 |
| Photo by Kat Jayne from Pexels |
Whether you like it or not: learning a
foreign language is for most of us an experience of failure. In any given
country in the world, everybody going through school has benefitted from
several years of foreign language instruction. If you stop somebody on the
street, my guess is that 1-5% are fluent speakers because of their school
education.
In language schools, the typical
phenomenon is to drop out. I remember when I took a Portuguese course at the
University of Hamburg. The course was free for students of other faculties. We
had an excellent, experienced teacher from Portugal. She was not only a good
pedagogue, but she was also an internationally renowned scholar in Portuguese
studies. During the first lessons, the room was overcrowded with around 40 students.
In the second half of the course, we were about five or six students attending
classes.
Why do people drop out?
Here are the typical answers students
give:
·
I
have no time
·
It is
too complicated
·
I do
not like the teacher or the teaching method.
Foreign languages is one of the very few
areas in life where all humans are equal. A Donald Trump, a Bill Gates, an
Angela Merkel or a famous sports or movie star: they all face exactly the same
challenges when learning a foreign language as we do. Otherwise, if money could
buy language skills, they would be all over Twitter and TV bragging about it.
There are good and bad reasons to give up
a concrete language.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of
language and dialects alive on this planet. You will never ever be able to
speak all. Many get into language learning, as they get into bed with someone:
by accident. You wanted to impress somebody, or you went on vacation and wanted
to communicate with locals. Although many parents still teach this: we cannot
possibly finish everything we start. You really need to make a cost
(effort)-benefit analysis for continuing to learn the language. Maybe what you
know is already enough?
However, most people I know give up, even
if their career and life would greatly benefit from learning that respective
language. Their reason is almost always: it is too difficult. I have rarely
encountered in any area of life so much resentment and negative emotions as in
the language learning industry. This is because most students have completely
unrealistic expectations about the whole process. They have been seduced by
clever marketing into believing that one could and even should learn a language
in just few weeks. People drop out to protect their ego. They are afraid of
looking dumb in front of others. Continuing to learn a language may be a signal
to others that the learner lacks talent, if he or she takes so long.
My rule of thumb is this. Most people feel
a desire to drop out of things that would really benefit them, while almost
never feeling a desire to drop out of all the unhealthy, immoral and stupid
habits that hurt them in the long run. Most people do not write an email to
their social media provider: “I am sorry, but I need to renounce your program.
I simply do not have enough time.” Or to their colleagues: “I cannot
participate any more in our gossiping sessions by the water cooler, because it
is becoming too complicated for me.”
If you are in the situation that you want
to discontinue a foreign language, be very clear what your motivation for
learning that language was, and why exactly you feel you want to drop out.
If you like the attitude of these
articles, please check out my
online courses : at the moment, German for English,
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
The GO Method
The GO Method
applies quality management and psychological science to the study of foreign
languages. It helps students establish individual and clear goals, build
learning routines, overcome psychological obstacles, monitor progress and
systematize the learning process.
It is the
perfect approach for high performer students that need to speak as closely as
possible to a native speaker. From lesson one, it focuses on building your own
sentences bottom-up, and not memorizing phrases like a parrot.
Gerhard J.
Ohrband
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.
Contact
If you want to save time in learning a foreign language
without a teacher, please check out my book “The GO Method” on Amazon.
No comments:
Post a Comment