Fake it until you make it?

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Is faking it a good strategy for foreign language acquistion? Yes, we live in a world where „fake” seems to win whereever we look. Our social media feed is full with friends and not-so-friends exhibiting their massively succesful lifestyle: selfies in front of fancy cars, at VIP dinners, luxurious holiday resorts or in designer clothes. How much of this is real, we can seldom assess accurately. There are quite a few stories out, that some motivational speakers and „life coaches” climb over an airport fence as to be able to pose in front of a private air plane – and to sell their „success story” to the naive followers. CBS reported that 80% of women sometimes fake their orgasm. Advice for job interviews typically include strategies for faking certain expertise and character traits. And politicians, well, they have been known for faking it since they have come into existence!

It seems natural that many language learners adopt faking as a strategy. And I am not talking about certain „tips and tricks” on how to pass through standard language proficiency tests, with or without direct cheating involved. In the following, we will discuss two types of faking it and their effects on the learner and his or her surroundings.

Fake reporting on your learning process

Almost anybody having learned a foreign language has been asked this questions, most often even countless times: „So you have learned the XYZ language: How much time did it take you to speak it fluently?”

We as humans are social animals, and impression management is a universal strategy: We want to look good in the eyes of our fellow men. Now, most people tend to fake the answer in such situations. They will give a much lower estimate than it took them in reality. They may say, it took them only some months, where, in reality, they pursued that language for the last few years.  The logic is simple: the shorter the time, the more intelligent you must be. And, almost everybody doing this, people have come to expect ridiculously low learning times when starting a new language. When asked about my Romanian, I give, sometimes, the answer „10 years”, I can see people wondering whether my IQ is below 75, or if I have some other mental defects.

And, giving short times is a preemptive strategy to excuse our mistakes. If I say „10 years”, people will think: „... and he is still making so many mistakes”. If I say „6 months”, they will focus on all the positive aspects, because their expectations are much lower.

The effects of this are quite bad for you as a learner. If you start out learning sincerely, you will find yourself often in situations where others seem to be so much smarter than you. In group settings, I have seen it many times. „Disguised” advanced level students enroll for an intermediate course without telling it upfront, sometimes even lying about how long they have been learning, and leaving most other students in the course frustrated about how „stupid” they themselves are.

If you adopt this strategy, you yourself are at risk, because a) you may adopt unsustainable learning strategies (see below), or b) you may avoid all situations (=practice opportunities) where your fake expertise may be challenged, leaving you without any real chances to train further.

Faking through memorization

Have you ever seen one of those polyglots on Youtube demonstrating their proficiency in 30, 40 languages by repeating one phrase in all of those languages. It begs the questions as to how deep their knowledge really is. Many of us just, too, memorize a limited number of phrases and practice them to perfection.

Since most small-talk situations start in similar ways, they may successfully fish for compliments on their accent and language skills, in general.

The risk here is to become dependent on that praise and to neglect learning bottom-up how to construct one’s own sentences, instead of learning language top-down. “Fakers” may also avoid all kind of “muddy” situations where you would need to speak spontaneously on unpredictable topics. Of course, real learning suffers.

And, as almost everywhere in real life, it is much better to underpromise and overdeliver, then the other way around.

If you like the attitude of these articles, please check out my onlinecourses : at the moment, German for Russian- and Romanian-speakers, as well as on goal-setting.

If you are interested in improving your English in the area of business presentations, I know of no better address than Tom Antion. Please check him out following this link.

Stay tuned!

Gerhard

About the GO Method

The GO Method applies research in psychology as well as principles of quality management to the language teaching process. It conforms to key elements of the ISO 9001 standard, while being more specific on teaching-related issues. Customers get access to easily adaptable document templates.

Check us out at The GO Method.

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.

Connect with me on Linkedin or send me an e-mail.

I will really learn, once I am abroad

It seems uncontroversial: if you want to learn French, the best way to do so is by staying in Paris. Germany is best for German, China for Chinese, etc. Of course, there is also a whole industry around it: “Learn English in Malta/Australia/California”, etc.

For the language learner, there are two underlying questions:

1.    Are those offers really worth the investment?

2.    Should I hold back learning until the opportunity of a stay abroad opens up?

I have personal experience just with one summer course of Portuguese in Portugal. I am grateful to have won a scholarship by the Camoes Foundation which covered part of the fee/expenses. Other participants, however, were paying fully for the one-month course. Of course, it is dangerous to extrapolate just from one single incident. But here is my experience:

·        Four weeks several hours a day with one teacher. Basically, the same experience as if I had stayed in Germany; just more lessons per week.

·        Conversation with my fellow students from all over the world mostly in English, never in Portuguese. Most participants stayed together in their free time: shopping, going to the beach, and, most importantly, partying almost every night. So, I tried to keep myself separately and look for learning opportunities with natives alone.

·        I went daily to the university library to photocopy books and to peruse journals and reference materials. You might have guessed it already: I never met any fellow participant (I think there were at least 40 of them, at different levels) in the reading room there. They had a computer corner with internet, though, so I would bump into some of them there, ocassionally.

·        At that time, I was more on the timid end of the personality spectrum, so my conversations with natives during an entire month can be reduced to, at the most, 4-5 hours of net talking to „natives”.

Is this a good investment?

For me, it was a personal retreat for meditation and recollection. I bought and copied a lot of books, saw as much historical sites as possible, and got a feeling about living in the South of Portugal, its people and culture. For me, that was worth it (taking into consideration the scholarship). Otherwise, I would have just booked a shorter stay without the course. Because, 99% of my progress in speaking Portuguese came from effort at home.

Will the situation be different in your case? – Most probably, yes. However, „structural” problems remain.

Typically, „natives” do not wait for groups of foreigners to come along and have lenghty discussions, just to help the first improve their language skills. That may be possible in very rural, calm areas, or in countries where people almost never had contact with foreigners: say, former Communist countries in the 1990ies. However, even there, seeing tourists and foreigners has become a normal experience, so do not expect somebody just wanting to chat for an hour with you just because you are a Canadian, Swede, etc. Just think about yourself: you are on your commute to or from work, university or doing errands. Imagine a foreign language students stops you to improve his English. Would you really say: „Let me invite you to the local coffee shop and chat in English!”

So, what are the alternatives?

For Germany, I always recommend the following options:

1)   Choose a nice city with a university and with affordable accomodation (not always easy, nowadays, especially after a big influx of migrants). Go to university lectures everyday and establish contact to students before and after classes. Most universities do not control the entry to big lecture halls, and even at smaller seminars, most professors will be delighted to let you sit in. Check out the lecture catalogue for the current semester from the university website and plan your schedule in advance. Choose topics that have always intrigued you. Why not combine learning German with your passion for archeology, history of music, psychology, chemistry etc.?

2)   Find affordable accomodation in a small town and register at the local sports club. Typically, membership for 3 months will be around 30-60 Euros (now compare this with the hundreds of Euros for language courses), with the possibility to train all available sports. This is an optimal opportunity for establishing contact and hanging out with natives.

3)   Do as in the previous option, but participate in local clubs - for different kinds of hobbies (model trains, fantasy role plays, stamp or coin collectors, flower lowers, etc.) – or groups (amateur/church choirs, orchestras, marching bands, religious groups, etc.). Much of this may be even completely free.

Remember, the critical variable for your success is maximizing net speaking time with educated native speakers.

If you like the attitude of these articles, please check out my onlinecourses : at the moment, German for Russian- and Romanian-speakers, as well as on goal-setting.

If you are interested in improving your English in the area of business presentations, I know of no better address than Tom Antion. Please check him out following this link.

Stay tuned!

Gerhard

About the GO Method

The GO Method applies research in psychology as well as principles of quality management to the language teaching process. It conforms to key elements of the ISO 9001 standard, while being more specific on teaching-related issues. Customers get access to easily adaptable document templates.

Check us out at The GO Method.

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.

Connect with me on Linkedin or send me an e-mail.