The dangers of learning to the test: part 1

Photo by Dustin Tray from Pexels

The widespread use of standardized test in schools has led to two phenomena: teaching to the test, and learning to the test. Teachers know that their work will be judged according to their students’ test performance. Therefore, they will focus almost exclusively on the material that is expected to be in the final test. From the students’ side, they, too, will learn almost exclusively the material they expect to be tested.

What is the problem with this? First, a lot of meaningful and important material will be ignored, because learning it will have no immediate impact. It will not be measured by the test. Therefore, neither the teacher nor the students can expect to be praised for their knowledge of it.

The most important issue in testing is the validity of a specific test. Validity means that a test measures what it is intended to measure. Imagine a test for obtaining your driver’s license. If it would contain almost entirely questions on car models and the history of car production, it would be less “valid” than the usual tests, because it would leave out information on traffic rules that are needed for every safe drive. However, if the current-day tests would include information on how to maintain your car (check the levels of oil and other liquids, fix small problems, etc.), it should be more valid, because the normal tests do not test for those skills, skills that can be, nonetheless, critical for safe driving. Why do they leave them out? One argument could be that many such questions would depend on the specific car model, whereas the tests need to generic enough, for all new drivers.

Back to language testing. I had yearlong problems with my German groups, because the standard tests for beginner levels at our school focused almost entirely on writing, whereas my teaching focused on speech production. In addition, test questions were basically grammar exercises, whereas I trained my students from lesson 1 in the production of their own sentences. This led to a lot of friction with students, who demanded that I adapt my teaching to the test. At the end, I adapted the tests to my teaching. And here is why.

If a language test is valid, it should reflect our daily language use. It will have two components:

-          A universal component which applies to all language users;

-          A specific component which applies to the individual language learner only.

The universal component considers the following. Our language use is mostly audio (to listen and to speak). Modern day technology shows an increased trend towards even more audio due to voice-recognition devices, and due to the fact that it will always be easier to speak than to type. And we produce almost exclusively our own sentences.

The specific component could include learning an accent or dialect for the region one wants to live and work in, or work-related technical vocabulary.

(to be continued)

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

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.

Language learning based on exercises vs. routines

Photo by Andre Morgan from Pexels

I have to make a confession. In most of the languages I speak, and in some of which I did high-level translations and interpretation for ambassadors and prime ministers, I had never completed a single exercise before.

What do I mean by exercises? If you have learned a foreign language, which you will have at least tried during your school years, you will have completed countless of them. Mostly on paper. They come in all shapes and forms. You need to complete a sentence with a missing word, to modify a certain word in a sentence, to play “odd-man-out” with words, to match pictures and words or texts, to choose between alternatives (multiple-choice-tests), to put scrambled words or letters into the right order, etc. etc.

What is the problem with that? The main problem is that you are training for something that, although it may correspond to some school tests, will never, ever be part of your real-life usage of that language. What about your native language? How often do you have to complete such exercises at work, in your family and with friends? Do you go out on a date and sit in a café, testing your English with multiple-choice tests, or do you give your future partner words to put into the order?! Really?!

In reality, we will engage only in two activities:

·        Decoding speech by others (listening and reading),

·        Producing speech ourselves (thinking, speaking and writing).

The unit of our output is usually the sentence. As humans, we tend to speak in sentences. Even if they consist only of few words.

So, what is the problem with conventional exercises?

·        We pay a high opportunity cost, because of all of the more relevant things we could do during the time we are consumed with those exercises.

·        Our fear of producing our own sentences increases over time, because we know deep down that we are training for something completely different. However, the longer we learn a language, the greater the expectations of others that we speak fluently.

·        We become dependent on input from the outside. The main problem of the exercise-based learner is to always find new exercises to complete. If he or she runs out of exercises, the learning typically stops.

·        We let others dictate our learning. Completing exercises we basically are a laboratory animal presented with problems to solve. The animal does not have any choice as to the problem itself. In our case, it means that words, situations and solutions are given to us by someone else. Why is this problematic? In most real-life situations, when producing speech, we have an almost complete liberty as to what exact words we want to use and in what grammatical structure we want to tell our story. Even in a restrained setting like a police interrogation, a witness or suspect will be given the freedom to respond in his or her own words. The only place where this is not the case are some language tests, where, quite often, even objectively correct sentences are marked by the teacher as incorrect, just because the latter “expected” something else.

What is the alternative?

Here is what I do. In a certain number of priority languages, every day I write a personal diary/journal (stream of consciousness), and I think and speak (if nobody is around, just to myself). I read things that interest me (classical literature, Wikipedia, news) and listen to podcasts and audio books. I look up one new word in all languages I learn and write it down into a personal vocabulary book. From time to time, I look up a grammar rule, which happens no more often than once a month and takes no more than 10 minutes. And, I analyze my mistakes.

On some days, I play around with words in my head or on paper, but this only for languages I cannot speak and write, yet.

That is it. No exercises books, no binge watching of grammar explanations on Youtube, etc. etc. This will sound so basic and unprofessional to most of you, that, if we were living in totalitarian times, at least one would denounce me for not following the rules.

Even though I make a lot of mistakes, I know that I would commit much more mistakes if I would just work with an exercise book.

Why do we still cling to exercises?

·        They have a status of being officially approved.

·        You can show that you engage in something serious.

·        Everybody else is doing them (conformity, herd mentality).

·        They are easy to check.

·        You get a sense of closure and completion. Each time, your language app tells you “Congratulations. You completed level X” some neurons in your head fire and you feel happy.

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

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.

Who is to blame for our failure in foreign languages

Whether we like it or not, most of us endure failure during our process of learning foreign languages. What does failure mean?

·     We give up the language altogether;

·     We remain for years at the beginner level, and take beginner courses again and again;

· We somehow manage to become fluent. However, we feel we will never be able to speak like a native speaker and to work professionally in the language;

· We reach a high level, but only with extraordinary efforts and at a high cost.

Who is to blame for that? Typically, we blame persons. Most students blame their teachers: If only I had the right teacher … Some students blame themselves: I am simply not talented enough for foreign languages, I am lazy, stupid, etc.

In reality, failure in foreign languages depends on other, less emotional things we rarely think about:

·        Have I formulated clear goals about what exactly I want to achieve?

·        Have I developed a daily routine for language learning?

·        Is this routine aligned with my goals?

·        Am I using the right techniques and strategies for language learning? How do I know?

·        Do I have a mentor, that is, a person that already has reached a similar goal? Most students listen to what fellow students think about what should be done. Rarely do they consult somebody who himself reached a native speaker level.

·        Do I measure my progress with objective indicators?

·        Do I produce enough content in that language: texts, speech and thoughts?

·        Are there psychological barriers impeding my progress?

Let us look at the last point. The most common psychological obstacles are:

·        Black and white thinking. There are only two stages possible: either I am perfect speaker, understand everything, or I am a loser that does not understand anything. There are no developmental stages in-between.

·        Self-handicapping. I am afraid of failure, which, in turn, could be a sign to others that I am not intelligent enough. To protect myself from that judgment of others about my intelligence, I reduce my effort, and complain regularly about the teacher, the methods and other classmates, so that I have a ready-made explanation for my eventual failure.

·        Unsuitable self-concepts. Many of us developed a self-concept that is incompatible with learning foreign languages well. Other people may have given us the impression that foreign languages are not our forte, that we look ridiculous speaking in another language, or that we lack intelligence for that.

·        Our environment. Consider the following Jim Rohn quote: You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. This is a well-documented fact considering various indicators like opinions, habits or body weight. If you are making no progress, it may well be that, unconsciously, you are conforming yourself to an invisible group standard: in our family, peer group no one speaks foreign languages well.

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

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.

How to speak like a native speaker

Photo by icon0.com from Pexels

Most language learners think of native speakers as the gold standard. Almost everybody prefers having a native language teacher, and almost everybody wants to be able to speak like a native speaker. When comparing opinions of native and non-native speakers on a concrete language issue, almost everybody will consider the first to be right. Just by virtue of being a native speaker, we ascribe an almost perfect linguistic competency to him or her.

Think about fellow native speakers of your own language. You will need to agree to the following, even grudgingly. There are many native speakers

·  That commit even elementary grammar mistakes,

·         That have a very limited vocabulary,

·         That have a terrible pronunciation,

·         That have never learned how to spell properly,

·         That speak in an “ugly”, vulgar manner,

·         That have speech defects like stuttering,

·         That are afraid of speaking in public or on the phone,

·         That would find writing a school essay or even an official letter too demanding.

On the other hand, many non-native speakers excel in the above. Joseph Conrad become one of the most important British novelists, although he was a Polish immigrant and achieved fluency in English only in his twenties. Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger become not only a movie star, but also governor of the state of California. Former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili fleed to Ukraine and become a regional governor and political star there.

There are, however, some aspects that native speakers almost without exception do better than foreigners. If you want to speak like a native, start working systematically on them. All are, of course, generalizations. But, remember the saying: exceptions confirm the rule.

·         They do not have ambitions to produce intentionally long, convoluted and grammatically complicated sentences. One- or two-word sentences are fine, if not the norm in day-to-day conversations and keep them flowing. Non-native speakers, because they are preparing their next “impressive” sentence in their head, will be less inclined to throw in small comments to sustain the conversation.

·         They stick to one accent. Non-native speakers often think they need to be able to speak in all accents, or in no specific one. Instead of choosing one model for their accent, they expose themselves haphazardly to all kinds of models via Youtube. A native speaker has had exposure to a limited numbers of models (typically, his or her parents).

·         A native speaker is not anxious about forgetting or not knowing words. He or she just paraphrases, or says this thing here. A non-native speaker becomes blocked in such situation.

·         Native speakers are better in constructing their own sentences. They have, since childhood, had years of playing with words and combining them into sentences. Non-native speakers want to shortcut this process and they often jump to memorizing whole phrases and sentences.

·         Native speakers focus on production. Even if they would have never read a book or watched a movie, they are constantly producing speech: in speaking and thinking foremost. Most language students think they need to consume first as much as possible, and when they produce speech, they predominantly do this in writing (because it seems more “serious” and more easily checkable).

·         Native speakers started learning their language by ear, and only later visually; which is a natural succession. Most language learners do it the other way round, and wonder, why they always seem to be stuck in the learning process.

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

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 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.