy.

·         We have doubts about our own memory.

On the other hand, you can use foreign languages to obtain a therapeutic effect.

·         You develop a feeling of self-efficacy. You feel that you are able to achieve great things.

·         You become more disciplined and more oriented towards long-term goals.

·         You become more capable of being emphatic with other people. You will become more capable of understanding the viewpoints of other people.

·         You can write a personal diary/journal where you express all your emotions and secrets - in the language that you are learning. Nobody should have access to it, of course. If you want, you can burn your pages later on. You can write with mistakes and with incomplete sentences. James Pennebaker is a professor of Psychology at the University of Texas. For decades, he has researched the health benefits of Expressive Writing Therapy. Check out the link here, if you want to read his scientific articles.

·         Thinking and talking in another language can help you develop a new personality. Almost all our emotions and thoughts are connected to our native language. The entire negative self-talk in our head is in our native language. When we discipline ourselves to think in another language, we have the freedom to think new thoughts. All the negative messages from our teachers or parents are in our native language. When we switch to another language, those negative thoughts will have a harder time to come through.

·         The words in the foreign language do not have any emotional connection to our childhood and adolescence. Therefore, we can allow ourselves to express ourselves differently, with words that we would consider silly in our native language.

The GO Method

 “I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Has helped more than 1200 students advance their studies and professional career by obtaining excellent German and Spanish skills.

Psychologist and language teacher, from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Speaks 21 languages.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.

The wrong strategy of avoiding mistakes

Nobody wants to make mistakes in foreign languages. In the past,

·         School teachers have punished us;

·         Parents have interrupted us;

·         Classmates have laughed at us.

We often feel guilty or ashamed, after somebody has corrected us. Therefore, many language learners think that they should avoid mistakes at all costs. This is very dangerous and unproductive.

Yes, our goal is to speak without mistakes. At the end (!) of our learning process. Not in the beginning. Why?

There are various ways to reduce mistakes.

·         You can simply shut up. If you do not open your mouth, you will not make any mistakes.

·         If you speak in extremely short sentences, you will make few mistakes only.

·         If you memorize sentences, you will make few mistakes.

Most language learners adopt one of the above strategies. This is very stupid.

We need to make mistakes in the beginning,

·         so that we can discover new rules,

·         so that we can experiment to say more complex things,

·         so that we can gain experience.

One of the stupidest ideas I have heard (many times) is this: If you make a mistake in the beginning, you will never get rid of it. If this were true, no baby would ever learn to speak. As babies, we have made billions of mistakes during our first years.

The following is essential.

You need

·         to document your mistakes,

·         to analyze them,

·         to work systematically on them.

For your whole life. This process should never stop.

The GO Method

 “I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Has helped more than 1200 students advance their studies and professional career by obtaining excellent German and Spanish skills.

Psychologist and language teacher, from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Speaks 21 languages.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.

The advantage of outdated techniques for language learning

Photo by Anthony from Pexels

What do you think? How many people learn foreign languages with the help of a software/an app? During the last five years. Do you really think that people speak so much better in foreign languages? Nowadays.

What really happens is the following: Much more people start to learn a foreign language. But: Most of them remain beginners for the rest of their lives.

Why can so-called outdated techniques be an advantage?

·         People may have simply forgotten about them.

·         Nobody else is using them.

·     Some techniques are forgotten not because they do not produce results, but because pupils and teachers do not “like” them. They think they are boring, too difficult or outdated. Most pupils and teachers want to have “fun”. They want to be “modern”.

Let me give you an example. This is what I started to do recently. I copy texts in other languages. What?! Yes, I copy texts by hand. Like in the Middle Ages. Do you remember that from history? Monks or professional scribes did that during their whole life.

Why should that help?

·         You activate words in your brain in a concrete context.

·         Writing by hand helps you to process and remember those words on a deeper level.

As a side effect:

·         You become more relaxed.

·         You can improve your handwriting.

·         You combine that with learning to type with ten fingers. (Check out: www.typingstudy.org)

The GO Method

 “I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Has helped more than 1200 students advance their studies and professional career by obtaining excellent German and Spanish skills.

Psychologist and language teacher, from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Speaks 21 languages.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.

What can you learn from the fact that I make a weekly podcast in twenty-one languages

Photo by Tommy Lopez from Pexels

Two weeks ago I launched my newest podcast. At this moment, I make a weekly podcast in twenty-one languages. (for the complete list: www.thegomethod.org/podcasts) 

Maybe I am the only one that does that. Is this relevant for the Guinness Book of World Records? Probably not.

Why do I do this? And, most importantly, what can you learn from my experience?

What are my reasons for doing this?

1.      I want to do something useful with those languages.

2.      I want to feel as much pressure as possible, so that I must improve.

3.      I want to be transparent in regard of my strengths and weaknesses in those languages.

What lessons can you learn from my experience?

1.      There will never be a person (a “language commissar/minister” that will give you the permission to speak in a foreign language. Nobody gave me the permission to start all those podcasts. I have no certificate in any of those languages.

2.      The earlier you speak in public, the quicker you will improve. If I had waited until I feel ready, I would have only postponed my improvement.

3.      You will become immune against criticism.

4.      You will lose your fear of making mistakes, when you make many mistakes in the beginning.

5.      You learn more, if you feel that you are producing something helpful for other people.

The GO Method

 “I have been living in Germany for years. I have gone through all the levels and sustained the necessary exams. Nonetheless, I still make too many mistakes as to get a serious employment in my profession.”

It is easy to start a foreign language. It takes only practice and living abroad to get fluent. To learn the last (!) 5% and to speak without mistakes, however, you will need completely different approach.

The GO Method helps you get rid of your chronic grammar and pronunciation mistakes by applying psychology and principles of quality management.

We offer corrective courses for some languages, as well a general system for improving your use of any language. We support companies in improving the language proficiency of key employees.

Gerhard J. Ohrband

Has helped more than 1200 students advance their studies and professional career by obtaining excellent German and Spanish skills.

Psychologist and language teacher, from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married, one son. MA in psychology from the 

University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Speaks 21 languages.

Contact

Send us an e-mail: Gerhard.j.ohrband@gmail.com

Our homepage: http://thegomethod.mozello.com/

Our online courses: https://gerhards-school.thinkific.com/

Our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3n5LCxW8N3uPatViww-Okw/

Our podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-of-learning-foreign-languages/

Our blog: https://thegomethod.blogspot.com/

Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theGOMethod/

On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerhard-j%C3%B6rg-ohrband-22525147/

If you want to save time in learning a foreign language without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.