How dangerous is positive pop psychology in language learning?

We know it all. The constant exhortations to put on a happy face, smile, show gratitude, frame mishaps and illness as „challenges”, „learning-opportunities” and even „gifts”. It seems to be the cultural dominant, nowadays. The self-help industry is thriving. 18-year-old „life” coaches are popping up everywhere, letting us in into „the secret” – for hefty amounts, of course. In the past, psychological consultancy was mainly perceived as necessary for those in distress. Today, everybody’s „mindset” is up for coaching – to become a millionaire, or just to live your „passion”. Probing into the ever more fantastic claims of pop psychology, deserves a less than superficial treatment than the present text. We will not examine the scientific validity of positive thinking and „mindfulness” interventions pretending to make you a millionaire, cancer-free or older than 100 years. Instead, we will discuss the implications on language teaching.

Mindfulness. As with every concept, there are many definitions. We will just stick with these two: a) „the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.” b) „a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.”

It should be straightforward that if we want to improve any skill (be it singing, typing, playing golf or speaking a foreign language) we need to become as aware as possible during the act of doing it. It should be clear that a pianist’s concert performance would suffer it there were thoughts and worries floating around in his or her mind.

But, it seems, the whole idea of mindfulness is to apply Eastern meditation to all areas of our life. That is, learning how to stay “unattached”, “non-judgmental”. It should be clear that, while learning a language, we need to constantly judge and discriminate, and look for areas of our speech we can improve. If “mindfulness” leads to applying a “non-dualistic”, relativistic approach (there is no right or wrong) to our speech, it will be certainly detrimental. However, if “mindfulness” leads to be mindful of our unproductive reactions (our “inner censor”) to making mistakes (blaming ourselves, remaining stuck in the negative present; vs. productive reactions, focusing on actions to improve our speech) it is certainly helpful. Many language learners (and teachers) indulge in negative self-talk when encountering difficulties, without translating them into corrective activity.

Gratefulness. A key element in pop psychology cures is training your gratefulness “muscle”. Making it a daily routine of finding something or someone to be grateful for. Oncee again, when not linked to absurd expectations, there is nothing wrong with it. It is also nothing new, not even in our own oft-despised Western spiritual traditions (Christianity). As with many other techniques in positive psychology, its impact depends on what you will do or not do. If you use “gratefulness” exercises just to feel better, without action, it certainly leads nowhere. On the other hand, if you link your feeling of gratefulness to a moral obligation on your part to become the best form of you, go ahead. For example, if you compare all the resources for learning and teaching foreign languages at your fingertips, with what previous generations had, you should feel both grateful and obliged to make the best use out of it.

Positive thinking. Despite of what its academic originators will tell you, the relevant issue to discuss is what mass audiences make out of it. And, here, most understand positive thinking as blocking out negative thoughts, emotions and information. This means, of course, news, but also any information that threatens our belief systems, because being challenged in our positions makes us feel “negative”. In language learning, this may lead to several undesired situations:

·        Teachers may avoid all but positive feedback, out of the fear to be perceived as “negative” by their students.

·        Teachers may fear that giving negative feedback on a student’s performance, but also on his attitudes and levels of commitment, may put the student somehow at risk of dropping out or having deep psychological distress.

·        Teachers may emit a lot of phony “positive” messages (“You are so smart”, “You are my greatest class”), which will most certainly backfire as soon as they encounter difficulties in real life.

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If you want to read more about quality management in language teaching, please check out the other articles on this blog. If you have not read it yet, I recommend those on student feedback questionnaires and on how to standardize your teaching.

Stay tuned!

Gerhard

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About me

Psychologist and polyglot from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married with children. 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. Coordinator of the GO Method network, with representatives in more than 90 countries worldwide.

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