Four Secret Weapons of Practice

Ah, learning, so hardwired into us and yet so difficult! The OED tells us that there are three ways to learn: by study, experience, or being taught. I think there's one thing that they've forgotten. The key ingredient to any new knowledge and skill: practice.

Gets you fit if nothing else.

Gets you fit if nothing else.

I hope that the word "practice" doesn't sound disheartening to you. You're not meant to feel like you are rolling that rock back up the hill endlessly like Sysiphos. To me, effective practice means finding a safe environment to try something you've not tried before and then repeating your new trick until it feels effortless. No doubt this can become more than a bit tedious, but you can cut down on boredom by using a few smart techniques

1) Respect Frustration

Sorry! Hope you didn't think I was going to pretend there's a technique that eliminates irritation. Frustration is an unavoidable part of getting better. If you want to succeed, you need to become very aware of points at which you are frustrated. Perhaps make a little note of what it was that really made you feel stuck. Frustration can be such a killjoy that it's caused more than one great learner to just quit the whole endeavour, and no one really wants that! You have to respect that annoying feeling enough to know when it's not worth fighting against a setback.

No need to abandon the practice session, but you can minimise disappointment by repeating the things you're good at. Just give it a day or two and settle the foundations of what you have learnt, and you will find that problem you were facing before has shifted into perspective while you were away. Take a fresh look at things, perhaps get an expert's view or a new demo to bring back the inspiration, and hopefully you'll be right back on your way. And sometimes, there's nothing but a day off that will help you back onto your tracks.

2) Surprise Yourself

Morning! Time for être in the conditionnel, come on!

Morning! Time for être in the conditionnel, come on!

Mastering a new skill is about becoming so familiar with it that you could do it "in your sleep". I remember our French teacher always talking about how she wants us to be able to rattle down those verb tables even if she wakes us up at 2 in the morning. It's got to get into the head somehow, so make sure that you are really surrounded by your learning material. The easiest way of making this happen in language learning is to write a sentence or two on a sticky note, make 10 copies and stick them everywhere. My favourite places are in the shower (with a plastic wallet), on the bathroom mirror, on the door of your washing machine, in the chocolate drawer and right in the middle of the cork board.

3) Find the Rhythm

The link between music and learning has been explored by researchers and polyglots alike. Music is a very popular teaching tool in kids at primary/nursery school age, but you can also exploit it for your own benefits. If you build a few songs into your learning routine, you'll very soon realise how much more fun it makes it. Don't laugh, but I learnt at least 3 new Russian words from this. You can find examples of musical practice online, for example through Fluency MC or a language hack advocated by Benny Lewis. There are so many advantages to putting music in your learning, for example it makes it more fun, brings you closer to real life use of the target language, helps you remember things through melodies and rhythms and sticks in your head.

4) Get Physical

Movement is another great memory aid because it engages more than one part of your brain. The easiest way you can build this into your learning is to simply sit down with pen and paper (remember my love of the notebook..) and write out those verb tables and vocabulary lists. Maybe write the difficult ones in a different colour, or in capitals. If you want to take it a bit further, why not try and associate the word or sentence with a gesture, like in sign language? It works from "If you're happy and you know it.." to acting out whole bits of dialogue in your book or favourite show.

Get started with really easy exclamations, for example what would you do to illustrate these French expressions:

Au secours!

Je m'écrie! (Je chuchote.)

Je marche.

All of these ideas are designed to help you repeat what it is that you are practising without getting too bored. You may not find that each method works for you, but hopefully you'll have a laugh along the way. It would be great to hear if you guys have found any other ways of building fun repetitions into your learning.

For some other ideas and thoughts, you could these links.

*note use of speechmarks here because I have no clue how that even works

French for Beginners: Negation (How to say No)

Hello everybody, I hope you're having a lovely day and you are getting comfortable for the next instalment of French on a Windowsill. Here we are at episode 6! How have you liked the grammar hints so far? Is there anything you would like me to cover in the next video?​

Today, the little grammar course covers the topic of negation, ​meaning how to say not, no longer and never. Let's get watching:​

Here are some of your reference materials:​

When you use the negation in a sentence, just follow this pattern:​

SUBJECT + ne + VERB + pas/plus/jamais + ANYTHING ELSE​

​Examples:
Je ne travaille pas à Londres. (I don't work in London).
Alexandre ne sort jamais. (Alexandre never goes out.)
Il n'y a plus de pain. (There is no more bread.)

These are the three main forms of negation in French.​

These are the three main forms of negation in French.​

Language Learning Motivation: What Drives You?

​Image source: Morguefile

​Image source: Morguefile

There's been an awful lot of research into language learning motivation, with scholarly articles, curriculum changes and millions of research funding spent on working out what makes us learners tick. Motivation is one of the most significant factors for successful language learning, so there is a lot of value in sitting down and having about yourself and what makes you tick. Here are my ideas about the motivation groups - which camp are you in?

2 camps of learners

To me, there are two key camps, let's call them Camp Requirement and Camp Acquisition. Those who learn for a practical application and out of necessity. They may not feel the joy of learning a language from the word Go, but keep going anyway because they are working towards a clear goal. They have the motivation of requirement.

And those who learn because they are curious about a language and simply learning because they want to get good at this. These guys often love the process of learning just as much as applying their new knowledge and will feel happy with the "lifelong learner" label. They have the motivation of acquisition.

None of these types of motivation is any more valid than the other, and I don't believe that either one will make you a better, more skilled learner. It's simply important to understand your driving forces. Be clear about why you are in this learning process. Make sure your motivation is clear to you, and you'll find it will help you kick through those dips and keep going even in the boring drills. If you have a tutor or teacher, why not try and catch them for a conversation about what motivates you and gets you going. That way, they may be able to support you better - even a busy school teacher is likely to jump at that chance of understanding how to get more out of a student.

​No Success without Motivation

You have GOT to ​stay motivated, you have got to stay excited or keen about learning your target language. This is the only way that you will actually look for chances to speak, you'll listen to things you only half understand and in effect the only way that you can keep going once the lesson is over and you have a whole week to forget all you've just been told.

For me as a language tutor, this brings in an extra responsibility. It's my job to understand, as well as I can, the motivations of my students and help them work towards goals that are important to them. Teachers may sometimes make assumptions about language learners which don't match up with their own inner drivers, and that results in both steering in different directions. I want to make sure that I understand where my students stand, so I'll be my best at supporting them reach their goals, and at facilitating a real sense of achievement.

​My Allegiances

I have drawn you a little graph to show just how much variation I find in my own language learning motivations:

​You can see how far I was in Camp Acquisition at some points, for example when I took Italian. That was my third language, it was an optional offer, afternoon lessons at school doing something new and fun, with friends - I was in it for social reasons. Later when I took Spanish, the main motivation was more about where it was in my curriculum and my career. I wasn't desperate for another new language, but there was a clearer requirement. These days, my lifelong learner is very keen and I'd say it's nearly all that drives my Russian learning.

This was actually a bit tougher to work out than I thought. It's a great exercise to have a little think about the question "Why is it that I'm putting the effort into this language?" Be clear with your answer about this question and review it on a regular basis. What is your personal language learning driver?