November 15, 2023 • 55 mins
“I took four years of (language) in high school and I learned nothing!” Well, there might be a reason for that. Like any method, taking a language class is an active process. Luckily, Marina and Jeremiah are here to help with evidence-based strategies to optimize your time both in and out of class.
Sources:
Lai, C., Zhu, W. and Gong, G. (2015), Understanding the Quality of Out-of-Class English Learning. Link
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Episode Transcript
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Marina (00:04):
Hi there! Welcome to How to Language, a podcast about
language learning for learnersinside and outside the
classroom.
I'm your host, Marina, and withme is my co host, Jeremiah.
Jeremiah (00:16):
Howdy.
Marina (00:17):
Last time, we explored the question, can you learn a
language by yourself?
As we learned, the answer ispretty complicated, but by and
large, most learning happenswhen you're with other people.
Today, we want to acknowledge asetting where a lot of that kind
of language learning takesplace.
And that's in a language class.
(00:38):
These often get the brunt oflearner frustration and
complaints, but hopefully aftertoday's episode, you'll see that
you can still take control ofyour learning, even when class
is in session.
So, Jeremiah, you've taken quitea few traditional language
(01:01):
classes in your time.
Jeremiah (01:03):
Mm hmm.
Marina (01:04):
Uh, do you want to tell us a little bit about what that
experience was like?
Jeremiah (01:08):
Yeah, for sure.
So I guess I can start withSpanish, because that was the
first second language class thatI ever took.
Um, before that I, you know, inhigh school I had used Duolingo
to learn a little German, but itwas literally just a couple of
words.
So, Spanish was my firstexperience with, um, taking a
(01:30):
class in another language, orabout another language.
Taking a traditional languageclass on purpose.
Because, weirdly, we had aSpanish class in my elementary
school, but I got nothing fromthat.
So, this Spanish class that Itook at community college was my
first, my first experience likethat.
(01:51):
And, it was good.
I mean, it was, you know.
It was about, I guess, what youwould expect, and probably what
people who have taken a languageclass would find relatable, uh,
the standard experience.
Because it was a beginner class,I didn't really have any
background in Spanish, and so itwas very much Spanish 101 or
(02:14):
whatever convention that yourcollege uses.
Marina (02:16):
How long did you take Spanish classes?
Jeremiah (02:18):
Yeah, so at community college, I think I only took a
year of Spanish, which was twoactual classes because we were
on the semester system, and thenso so it was a year there, and
then, when I went, when Itransferred to UC Davis, I
(02:41):
basically, without even reallytrying, without, without
intending to, I just ended uptaking Spanish, like, every
single quarter for two years.
And so, in the first year, Ifinished, like, you know, the
boilerplate basic Spanish thatyou do.
I, I finished the, I finished...
Marina (03:01):
Like the series that you, that you take up to your,
like, third year.
Jeremiah (03:06):
Yeah, exactly.
So, it's not beginner Spanish,but it's like
Marina (03:11):
It's just straight language.
Jeremiah (03:13):
Yeah, just straight language.
Like you read through the book,and then you read through the
second book and the classesfollow that.
But eventually you run out ofbooks.
You run out of textbooks and yourun out of new grammatical forms
and you run out of units, Iguess.
And then if you want to continuelearning Spanish after that in a
formal class setting, then youstart taking classes.
(03:34):
That are in Spanish about otherthings and that's what I ended
up doing.
So, Spanish is the only languagethat I like finished the circuit
and in my last year at UC Davis,I, I actually did take classes
that were in Spanish about otherthings like, uh, my favorite one
was in Spanish about the historyof the Spanish language, which
(03:55):
was super cool.
Um, I wish that I could retakethat class because this kind of
gets into the next thing thatwe'll talk about, but at the
time I was like really engrossedin Latin self study, and so I
remember before going in forthat class, I'd be sitting in
the hall like reading my, myLatin book, and so I probably
(04:16):
didn't get as much out of it asI wish that I as I could have if
I had been more present for itwhich I think is is relevant for
what we're talking about.
And then the other classes thatI took at that level were, like,
Spanish linguistics classes.
Marina (04:33):
Are you glad that you took so much Spanish in such a
formal university setting?
Jeremiah (04:39):
Yeah, and I guess it's kind of a funny story because,
like I said, I didn't really setout to do all that Spanish.
Uh, I had to do, I had to do onesemester of Spanish for my
associate's degree, and I thinkI had to do something like that
for my bachelor's degree.
(05:00):
But it always just made sense toput Spanish on my schedule for
the next quarter and so I alwaysdid and then I just found myself
sort of just learning Spanishbased purely on inertia, which I
think is why I have some prettybig gaps, pretty big holes in my
Spanish because it wasn'tsomething that I was super
(05:21):
committed to at all times a lotof it was just doing the class
work because I had to.
And so ultimately for reasonsthat we'll get into I did learn
Spanish and I got prettyproficient at it for certain
purposes and certain uses butthere were a lot of things that
I just didn't learn and it was acombination of Things that the,
(05:43):
things that classes just don'tteach, and also things that I
would have learned if I had beenmore invested.
So not really for contrast, butanother language experience that
I had at UC Davis was I alsotook French at, at, at that
level.
And when I say that level, Imean like beginner French, like
I took two quarters of, ofintroductory French.
(06:07):
And so there was the differencebetween like And I was taking
that at the same time as I wastaking advanced Spanish, so I
kind of got a taste of likeWell, okay, so when I was, when
I was taking advanced Spanish,it had been long enough that I
kind of had sort of forgottenwhat a beginner language course
is like, and so it was weird tobe taking beginner French at the
(06:29):
same time as I was takingadvanced Spanish, and I guess
the other big difference betweenthose two is that Spanish was
kind of my L2, my secondlanguage at that point.
Whereas French, it was very muchlike French as a foreign
language because even when Istarted with Spanish at the
beginner level, it was kind ofwith the understanding that
(06:50):
Spanish is a useful language toknow, living in California.
Whereas French, uh, say what saywhat you want about French, but
it's not super useful for whereI was at the time, and not super
useful for where I am now, nooffense to, uh, to francophones
the world over.
Marina (07:09):
Yeah.
Jeremiah (07:10):
So that was my experience, and we knew each
other at the time, because wewere both going to Davis
together.
And I remember that you weretaking Japanese at the same time
as I was taking these Spanishclasses.
So, was your experience similarto mine?
Was your experience different?
How did that go?
Or what was your trajectory withJapanese, I should say?
Marina (07:29):
Yeah, so I started taking Japanese in community
college as well.
I took it there for two years, Ithink?
Yeah, two years.
I got my first two years ofJapanese out of the way there.
Before I took Japanese, itactually wasn't the first
language class that I had evertaken.
The first language class that Iever took was in middle school,
(07:53):
where we had to take Latin.
Jeremiah (07:55):
Oh yeah.
Marina (07:57):
Um, we were required to take it for two years, I did it
for three.
Kind of similar to you, where itwas kind of just inertia.
It kind of made sense.
At the time I didn't have a lotof interest in learning anything
else.
Like, they also offered, youknow, Spanish and French and
Russian, but none of thoseappealed to me as much as Latin.
(08:20):
Not the case anymore, sorry Mr.
Morris, but I really did enjoythe classes while I was taking
them.
Extremely difficult, of course,but those classes were the thing
that got me interested inlanguage and linguistics and was
also the thing that made me wantto be a language teacher.
(08:42):
And so I think that thatexperience was very formative.
On the other side, on the flipside of that though, um, it was
also the thing that made me runaway from romance languages.
Um, and that's what initiallydrew me to Japanese because it
was very different.
Right?
(09:02):
It was nothing like Latin and itwas both a challenge and a
little bit of a relief at thesame time, and so, um, I decided
to start taking Japanese.
So yeah, like I said, I took itfor two years in community
college.
I took it for another year at UCDavis in undergrad.
(09:23):
And then I studied abroad inJapan for a summer.
And that kind of marked the endof my formal Japanese study
because after that I wasfocusing on my senior year and
You know, COVID startedhappening, and, um, I just
stopped taking classes.
I would say, though, that myexperience taking Japanese was
(09:45):
overall very positive.
I had amazing teachers all theway through, but I think the
thing that characterized myexperience taking language
classes was Anxiety.
I am a very anxious person andlanguage classes are, or they
can be, anxiety inducing.
Jeremiah (10:05):
Yeah.
Marina (10:06):
And that was something that I always struggled with.
I always struggled with speakingin class, not wanting to mess
up, feeling embarrassed.
it was, it was a huge strugglefor me.
Especially anytime we had, like,oral exams and stuff.
I did great on, like, thewriting and the reading and
things like that.
I excelled, but the speaking andlistening were always the
(10:27):
hardest part for me.
And I knew that about myself.
I knew I was an anxious personand I knew that that was
hindering my learning.
It wasn't until later that I hadthe vocabulary and the
theoretical background toexplain out, to explain all of
that, but looking back, that'sdefinitely what it was.
And so when I entered gradschool, I knew that I wanted to
(10:49):
have a different experience whenI took Spanish classes.
And so I started Spanish 1, youknow, um, I had done some self
study before that class, so Ihad some foundation, which made
it definitely a lot easier, andwe'll get to that a little
later, but going in to mySpanish class, having taken
linguistics, having understood,you know, the basics of language
(11:13):
acquisition, and what I, not didwrong, but that I could have
done better with when takingJapanese.
Knowing all of that made mySpanish class experience ten
times better.
I stopped caring what otherpeople thought, what my teacher
thought, because I was there tolearn, right?
(11:35):
Just, it was a total mindsetshift that made everything so
much easier.
And I'm so glad that I did that,because it gave me so much more
confidence when learninglanguages, and it lowered my
anxiety, and it has allowed meto improve my Spanish at a much
faster rate than the rate that Iwas going with Japanese.
So, it's not like all languageclasses are doomed to be
(12:01):
difficult and anxiety inducing.
with the right mindset, and thatsounds really cringy, I know,
but it's true.
Like, with the right mindset andthe right knowledge, it can be a
really fulfilling experience.
Jeremiah (12:17):
Yeah.
One thing I noticed in thatwhole narrative that you just
spun there is that it kind ofaligns really well with this
thing that people tend toreport.
Um, for example, if you evertell somebody like, oh, I speak
Spanish.
Nine out of ten times they'regoing to say the same thing,
which is, Oh, I took four yearsof Spanish in high school and I
(12:37):
don't remember any of it.
And that's such a universalexperience.
It seems like so many peopletook a language, usually Spanish
or French, in high school, andthey usually took a lot of it
for some reason.
I don't really remember the highschool requirements for that
kind of thing, but I think aforeign language is required in
most places.
Everybody had that experience oftaking it, and everybody had
(12:58):
that experience of gettingnothing out of it, which,
knowing what you know now aboutLatin.
I think that holds true for youbecause I don't think you
remember that much about Latin.
Marina (13:11):
Nope, I do not.
I remember a couple words.
Jeremiah (13:15):
Whereas Japanese was like less of that and you
definitely, excelled more atJapanese even though there were
still these roadblocks.
But then by the time you hitgrad school and you were doing
Spanish, first of all 100percent by choice but also with
all this background andunderstanding.
You didn't fall into whateverthat trap is that people who
(13:36):
took whatever language in highschool seem to fall into.
So that's interesting.
I think Spanish, even though Itook it in community college, it
was like at the same time as Iwas finishing high school.
So that was my required thing.
And so I think I kind ofsidestepped that a little bit
because I was already out of thehigh school mindset, partially.
And then for French, like, Iremember some stuff from French,
(13:57):
but it's whatever.
The I've also, I have two otherexperiences to share for
learning a language in a class,in a language class.
And those two languages areKorean and Old Norse.
And those, I, I took both ofthose in grad school, and as a
matter of fact, I took both ofthose pretty recently.
(14:19):
Old Norse was the last languagethat I took in my last quarter
of grad school before Igraduated, and Korean I think I
took in the quarter before that,maybe?
Or maybe the quarter beforethat, so fall quarter.
And those were interesting.
Because...
Taking Korean kind of fulfilleda, not a promise that I made to
(14:42):
myself, but, you know, I wasalways very aware that like, oh,
Spanish, French, uh, oh,Norwegian,
Marina (14:49):
Latin.
Jeremiah (14:49):
Latin.
These are all Indo Europeanlanguages, which maybe you know
what that is.
If you're listening, maybe youdon't know what that is.
But basically they all are partof the same big family, and so
they all have a lot of things incommon that, for example, Korean
doesn't.
One of them is a writing system.
You know, Latin, Spanish,French, um, Norwegian.
(15:13):
All of these languages are all,they all share the writing
system, which is the Latinwriting system.
Whereas Korean has a totallydifferent writing system.
Korean uses Hangul, which is,not Latin.
It has nothing to do with Latin.
And So Korean is one of thoselanguages, like...
Japanese, like Chinese, likeRussian, like, you know, most
(15:35):
languages in the world, I think,that if you want to learn it,
you also have to learn adifferent way of writing, and
you have to learn a differentway of reading.
So there's an additional hurdlethere.
And that was always something Iwanted to do.
And I finally got around to it.
And, you know, my experience inthe Korean class was pretty much
the same as my experience inSpanish and French at the
(15:56):
beginner levels.
It was a lot of fun because Itook it with friends.
That was a little...
Uh, a little spin on the normalformula, which was interesting,
and it had pros as well as cons,I will say.
And also, because it was,because Korean is a non Indo
European language, There was alot of stuff that, there were a
lot of assumptions that you canbring from one Indo European
(16:20):
language to another.
A lot of assumptions fromSpanish that hold true in French
and even Latin.
Uh, not so much for Korean.
Korean, there are a lot of newassumptions that you have to
learn.
A lot of new, like, DNA levelthings that are different that
you have to get.
That you have to understand.
But I think for the same reasonthat you found learning Spanish
(16:41):
so much easier in grad school, Ithink I also found learning
Korean easier because I had alot of those same, first of all,
you and I have the same exactexperiences of linguistics and
having studied other languagesin the past.
And so I think I did kind of thesame thing that you did with
Spanish where I brought inknowledge of language
(17:02):
acquisition.
I brought in like, uh, knowledgeof linguistics and I brought in
like, uh, I brought in knowledgefrom our master's program about
teaching other languages orteaching English to speakers of
other languages, which helped alot because I was.
I had learned a lot of thetricks of the trade, and so the
(17:24):
language class didn't justhappen to me, but I knew why
things were being done the waythey were being done.
And I think the same as you, Ijust found it easier to kind of
go along with stuff that wouldnormally make me anxious, like
talking to strangers.
And I just didn't care as muchwhat other people thought.
Yeah,
Marina (17:39):
Yeah, I think that comes with age and also knowing the
background of like, or havingthe background and language
teaching kind of ruins theillusion.
It kind of lifts the fog andit's like, okay, I understand
why my teacher is making us dothis scary project where we have
to speak to other people.
(18:00):
Like, I get the theory behindit.
I understand what I'm going togain from it and it makes it a
lot easier to, like you said, goalong with it.
Jeremiah (18:06):
Mhmm.
Yeah.
And yeah, the last experienceI'll share is my experience with
Old Norse, and I'll just talkabout it really briefly
because...
The reason that I took it wasbecause I always kind of wanted
to.
Marina (18:20):
Fair enough.
Jeremiah (18:22):
Yeah, I was, you know, I, um, I guess there's not much
more to it than that, other thanthe fact that...
Our honeymoon was coming up toIceland and you might be
thinking Icelandic and Old Norseare two different languages or
you might be thinking Icelandicand Old Norse Aren't those
basically the same language?
Um, both of those are, theanswer to both of those
questions is yes, but also no.
(18:43):
So
Marina (18:43):
That's for another episode.
Jeremiah (18:45):
That's for another episode.
but the point is learning OldNorse was interesting because
when you learn a quote unquotedead language, which For Old
Norse, it's not so much quoteunquote, it's pretty much a dead
language.
When you learn one of those in aclass, it's a very different
beast.
It's a very different processthan learning a living language.
(19:07):
Because nobody who is teachingOld Norse, and almost nobody who
is learning Old Norse, isexpecting that it will be used
to actually talk to people.
And especially with Old Norse,usually what you're learning is
how to translate.
So you're learning tricks, tipsand tricks, for translating from
English to Old Norse.
(19:27):
And, you're not even reallylearning vocab.
Like, you don't have vocablists, or at least I didn't in
my Old Norse class.
You might, if you study OldNorse for a long time.
But, I don't know, I didn't.
But the reason Old Norse isinteresting is because...
Now I have to go back in time alittle bit, because around the
time that I started learningSpanish, I also started learning
Latin.
But, the huge difference thereis that, while I was taking a
(19:49):
Spanish class, and while I tooka lot of Spanish classes, I
didn't take a single Latinclass.
I never have, and I probablynever will.
Because, to me, Latin is not adead language.
Or, at least I don't want it tobe.
I...
I...
I...
There is enough going on withLatin in a variety of ways, in a
(20:11):
variety of spheres, some ofwhich overlap, that I don't
think it's quite fair to callLatin a dead language, even
though in a lot of ways it is.
But, the thing is, I wanted tolearn to speak Latin for various
reasons.
Some of them are cringeyreasons, some of them are
understandable reasons, I think.
And I didn't want to take aclass that would teach me to
(20:32):
translate Latin, and I didn'twant to take a class where they
would say that pronunciationdoesn't matter because I think
pronunciation matters, that'sjust me.
So I never took a Latin class.
The closest I've ever come isthat Old North class, which,
maybe it is, maybe it isn't, butit's pretty much exactly what I
imagine Latin classes are like.
So, you know, I'm trying tothink what the moral of that
(20:54):
story is.
Marina (20:56):
I think it sort of speaks to the natural response
that a lot of people have totaking a language class.
Like, you don't want to take aLatin class because you're
worried that it'll ruin Latinfor you.
Jeremiah (21:08):
Yeah, yeah.
Marina (21:09):
You know?
Or in the way that you want touse Latin.
You know, because, yes.
At least in my experiencelearning Latin, it was basically
all translation based.
I don't, we read, we read Latinout loud, but we never, quote
unquote, like, spoke Latin.
Right.
And so, and that's not like how,that's not how you roll with
(21:30):
Latin.
Jeremiah (21:30):
No, it's not how I roll.
How I roll is, I, first of all,okay, you made a good point,
which is that I was afraid thattaking a Latin class would ruin
Latin for me, and it's not justabout the translation.
It's also just about the factthat, at least when I first made
that decision not to take aLatin class, I didn't want to be
forced to do Latin, because Iknew if I did, then I would lose
(21:51):
interest in it, which I think isa paradox, or a contradiction,
if you will, of languageclasses, which is that when you
are now being forced to dosomething, some people,
including me, find that thattakes a lot of the fun out of
it, and for me, Latin has alwaysbeen something that is fun, and
so part of it is about my ownpersonal opinions and ideas
(22:13):
about Latin that I don't expectother people to share.
But another part of it is justthat I wanted it to be fun.
It's a fun thing that I like todo.
Um, you might call it Latinismor being a Latinist, amateur
Latinist.
That's my jam.
That's my vibe.
Marina (22:27):
For sure.
For today, let's say that youare taking a language class, or
you're thinking about taking alanguage class.
And you're not sure whether ornot you should do it.
You're worried, sort of likeJeremiah, about it ruining the
language for you or not gettinganything out of it.
We're going to talk about ittoday.
(22:48):
We're going to look at someresearch.
And we're going to try andanswer the question, How can you
make the most out of a languageclass?
Jeremiah (22:56):
Yeah.
Because maybe you have a validreason for not taking a language
class and that's fine, butchances are you probably should
take a language class, even ifyou're like me and you're,
you're like, I don't want toruin the language.
With Latin, that's a luxury thatyou can afford because it's not
like you're gonna need it.
Uh, but with a language that youare likely to speak to other
people, in general, in general,I think you're doing yourself a
(23:17):
bit of a disservice if you optnot to take a language class or
do something like a languageclass.
So.
We should let's, Okay, let'sgive some reasons to take a
language class, like, why, whysh- Marina why should you take a
language class?
Marina (23:33):
Well real quick, to put a little earlier, um, when we
say"language class", we're notjust talking about, like,
university language classes oreven high school language
classes.
These can be...
Any kind of structured learningsituation where you are the
student and there is a teacher.
(23:55):
So it can be a community, orlike a, it can be a language
class at your local communitycenter.
Or it can even be like a reallyinformal, small group study,
small study group thing.
You know.
Whatever situation applies toyou, that's what we're talking
(24:15):
about.
Jeremiah (24:15):
Yeah, we probably should have defined language
class because that's exactlyright.
Like we're using a broad idea ofwhat a language class can be.
Because first of all, we're notelitist.
And we don't think that the onlyway to learn things is by paying
money to a college or auniversity, because
Marina (24:31):
Exactly.
Jeremiah (24:32):
what we are getting at, okay.
What, what the.
What the point of this is, andyou made a really good point
about it, which kind of goesback to our last episode, is
that it's a language class ifit's not just you by yourself
and there is somebody else therewho has expertise.
And usually it's not just youand them.
Usually it's more, it's severalstudents and a teacher or
(24:56):
several students who are alsoteachers, because maybe it's a
group study or something.
Marina (25:02):
Exactly.
It could be a private tutoringsituation too on, say, Italki or
Discord or something like thatas well.
Any situation where you arebeing guided by someone else who
is more proficient than you are.
Jeremiah (25:18):
Yeah.
So, uh, reasons to take alanguage class.
Let's just get, get those outthere.
Uh, in case anyone is still onthe fence of like, should I, or
can I just stay home with myDuolingo in my books?
Uh, should I touch grassbasically?
And the answer is yes, probably.
And the reason, the reasons forthat are for one, you get
explicit instruction, which youkind of get from books and you
(25:41):
kind of get from Duolingo, butnot really because it's explicit
instruction.
That is tailored to you, andthat is responsive to your needs
as a student, and the needs ofother students in the class, and
That is super valuable for somepeople, for some learning
styles.
Um, some people benefit fromhaving stuff explained to them.
Marina (26:02):
I'm one of those people.
I need explicit grammarinstruction.
in order for things to makesense.
Some people can...
Absorb and kind of figure thingsout on their own and benefit
from less structuredinstruction.
It really just depends on youand knowing yourself.
(26:23):
Like, would you thrive in anenvironment like that where it
is more structured and you aregetting that explicit feedback?
Uh, or not, you know.
Neither is better than theother.
It's just a matter of you andyour individual learning style.
Jeremiah (26:38):
Yeah, but even if that's not your learning style,
even if you know that you'remore of a, I just need to do it
and get my hands on it andthat's how I learn from
practice, which I think to someextent we all kind of are, but
that's neither here nor there.
Even then, just having a groupof people who are all doing the
same thing, who you meet withregularly, or just one person
(26:58):
who you meet with regularlyabout this, it, well, it helps
to keep you accountable.
And I think that this is true oflanguage, it's also true of
writing, it's true of a lot ofthings.
That it is much easier, it tendsto be much easier to stay on top
of something like this and stickwith it if you are accountable
to someone.
Marina (27:16):
Oh yeah.
Definitely.
And similarly to that, It's ascheduled block of time, on your
calendar for you to learn andpractice your target language
that you wouldn't have hadotherwise.
Right?
Unless you were taking thatclass, you probably wouldn't
have that scheduled block oftime where you're being exposed
(27:39):
to your target language, usuallynothing but your target language
for an hour, an hour and thirtyminutes, however long it is.
And so, similar toaccountability, it is like this
dedicated time in your week.
That you kind of have to go to,whether you're paying money for
it, or because you feelobligated to, or just to keep
(28:01):
yourself accountable.
It's just good practice.
Jeremiah (28:04):
So After listening so far, you paused the episode and
you were like, I got to sign upfor a language class.
I got to go to a group meetup orsomething.
And now you're there and you arein the classroom or wherever.
And you're like, okay, now what,what do I actually do to make
the most of this language class?
Marina, what are, what are thestrategies that we recommend for
(28:28):
making the most of a languageclass?
Marina (28:30):
Well, for one thing, speaking from experience, try
your best to lower your anxietyas much as possible if you are
an anxious person.
Jeremiah (28:40):
Oh, I never thought of that.
Just be less anxious.
Marina (28:42):
I know! be anxious! I know, easier said than done.
I know.
But, the reason that we say thisis because anxiety is one thing
that can raise your affectivefilter.
Now, your affective filter isit's a sciencey term for this
metaphorical filter that goes upunder certain conditions.
(29:06):
Those conditions are things likeanxiety, fear, embarrassment,
sort of negative emotions thatraise our affective filter and
it stops most of what'shappening around you in terms of
language acquisition fromgetting through.
So if you're too anxious, forexample, it's going to be a lot
(29:28):
harder to acquire the languagethan if you were less anxious.
Jeremiah (29:34):
It's going to be harder to learn things because
stuff isn't making it throughthat filter.
And so, the point that we'retrying to get at is that
anything you can do to loweryour own affective filter,
anything you can do to makeyourself feel more safe and
comfortable and at ease, it'sgoing to make it a lot easier
for stuff to get in.
Because you're not going to havethis psychic barrier up.
(29:54):
Which is not your fault, andthis is something that the
teacher should be helping with,should be trying to do is make
you feel more comfortable andmake you feel more at ease
because that's just part of whatbeing a good teacher is, is it's
making students feel comfortableand safe so that learning can
happen.
But that's an imperfect processand it can be hard to make
people feel the way you wantthem to feel.
(30:14):
That's like the whole thing, thewhole problem with being a human
being and interacting withothers.
And so anything that you can doon your own to make yourself
feel more safe and comfortableis gonna make their job easier
and it's gonna make your job oflearning the language easier.
Marina (30:27):
Exactly.
If your teacher is a goodteacher, they will expect you to
make mistakes, and they willlike it that you make mistakes,
in fact.
No one cares.
Everybody else is just asanxious, and the more you talk,
the more you put yourself outthere, the more you try in
class, the less anxious you'lleventually become.
(30:47):
Every time you do it, it'll geteasier, and eventually, you'll
do it without even thinkingabout it.
I speak I I can say that fromexperience.
As someone with anxiety, it ispossible.
Speaking of speaking, you shouldtry and speak as much as
possible.
Like I said, this helps to loweryour anxiety, but it also gives
(31:09):
you a lot of benefits in termsof language acquisition.
So, the, the idea is that themore output you produce, the
faster you'll acquire thelanguage.
It's not so much a question ofspeed, it's more of just, you
will acquire more of thelanguage.
Jeremiah (31:29):
Yeah.
So the thing with that, from mypoint of view is I, I subscribe
to a certain theory ofknowledge, which says that to
learn things you have to.
put them into practice.
And that means making mistakes.
Because as a human being, youcan't learn without making
mistakes.
Because you experience reality,you make assumptions about how
(31:51):
the world works, you act onthose assumptions, and find out
if they're true based on whetheryou get it right or not.
So if you never get anythingwrong, if you never make any
mistakes, then that just meansyou're not making decisions, and
it just means that you're notdoing something because the only
way to not make mistakes as ahuman is to not do something in
the first place.
You can't mess something up ifyou don't try.
(32:12):
And if you don't mess up, thenyou're not learning because how
that's how we learn by makingmistakes through practice.
So part of the reason thatspeaking is so important is
because you can make mistakeswhen you're listening.
You can make mistakes reading bymisreading a word, or you can
make mistakes listening tosomebody else talk by mishearing
them.
But what is really the feedbackthat you're getting there?
(32:34):
You're like, oh, I misheardthem.
Either you don't even realizeyou misheard them, or you do,
and it's like, oh, they saidthis.
Speaking, you're actually doingsomething.
And that's not to say thatlistening isn't active, because
you can listen actively.
You know, the distinctionbetween these skills isn't as
cut and dry as saying speakingis this and listening is that.
But when you're speaking, thatis a very active thing to do.
(32:56):
It's hard to speak passively.
And so when you're doing it,You're just going to make a lot
more mistakes speaking than youare listening or reading.
Uh, same goes for writing.
But speaking is, I think, whereyou make the most of those, and
where you get the most immediateand meaningful feedback.
Because if you're speaking andyou mess something up, you'll
know, because either the personwill correct you, or, more
(33:18):
likely, they just won'tunderstand you.
And you'll be able to tellbecause they'll look at you
weird.
And that doesn't feel great,but...
that process of making mistakesand learning from them happens
so much faster when you'respeaking because you're making
more mistakes and you're gettingreal time feedback.
Marina (33:34):
Well said.
Jeremiah (33:36):
Thank you.
Marina (33:37):
So, some things that you can do in the classroom to work
on this is to ask questions tothe teacher in the target
language.
They might already have, like, arule in place for this, but if
they don't, still try and do itas much as you can.
Uh, even if you're not sureexactly how to translate the
sentence from your L1 into yourtarget language, say it in,
(34:00):
like, a simpler way.
You know, it doesn't have tobe...
Um, exactly how you would say itin your L1, just do your best
and see if you can get yourmeaning across.
Also, if you are in a classroomwith other students, try and be
the first one to speak whenyou're doing a small group
activity.
(34:20):
Um, in my experience, usuallywhen you get into a small group
and you're given a task, No onetalks.
No one is the person toinitiate, uh, the conversation.
Try and be that person toinitiate the conversation.
And in fact, when you do that,the other people will start
talking and then you don't haveto talk as much.
(34:42):
And then, lastly, try and gobeyond the activity that your
teacher has prescribed to geteven more practice.
And especially low stakespractice.
So for example, if you're inyour small group and you've, and
you're done, you've done theactivity, you've written your
paragraph, you've completed theword search, whatever it is,
(35:04):
don't be silent.
Uh, talk to each other and don'tuse your L1, like try and make
small talk in the targetlanguage.
Because that's also not practicethat you get very often.
In a language class, usuallyyou're working on a very
specific task that requires veryspecific things.
Try just making small talk.
(35:24):
Try talking to your peers in theway that you would in your L1 or
your common language, and tryand use the target language
instead.
That's how I got a lot of extraspeaking practice in my Spanish
class, making my peers alsospeak Spanish, even if they try
and speak in your L1.
Keep speaking in the targetlanguage.
Maybe they'll start doing ittoo.
Jeremiah (35:46):
Yeah.
Oh, and there's one thing Iwanna say about this point that
I think listeners might bethinking.
And so I want to put it outthere, which is that,"Well wait,
if my classmates are alsolearning this language and
they're not, uh, experts at it,aren't they gonna make mistakes?
Aren't we gonna make mistakes toeach other?
And if neither of us is anexpert in this language, like
(36:08):
the teacher is, then won't wejust be learning each other's
mistakes?
Won't we be learning the wrongversion of the language because
we're just messing it up and notable to correct each other?" And
the short answer is no.
Marina (36:24):
You're not gonna fossilize an ungrammatical
construction in a two minuteconversation.
Jeremiah (36:32):
Yeah, and, y'know, fossilization is a thing and
we'll definitely talk about itanother time.
but you don't have to be afraidof just hearing mistakes or
making, making mistakes that gouncorrected in the moment.
Ideally, mistakes get corrected,or at least you become aware
(36:53):
that they're mistakes so thatyou don't just fall into the
habit of doing them.
Um, again, that's kind of acomplicated topic that we'll
talk about later,
Marina (37:01):
But I think, you know, teachers...
Um, don't, well, I won't saythey don't universally, but they
shouldn't correct every singlemistake that you make when you
talk.
Because that is going to becounterproductive.
And so if your teacher isn'tdoing that, you can't expect
your peers to do the same thing.
Jeremiah (37:19):
So true.
And yeah, we should have a wholeepisode about learner errors,
because it's a reallyinteresting area.
But the last thing I'll sayabout it is that language is
first and foremost, I think, atool for doing things, just in
the same way that a hammer is atool for hammering in nails,
(37:39):
language is a tool foraccomplishing social action.
It's a tool for making otherpeople aware of things, it's a
tool for getting other people todo things, it's a tool for
building relationships.
It's a very versatile tool, butthe point is that language is
something that you're trying todo stuff with.
And...
What that means is that thepoint of learning a language,
(37:59):
the point of using language,isn't to like, avoid making any
mistakes and get it perfect.
The point is to accomplish yourintended social action.
And so in this case, if you'retalking to a peer in your class
and your intended social actionis A, using the language, B,
getting them to use thelanguage, and C, you know,
making small talk the way younormally would.
(38:20):
As long as something ishappening, as long as that
action is being accomplished,then you're doing what you're
supposed to be doing and you'regetting what you're supposed to
be getting out of that.
Because especially in a languagethat isn't your first language,
a lot of what accomplishingsocial action looks like is
negotiation.
(38:40):
It's negotiating with the personyou're talking with to arrive at
a meaning that both of youunderstand.
Uh, and especially in aclassroom, there's probably
going to be a lot of that.
Where they're like, looking atyou weird, they're like, what
are you trying to say?
And then you look at them weirdbecause you don't understand
what they're trying to say.
But eventually you get it.
That is the skill that you'relearning.
It's not how to perfectly useeverything in the language.
The skill you're learning is howto use it as a tool.
(39:03):
Exactly in a situation likethat.
So, you're not learning thewrong language.
You're learning it exactlyright.
You're learning it for how it'ssupposed to be used.
Marina (39:11):
Great point.
Yeah.
Also, bonus tip (39:12):
talking in the target language more in your
language class will make yourteacher like you.
And I'm saying that as ateacher.
Like, they love it when theirstudents talk.
Jeremiah (39:25):
Yeah, because talking in the tips that we're giving
you here are things that yourteacher To the degree that
they're able, is also trying todo, they're also trying to lower
your effective filter.
They're also trying to make youspeak as much as possible.
And so what we're really talkingabout here is being an active
participant in the learningprocess in the classroom
context.
It is helping them do their jobso that they can help you do
(39:47):
yours.
Marina (39:48):
That's much more eloquent
Jeremiah (39:50):
No, no, no.
Marina (39:51):
productive than the way that I
Jeremiah (39:52):
No, you.
Marina (39:52):
"Your teacher will like you."
Jeremiah (39:54):
no, I mean, no, that's 100 percent true is that yes,
your teacher, your teacher willlike you because you are making
their job easier, um, becauselike any public speaking
situation, it's hard to get upthere and it's hard to get up
there and talk and do all thisstuff.
And so you're really makingtheir life easier and making
this whole experience ofteaching in a classroom, uh,
(40:16):
more fun for them as well.
And so you're just, you're justbeing a good.
Um, a good participant in thatsocial interaction, in that
exchange, so definitely, yeah,your teacher will like you.
Marina (40:30):
We need to pump the breaks, we are taking way too
long.
Jeremiah (40:34):
That's the opposite of, if we needed, pumping the
brakes would make us slow down.
We need to step on the gas.
Marina (40:39):
We need to step on the gas.
So this next strategy foroptimizing your language
learning inside the classroom.
It's something that I did when Iwas learning Japanese and
Spanish in a language class.
And this is priming yourselfbefore you go to class.
So I guess this is like, kind ofan outside of class strategy,
(41:02):
but its implementation reallyhappens inside the classroom.
So this idea of priming, ifyou've ever taken Psychology
101, you've probably heard ofthis, but it's a concept in
psychology.
where you are exposed to astimulus at some earlier point.
When that happens, it willaffect how you react to some
(41:23):
other stimulus in the future.
So, as an example, Jeremiah, ifI were to show you a picture of
a banana, and then 30 minuteslater, I ask you to give me the
name of a random fruit, you aremore likely to say banana
because you were primed.
Right?
I gave you the stimulus of abanana, and then the second
(41:45):
stimulus was asking you for thename of a random fruit.
You were primed, and so you saidbanana.
You're more likely to saybanana.
Jeremiah (41:54):
banana.
Banana.
Marina (41:55):
Thank you.
The neat thing about this isthat it can be applied to
language learning, or any kindof learning, really.
But in the case of languagelearning...
If you already know what topicthe teacher is going to cover
that day, you know, if luckilythey give you the syllabus or
(42:16):
they tell you the chapter thatyou're going to go over, you can
prime yourself by reviewing thattopic before you go to class.
Okay?
So, for example, let's say thatyour teacher is going to be
teaching relative clauses inyour ASL class, okay?
(42:36):
Then it might be a good idea todo your own research about that
topic.
For example, reading the chapterif you have a textbook.
Maybe watching a YouTube videoabout relative clauses in ASL.
Maybe you want to read about iton Wikipedia, especially if you
don't know what relative clausesare, right?
(42:57):
You don't necessarily have tounderstand it to mastery, that's
something that you can save forlater.
But, you should know enoughabout it so that when you're in
class, it's not 100 percent newmaterial.
Does that make sense?
Jeremiah (43:13):
Yeah.
That makes a lot of sense.
Marina (43:15):
This is especially helpful for challenging topics,
maybe topics that you haven'tencountered before.
Jeremiah (43:21):
Like the subjunctive.
Marina (43:22):
Like the subjunctive in a lot of romance languages.
Or just kind of more complextopics, topics that are
significantly different fromyour own, first language.
Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrit (43:33):
Having
Marina (43:33):
not be entirely new makes it a lot less scary, for
one thing.
And it almost makes going toclass a little bit like review,
which also makes it feel not asdifficult.
It's just easier, easier to pickup once you're in class.
In general.
Jeremiah (43:51):
Yeah, totally.
I don't have anything to add.
Marina (43:54):
This was my secret sauce when I was taking language
classes in college.
Jeremiah (43:58):
Nice.
That's a good secret sauce.
Marina (44:02):
It also allows you to actually practice the concept in
class, rather than just focusingon like learning the mechanics
of it.
Now if you're like in a flippedclassroom situation that's a
little bit different.
This is what you're doinganyway..
But if you're not, if you're ina more traditional classroom,
then this is gonna allow you tojump in a little bit more
(44:25):
quickly than you would normally,uh, which is another benefit.
Jeremiah (44:30):
So, these are all strategies that you can employ
when you're in class.
That last one is like a littlebit of both.
But, there are also a lot ofstrategies that you can use
outside the classroom,exclusively or, primarily
outside the classroom that willhave kind of a knock on effect
in class that will help you getmore out of that class.
(44:51):
Uh, I think priming kind ofpartly falls under this, but
there are others.
Marina (44:55):
So, yeah, independent learning, as we talked about in
the previous episode, is stillvery beneficial, even when
you're taking a language class.
It gives you more practice thanyou would have gotten just
inside a class, because, youknow, typically in school you're
only taking it for like maybe anhour every day, not even every
(45:16):
day, and this just gives youmore exposure, more time with
the language, and it also helpsto solidify what you learned in
class, so it doesn't just exityour brain the second you turn
in your final exam, right?
So out of class learning is whatis often called in this, in this
scholarship.
(45:37):
it helps you balance the type oflearning activities that you're
doing, which is something that'sbeen shown to improve learning
outcomes.
So one study that I found thatkind of exemplifies this.
is by Lai et al.
And they looked at 82 middleschool EFL students.
(45:58):
EFL stands for English as aForeign Language.
so these students were learningEnglish in China.
They wanted to know what out ofclass activities the students
were doing that seemed to resultin good language learning
outcomes.
And the way that they measuredgood was through things like
grades, were they getting bettergrades in their class, on their
(46:21):
assignments, did their overallcompetency go up, were they
enjoying the class more, thoseare how they measured the
outcomes.
And they found a few things, youknow, related to Parent
involvement in technology.
It wasn't just about one thing,but their main finding was that
creating a balanced learningecosystem is the key, which is
(46:46):
just an awesome way of sayingthat the learning activities
that you do should be varied infocus.
Do I have you so far?
Jeremiah (46:56):
Yes, uh, ecosystem.
Marina (46:58):
Yes.
Um, I just think that's such afun term.
Balanced learning ecosystem.
So, in China, a little bit ofcontext, um, the authors say
that language classes are veryform focused.
form focused means that...
The focus is on sort of the nutsand bolts of the language, how
it works, the linguistics, sothings like conjugation,
(47:20):
sentence structure, things likethat.
That's what we call formfocused.
However, they saw that the bestoutcomes from students came from
those who engaged in moremeaning focused activities.
So this is a quote from thestudy:"Form focused activities
(47:41):
placed more emphasis on thelinguistic system and the formal
elements of the language.
Examples of form focusedactivities included doing
grammar exercises, reviewing thetextbooks, taking remedial
tutorial classes, and so on.
Meaning focused activities weremore authentic activities, which
gave the participantsnaturalistic language exposure
(48:03):
with the overriding emphasis onmeaning and communication.
Examples of meaning focusedactivities included reading
novels in English, watchingEnglish language movies, playing
computer games in English,online chatting, and so on."
Online chatting.
so.
To apply this a little bit morebroadly, kind of what, what does
(48:24):
all this mean?
The things you do outside of theclassroom should be somewhat
different than what you doinside the classroom.
So if your class is more formfocused, where you focus on the
grammar and the linguistics ofthings, try watching media in
(48:44):
your target language, tryjoining a language exchange
where you talk to people yourown age, try.
Reading a book, or reading acomic book, or something around
your level.
Um, try talking to otherlearners online.
Things that you find fun and aremore about using the language
rather than learning about thelanguage.
(49:06):
then on the flip side of that,if your class is more meaning
focused, if it's a little bitmore loosey goosey, maybe it's a
flipped classroom, somethinglike that, try doing a little
bit more form focusedactivities.
Try making flashcards.
Try making your own vocab list.
Let's use apps like Duolingo,study conjugation tables,
(49:27):
whatever you feel like you needto kind of solidify the form of
the language.
The point of all this is to tryand balance, right, that
balanced learning ecosystem.
Form and meaning we'll probablydo like a whole episode about
form versus meaning versus use.
Because that's a triangle ofthings that are very important
(49:50):
in language acquisition.
But, for now, these things workthe best when they are in
balance.
Right?
You can't use one without theother.
One can't exist without theother.
Jeremiah (50:03):
Being in class and doing in class work and being
out of class and doing out ofclass work, that kind of
represents a contradictionalmost in the learning process
if you are learning in this way.
So, that is to say that even ifyou are taking a class, there is
an out of class.
(50:24):
There's an out of classcomponent.
So that sort of duality, if youwant to think of it like that,
is It's like an opportunity or astructure that you can then map
a duality in learning approachesonto, so if you have an in class
and an out of class, then youshould be doing one thing in
(50:47):
class and one thing outta class.
Marina (50:49):
Yeah, it's kind of like two sides of the same coin,
where everything that you do inclass has some corresponding
activity that you can do outsideof class that complement each
other.
So, like I said, if your classis a lot of, like, drills and
conjugation and, like, explicitgrammar instruction, then the
other side of that is to try andfind opportunities that are a
(51:13):
little bit more meaning focusedoutside of class, like watching
movies, Reading materials in thetarget language, things like
that, and vice versa.
So I think the sort of bigtakeaway that I want to pass
along from this episode is abouttaking back your learner
autonomy.
Even when you're taking a classwhich is a very structured
(51:36):
environment to be learning alanguage in, just because it's
being led by someone who isn'tyou, the path is sort of laid
out before you already.
You can still take control ofyour own learning in the ways
that feel the best to you tomake the most out of that
experience, both inside andoutside the classroom.
And whatever approach you taketo do that is going to be suited
(52:01):
to you.
And that is the most importantthing, because that is going to
optimize your time in class.
You know, you can take thesestrategies that we talked about,
and implement them, butultimately, you know yourself,
and you know what works for you.
Jeremiah (52:17):
I, I would even put it this way, which is that it's not
even just that these are thingsthat you can do to make the most
of your language class.
So in that sense, our title is alittle clickbaity.
It's actually that, that thereis no passive learning.
It seems like a passive process,but it's not.
And if you want to actuallylearn something, and quote
unquote get the most out of it,but actually just get...
(52:40):
the right amount out of it, youhave to be an active part of
that process.
You don't have to do exactlythese things because, like you
said, you as the learner knowwhat works for you, or at least
you're going to find out whatworks for you through the
process of learning.
but, all this is to say thatit's not just that, oh, these
are ways that you can, like,boost or supercharge the
language class.
It's like, this is stuff thateverybody should be doing
(53:02):
anyway.
This is how classes should work,but they don't always, and you
have a role in kind ofcompleting the dialectic, one
way to put that, by meeting yourinstructor or just meeting your
class halfway and doing yourshare of the work outside of
class as well as inside of classand being an active learner.
That might be a little, a littleharsh, but.
Marina (53:25):
Harsh truths are necessary.
But, I don't think any of thisshould...
Or, I hope that none of this,you know, scares anybody away
from taking a language classbecause I think we've both had
very good experiences takinglanguage classes.
And they are extremely valuableand they do have a place.
Jeremiah (53:46):
And the last thing I'll say about that, about like,
oh, this is kind of scary, Iactually have to talk, is that
there are lots of ways toparticipate, and there are lots
of ways to be an active learnerthat don't require you to become
a social butterfly or whatever.
Like, if you find that some ofthis stuff is difficult for you,
then you should do what ends upworking for you.
(54:07):
And so, if you find that like,It's just too much to always be
the one to talk first in groupprojects, like, that's fine.
Like, not doing everything thatwe've listed isn't gonna break
your language learning, and youmight find that there are other
ways to accomplish the samethings that we're talking about
that are just more comfortable.
And this goes back to theaffective filter is...
(54:29):
Whatever you're doing, it shouldmake you feel as safe and
comfortable in that learningenvironment as possible, because
that's one of the biggest thingsthat's going to determine what
you take out of it.
So if you're putting yourself inpositions and situations where
you're just getting, like,really, overwhelmed, and it's
giving you a lot of anxiety,then it's going to backfire.
You should, whatever you do, youshould be comfortable.
(54:51):
So that comes down to knowingyourself.
Marina (54:55):
Yeah.
Jeremiah (54:56):
Do your homework!
Marina (54:57):
Do your homework.
Show up to class.
And maybe you'll actually learnsomething.
Jeremiah (55:06):
Thanks for listening to this episode of How to
Language on how to make the mostof a language class.
If you like what we do, you canrate and review us on your
favorite podcast platform, andmaybe follow us on Instagram and
X at HowToLang for more languagelearning content.
See ya!
Hi there! Welcome to How to Language, a podcast about
language learning for learnersinside and outside the
classroom.
I'm your host, Marina, and withme is my co host, Jeremiah.
Jeremiah (00:16):
Howdy.
Marina (00:17):
Last time, we explored the question, can you learn a
language by yourself?
As we learned, the answer ispretty complicated, but by and
large, most learning happenswhen you're with other people.
Today, we want to acknowledge asetting where a lot of that kind
of language learning takesplace.
And that's in a language class.
(00:38):
These often get the brunt oflearner frustration and
complaints, but hopefully aftertoday's episode, you'll see that
you can still take control ofyour learning, even when class
is in session.
So, Jeremiah, you've taken quitea few traditional language
(01:01):
classes in your time.
Jeremiah (01:03):
Mm hmm.
Marina (01:04):
Uh, do you want to tell us a little bit about what that
experience was like?
Jeremiah (01:08):
Yeah, for sure.
So I guess I can start withSpanish, because that was the
first second language class thatI ever took.
Um, before that I, you know, inhigh school I had used Duolingo
to learn a little German, but itwas literally just a couple of
words.
So, Spanish was my firstexperience with, um, taking a
(01:30):
class in another language, orabout another language.
Taking a traditional languageclass on purpose.
Because, weirdly, we had aSpanish class in my elementary
school, but I got nothing fromthat.
So, this Spanish class that Itook at community college was my
first, my first experience likethat.
(01:51):
And, it was good.
I mean, it was, you know.
It was about, I guess, what youwould expect, and probably what
people who have taken a languageclass would find relatable, uh,
the standard experience.
Because it was a beginner class,I didn't really have any
background in Spanish, and so itwas very much Spanish 101 or
(02:14):
whatever convention that yourcollege uses.
Marina (02:16):
How long did you take Spanish classes?
Jeremiah (02:18):
Yeah, so at community college, I think I only took a
year of Spanish, which was twoactual classes because we were
on the semester system, and thenso so it was a year there, and
then, when I went, when Itransferred to UC Davis, I
(02:41):
basically, without even reallytrying, without, without
intending to, I just ended uptaking Spanish, like, every
single quarter for two years.
And so, in the first year, Ifinished, like, you know, the
boilerplate basic Spanish thatyou do.
I, I finished the, I finished...
Marina (03:01):
Like the series that you, that you take up to your,
like, third year.
Jeremiah (03:06):
Yeah, exactly.
So, it's not beginner Spanish,but it's like
Marina (03:11):
It's just straight language.
Jeremiah (03:13):
Yeah, just straight language.
Like you read through the book,and then you read through the
second book and the classesfollow that.
But eventually you run out ofbooks.
You run out of textbooks and yourun out of new grammatical forms
and you run out of units, Iguess.
And then if you want to continuelearning Spanish after that in a
formal class setting, then youstart taking classes.
(03:34):
That are in Spanish about otherthings and that's what I ended
up doing.
So, Spanish is the only languagethat I like finished the circuit
and in my last year at UC Davis,I, I actually did take classes
that were in Spanish about otherthings like, uh, my favorite one
was in Spanish about the historyof the Spanish language, which
(03:55):
was super cool.
Um, I wish that I could retakethat class because this kind of
gets into the next thing thatwe'll talk about, but at the
time I was like really engrossedin Latin self study, and so I
remember before going in forthat class, I'd be sitting in
the hall like reading my, myLatin book, and so I probably
(04:16):
didn't get as much out of it asI wish that I as I could have if
I had been more present for itwhich I think is is relevant for
what we're talking about.
And then the other classes thatI took at that level were, like,
Spanish linguistics classes.
Marina (04:33):
Are you glad that you took so much Spanish in such a
formal university setting?
Jeremiah (04:39):
Yeah, and I guess it's kind of a funny story because,
like I said, I didn't really setout to do all that Spanish.
Uh, I had to do, I had to do onesemester of Spanish for my
associate's degree, and I thinkI had to do something like that
for my bachelor's degree.
(05:00):
But it always just made sense toput Spanish on my schedule for
the next quarter and so I alwaysdid and then I just found myself
sort of just learning Spanishbased purely on inertia, which I
think is why I have some prettybig gaps, pretty big holes in my
Spanish because it wasn'tsomething that I was super
(05:21):
committed to at all times a lotof it was just doing the class
work because I had to.
And so ultimately for reasonsthat we'll get into I did learn
Spanish and I got prettyproficient at it for certain
purposes and certain uses butthere were a lot of things that
I just didn't learn and it was acombination of Things that the,
(05:43):
things that classes just don'tteach, and also things that I
would have learned if I had beenmore invested.
So not really for contrast, butanother language experience that
I had at UC Davis was I alsotook French at, at, at that
level.
And when I say that level, Imean like beginner French, like
I took two quarters of, ofintroductory French.
(06:07):
And so there was the differencebetween like And I was taking
that at the same time as I wastaking advanced Spanish, so I
kind of got a taste of likeWell, okay, so when I was, when
I was taking advanced Spanish,it had been long enough that I
kind of had sort of forgottenwhat a beginner language course
is like, and so it was weird tobe taking beginner French at the
(06:29):
same time as I was takingadvanced Spanish, and I guess
the other big difference betweenthose two is that Spanish was
kind of my L2, my secondlanguage at that point.
Whereas French, it was very muchlike French as a foreign
language because even when Istarted with Spanish at the
beginner level, it was kind ofwith the understanding that
(06:50):
Spanish is a useful language toknow, living in California.
Whereas French, uh, say what saywhat you want about French, but
it's not super useful for whereI was at the time, and not super
useful for where I am now, nooffense to, uh, to francophones
the world over.
Marina (07:09):
Yeah.
Jeremiah (07:10):
So that was my experience, and we knew each
other at the time, because wewere both going to Davis
together.
And I remember that you weretaking Japanese at the same time
as I was taking these Spanishclasses.
So, was your experience similarto mine?
Was your experience different?
How did that go?
Or what was your trajectory withJapanese, I should say?
Marina (07:29):
Yeah, so I started taking Japanese in community
college as well.
I took it there for two years, Ithink?
Yeah, two years.
I got my first two years ofJapanese out of the way there.
Before I took Japanese, itactually wasn't the first
language class that I had evertaken.
The first language class that Iever took was in middle school,
(07:53):
where we had to take Latin.
Jeremiah (07:55):
Oh yeah.
Marina (07:57):
Um, we were required to take it for two years, I did it
for three.
Kind of similar to you, where itwas kind of just inertia.
It kind of made sense.
At the time I didn't have a lotof interest in learning anything
else.
Like, they also offered, youknow, Spanish and French and
Russian, but none of thoseappealed to me as much as Latin.
(08:20):
Not the case anymore, sorry Mr.
Morris, but I really did enjoythe classes while I was taking
them.
Extremely difficult, of course,but those classes were the thing
that got me interested inlanguage and linguistics and was
also the thing that made me wantto be a language teacher.
(08:42):
And so I think that thatexperience was very formative.
On the other side, on the flipside of that though, um, it was
also the thing that made me runaway from romance languages.
Um, and that's what initiallydrew me to Japanese because it
was very different.
Right?
(09:02):
It was nothing like Latin and itwas both a challenge and a
little bit of a relief at thesame time, and so, um, I decided
to start taking Japanese.
So yeah, like I said, I took itfor two years in community
college.
I took it for another year at UCDavis in undergrad.
(09:23):
And then I studied abroad inJapan for a summer.
And that kind of marked the endof my formal Japanese study
because after that I wasfocusing on my senior year and
You know, COVID startedhappening, and, um, I just
stopped taking classes.
I would say, though, that myexperience taking Japanese was
(09:45):
overall very positive.
I had amazing teachers all theway through, but I think the
thing that characterized myexperience taking language
classes was Anxiety.
I am a very anxious person andlanguage classes are, or they
can be, anxiety inducing.
Jeremiah (10:05):
Yeah.
Marina (10:06):
And that was something that I always struggled with.
I always struggled with speakingin class, not wanting to mess
up, feeling embarrassed.
it was, it was a huge strugglefor me.
Especially anytime we had, like,oral exams and stuff.
I did great on, like, thewriting and the reading and
things like that.
I excelled, but the speaking andlistening were always the
(10:27):
hardest part for me.
And I knew that about myself.
I knew I was an anxious personand I knew that that was
hindering my learning.
It wasn't until later that I hadthe vocabulary and the
theoretical background toexplain out, to explain all of
that, but looking back, that'sdefinitely what it was.
And so when I entered gradschool, I knew that I wanted to
(10:49):
have a different experience whenI took Spanish classes.
And so I started Spanish 1, youknow, um, I had done some self
study before that class, so Ihad some foundation, which made
it definitely a lot easier, andwe'll get to that a little
later, but going in to mySpanish class, having taken
linguistics, having understood,you know, the basics of language
(11:13):
acquisition, and what I, not didwrong, but that I could have
done better with when takingJapanese.
Knowing all of that made mySpanish class experience ten
times better.
I stopped caring what otherpeople thought, what my teacher
thought, because I was there tolearn, right?
(11:35):
Just, it was a total mindsetshift that made everything so
much easier.
And I'm so glad that I did that,because it gave me so much more
confidence when learninglanguages, and it lowered my
anxiety, and it has allowed meto improve my Spanish at a much
faster rate than the rate that Iwas going with Japanese.
So, it's not like all languageclasses are doomed to be
(12:01):
difficult and anxiety inducing.
with the right mindset, and thatsounds really cringy, I know,
but it's true.
Like, with the right mindset andthe right knowledge, it can be a
really fulfilling experience.
Jeremiah (12:17):
Yeah.
One thing I noticed in thatwhole narrative that you just
spun there is that it kind ofaligns really well with this
thing that people tend toreport.
Um, for example, if you evertell somebody like, oh, I speak
Spanish.
Nine out of ten times they'regoing to say the same thing,
which is, Oh, I took four yearsof Spanish in high school and I
(12:37):
don't remember any of it.
And that's such a universalexperience.
It seems like so many peopletook a language, usually Spanish
or French, in high school, andthey usually took a lot of it
for some reason.
I don't really remember the highschool requirements for that
kind of thing, but I think aforeign language is required in
most places.
Everybody had that experience oftaking it, and everybody had
(12:58):
that experience of gettingnothing out of it, which,
knowing what you know now aboutLatin.
I think that holds true for youbecause I don't think you
remember that much about Latin.
Marina (13:11):
Nope, I do not.
I remember a couple words.
Jeremiah (13:15):
Whereas Japanese was like less of that and you
definitely, excelled more atJapanese even though there were
still these roadblocks.
But then by the time you hitgrad school and you were doing
Spanish, first of all 100percent by choice but also with
all this background andunderstanding.
You didn't fall into whateverthat trap is that people who
(13:36):
took whatever language in highschool seem to fall into.
So that's interesting.
I think Spanish, even though Itook it in community college, it
was like at the same time as Iwas finishing high school.
So that was my required thing.
And so I think I kind ofsidestepped that a little bit
because I was already out of thehigh school mindset, partially.
And then for French, like, Iremember some stuff from French,
(13:57):
but it's whatever.
The I've also, I have two otherexperiences to share for
learning a language in a class,in a language class.
And those two languages areKorean and Old Norse.
And those, I, I took both ofthose in grad school, and as a
matter of fact, I took both ofthose pretty recently.
(14:19):
Old Norse was the last languagethat I took in my last quarter
of grad school before Igraduated, and Korean I think I
took in the quarter before that,maybe?
Or maybe the quarter beforethat, so fall quarter.
And those were interesting.
Because...
Taking Korean kind of fulfilleda, not a promise that I made to
(14:42):
myself, but, you know, I wasalways very aware that like, oh,
Spanish, French, uh, oh,Norwegian,
Marina (14:49):
Latin.
Jeremiah (14:49):
Latin.
These are all Indo Europeanlanguages, which maybe you know
what that is.
If you're listening, maybe youdon't know what that is.
But basically they all are partof the same big family, and so
they all have a lot of things incommon that, for example, Korean
doesn't.
One of them is a writing system.
You know, Latin, Spanish,French, um, Norwegian.
(15:13):
All of these languages are all,they all share the writing
system, which is the Latinwriting system.
Whereas Korean has a totallydifferent writing system.
Korean uses Hangul, which is,not Latin.
It has nothing to do with Latin.
And So Korean is one of thoselanguages, like...
Japanese, like Chinese, likeRussian, like, you know, most
(15:35):
languages in the world, I think,that if you want to learn it,
you also have to learn adifferent way of writing, and
you have to learn a differentway of reading.
So there's an additional hurdlethere.
And that was always something Iwanted to do.
And I finally got around to it.
And, you know, my experience inthe Korean class was pretty much
the same as my experience inSpanish and French at the
(15:56):
beginner levels.
It was a lot of fun because Itook it with friends.
That was a little...
Uh, a little spin on the normalformula, which was interesting,
and it had pros as well as cons,I will say.
And also, because it was,because Korean is a non Indo
European language, There was alot of stuff that, there were a
lot of assumptions that you canbring from one Indo European
(16:20):
language to another.
A lot of assumptions fromSpanish that hold true in French
and even Latin.
Uh, not so much for Korean.
Korean, there are a lot of newassumptions that you have to
learn.
A lot of new, like, DNA levelthings that are different that
you have to get.
That you have to understand.
But I think for the same reasonthat you found learning Spanish
(16:41):
so much easier in grad school, Ithink I also found learning
Korean easier because I had alot of those same, first of all,
you and I have the same exactexperiences of linguistics and
having studied other languagesin the past.
And so I think I did kind of thesame thing that you did with
Spanish where I brought inknowledge of language
(17:02):
acquisition.
I brought in like, uh, knowledgeof linguistics and I brought in
like, uh, I brought in knowledgefrom our master's program about
teaching other languages orteaching English to speakers of
other languages, which helped alot because I was.
I had learned a lot of thetricks of the trade, and so the
(17:24):
language class didn't justhappen to me, but I knew why
things were being done the waythey were being done.
And I think the same as you, Ijust found it easier to kind of
go along with stuff that wouldnormally make me anxious, like
talking to strangers.
And I just didn't care as muchwhat other people thought.
Yeah,
Marina (17:39):
Yeah, I think that comes with age and also knowing the
background of like, or havingthe background and language
teaching kind of ruins theillusion.
It kind of lifts the fog andit's like, okay, I understand
why my teacher is making us dothis scary project where we have
to speak to other people.
(18:00):
Like, I get the theory behindit.
I understand what I'm going togain from it and it makes it a
lot easier to, like you said, goalong with it.
Jeremiah (18:06):
Mhmm.
Yeah.
And yeah, the last experienceI'll share is my experience with
Old Norse, and I'll just talkabout it really briefly
because...
The reason that I took it wasbecause I always kind of wanted
to.
Marina (18:20):
Fair enough.
Jeremiah (18:22):
Yeah, I was, you know, I, um, I guess there's not much
more to it than that, other thanthe fact that...
Our honeymoon was coming up toIceland and you might be
thinking Icelandic and Old Norseare two different languages or
you might be thinking Icelandicand Old Norse Aren't those
basically the same language?
Um, both of those are, theanswer to both of those
questions is yes, but also no.
(18:43):
So
Marina (18:43):
That's for another episode.
Jeremiah (18:45):
That's for another episode.
but the point is learning OldNorse was interesting because
when you learn a quote unquotedead language, which For Old
Norse, it's not so much quoteunquote, it's pretty much a dead
language.
When you learn one of those in aclass, it's a very different
beast.
It's a very different processthan learning a living language.
(19:07):
Because nobody who is teachingOld Norse, and almost nobody who
is learning Old Norse, isexpecting that it will be used
to actually talk to people.
And especially with Old Norse,usually what you're learning is
how to translate.
So you're learning tricks, tipsand tricks, for translating from
English to Old Norse.
(19:27):
And, you're not even reallylearning vocab.
Like, you don't have vocablists, or at least I didn't in
my Old Norse class.
You might, if you study OldNorse for a long time.
But, I don't know, I didn't.
But the reason Old Norse isinteresting is because...
Now I have to go back in time alittle bit, because around the
time that I started learningSpanish, I also started learning
Latin.
But, the huge difference thereis that, while I was taking a
(19:49):
Spanish class, and while I tooka lot of Spanish classes, I
didn't take a single Latinclass.
I never have, and I probablynever will.
Because, to me, Latin is not adead language.
Or, at least I don't want it tobe.
I...
I...
I...
There is enough going on withLatin in a variety of ways, in a
(20:11):
variety of spheres, some ofwhich overlap, that I don't
think it's quite fair to callLatin a dead language, even
though in a lot of ways it is.
But, the thing is, I wanted tolearn to speak Latin for various
reasons.
Some of them are cringeyreasons, some of them are
understandable reasons, I think.
And I didn't want to take aclass that would teach me to
(20:32):
translate Latin, and I didn'twant to take a class where they
would say that pronunciationdoesn't matter because I think
pronunciation matters, that'sjust me.
So I never took a Latin class.
The closest I've ever come isthat Old North class, which,
maybe it is, maybe it isn't, butit's pretty much exactly what I
imagine Latin classes are like.
So, you know, I'm trying tothink what the moral of that
(20:54):
story is.
Marina (20:56):
I think it sort of speaks to the natural response
that a lot of people have totaking a language class.
Like, you don't want to take aLatin class because you're
worried that it'll ruin Latinfor you.
Jeremiah (21:08):
Yeah, yeah.
Marina (21:09):
You know?
Or in the way that you want touse Latin.
You know, because, yes.
At least in my experiencelearning Latin, it was basically
all translation based.
I don't, we read, we read Latinout loud, but we never, quote
unquote, like, spoke Latin.
Right.
And so, and that's not like how,that's not how you roll with
(21:30):
Latin.
Jeremiah (21:30):
No, it's not how I roll.
How I roll is, I, first of all,okay, you made a good point,
which is that I was afraid thattaking a Latin class would ruin
Latin for me, and it's not justabout the translation.
It's also just about the factthat, at least when I first made
that decision not to take aLatin class, I didn't want to be
forced to do Latin, because Iknew if I did, then I would lose
(21:51):
interest in it, which I think isa paradox, or a contradiction,
if you will, of languageclasses, which is that when you
are now being forced to dosomething, some people,
including me, find that thattakes a lot of the fun out of
it, and for me, Latin has alwaysbeen something that is fun, and
so part of it is about my ownpersonal opinions and ideas
(22:13):
about Latin that I don't expectother people to share.
But another part of it is justthat I wanted it to be fun.
It's a fun thing that I like todo.
Um, you might call it Latinismor being a Latinist, amateur
Latinist.
That's my jam.
That's my vibe.
Marina (22:27):
For sure.
For today, let's say that youare taking a language class, or
you're thinking about taking alanguage class.
And you're not sure whether ornot you should do it.
You're worried, sort of likeJeremiah, about it ruining the
language for you or not gettinganything out of it.
We're going to talk about ittoday.
(22:48):
We're going to look at someresearch.
And we're going to try andanswer the question, How can you
make the most out of a languageclass?
Jeremiah (22:56):
Yeah.
Because maybe you have a validreason for not taking a language
class and that's fine, butchances are you probably should
take a language class, even ifyou're like me and you're,
you're like, I don't want toruin the language.
With Latin, that's a luxury thatyou can afford because it's not
like you're gonna need it.
Uh, but with a language that youare likely to speak to other
people, in general, in general,I think you're doing yourself a
(23:17):
bit of a disservice if you optnot to take a language class or
do something like a languageclass.
So.
We should let's, Okay, let'sgive some reasons to take a
language class, like, why, whysh- Marina why should you take a
language class?
Marina (23:33):
Well real quick, to put a little earlier, um, when we
say"language class", we're notjust talking about, like,
university language classes oreven high school language
classes.
These can be...
Any kind of structured learningsituation where you are the
student and there is a teacher.
(23:55):
So it can be a community, orlike a, it can be a language
class at your local communitycenter.
Or it can even be like a reallyinformal, small group study,
small study group thing.
You know.
Whatever situation applies toyou, that's what we're talking
(24:15):
about.
Jeremiah (24:15):
Yeah, we probably should have defined language
class because that's exactlyright.
Like we're using a broad idea ofwhat a language class can be.
Because first of all, we're notelitist.
And we don't think that the onlyway to learn things is by paying
money to a college or auniversity, because
Marina (24:31):
Exactly.
Jeremiah (24:32):
what we are getting at, okay.
What, what the.
What the point of this is, andyou made a really good point
about it, which kind of goesback to our last episode, is
that it's a language class ifit's not just you by yourself
and there is somebody else therewho has expertise.
And usually it's not just youand them.
Usually it's more, it's severalstudents and a teacher or
(24:56):
several students who are alsoteachers, because maybe it's a
group study or something.
Marina (25:02):
Exactly.
It could be a private tutoringsituation too on, say, Italki or
Discord or something like thatas well.
Any situation where you arebeing guided by someone else who
is more proficient than you are.
Jeremiah (25:18):
Yeah.
So, uh, reasons to take alanguage class.
Let's just get, get those outthere.
Uh, in case anyone is still onthe fence of like, should I, or
can I just stay home with myDuolingo in my books?
Uh, should I touch grassbasically?
And the answer is yes, probably.
And the reason, the reasons forthat are for one, you get
explicit instruction, which youkind of get from books and you
(25:41):
kind of get from Duolingo, butnot really because it's explicit
instruction.
That is tailored to you, andthat is responsive to your needs
as a student, and the needs ofother students in the class, and
That is super valuable for somepeople, for some learning
styles.
Um, some people benefit fromhaving stuff explained to them.
Marina (26:02):
I'm one of those people.
I need explicit grammarinstruction.
in order for things to makesense.
Some people can...
Absorb and kind of figure thingsout on their own and benefit
from less structuredinstruction.
It really just depends on youand knowing yourself.
(26:23):
Like, would you thrive in anenvironment like that where it
is more structured and you aregetting that explicit feedback?
Uh, or not, you know.
Neither is better than theother.
It's just a matter of you andyour individual learning style.
Jeremiah (26:38):
Yeah, but even if that's not your learning style,
even if you know that you'remore of a, I just need to do it
and get my hands on it andthat's how I learn from
practice, which I think to someextent we all kind of are, but
that's neither here nor there.
Even then, just having a groupof people who are all doing the
same thing, who you meet withregularly, or just one person
(26:58):
who you meet with regularlyabout this, it, well, it helps
to keep you accountable.
And I think that this is true oflanguage, it's also true of
writing, it's true of a lot ofthings.
That it is much easier, it tendsto be much easier to stay on top
of something like this and stickwith it if you are accountable
to someone.
Marina (27:16):
Oh yeah.
Definitely.
And similarly to that, It's ascheduled block of time, on your
calendar for you to learn andpractice your target language
that you wouldn't have hadotherwise.
Right?
Unless you were taking thatclass, you probably wouldn't
have that scheduled block oftime where you're being exposed
(27:39):
to your target language, usuallynothing but your target language
for an hour, an hour and thirtyminutes, however long it is.
And so, similar toaccountability, it is like this
dedicated time in your week.
That you kind of have to go to,whether you're paying money for
it, or because you feelobligated to, or just to keep
(28:01):
yourself accountable.
It's just good practice.
Jeremiah (28:04):
So After listening so far, you paused the episode and
you were like, I got to sign upfor a language class.
I got to go to a group meetup orsomething.
And now you're there and you arein the classroom or wherever.
And you're like, okay, now what,what do I actually do to make
the most of this language class?
Marina, what are, what are thestrategies that we recommend for
(28:28):
making the most of a languageclass?
Marina (28:30):
Well, for one thing, speaking from experience, try
your best to lower your anxietyas much as possible if you are
an anxious person.
Jeremiah (28:40):
Oh, I never thought of that.
Just be less anxious.
Marina (28:42):
I know! be anxious! I know, easier said than done.
I know.
But, the reason that we say thisis because anxiety is one thing
that can raise your affectivefilter.
Now, your affective filter isit's a sciencey term for this
metaphorical filter that goes upunder certain conditions.
(29:06):
Those conditions are things likeanxiety, fear, embarrassment,
sort of negative emotions thatraise our affective filter and
it stops most of what'shappening around you in terms of
language acquisition fromgetting through.
So if you're too anxious, forexample, it's going to be a lot
(29:28):
harder to acquire the languagethan if you were less anxious.
Jeremiah (29:34):
It's going to be harder to learn things because
stuff isn't making it throughthat filter.
And so, the point that we'retrying to get at is that
anything you can do to loweryour own affective filter,
anything you can do to makeyourself feel more safe and
comfortable and at ease, it'sgoing to make it a lot easier
for stuff to get in.
Because you're not going to havethis psychic barrier up.
(29:54):
Which is not your fault, andthis is something that the
teacher should be helping with,should be trying to do is make
you feel more comfortable andmake you feel more at ease
because that's just part of whatbeing a good teacher is, is it's
making students feel comfortableand safe so that learning can
happen.
But that's an imperfect processand it can be hard to make
people feel the way you wantthem to feel.
(30:14):
That's like the whole thing, thewhole problem with being a human
being and interacting withothers.
And so anything that you can doon your own to make yourself
feel more safe and comfortableis gonna make their job easier
and it's gonna make your job oflearning the language easier.
Marina (30:27):
Exactly.
If your teacher is a goodteacher, they will expect you to
make mistakes, and they willlike it that you make mistakes,
in fact.
No one cares.
Everybody else is just asanxious, and the more you talk,
the more you put yourself outthere, the more you try in
class, the less anxious you'lleventually become.
(30:47):
Every time you do it, it'll geteasier, and eventually, you'll
do it without even thinkingabout it.
I speak I I can say that fromexperience.
As someone with anxiety, it ispossible.
Speaking of speaking, you shouldtry and speak as much as
possible.
Like I said, this helps to loweryour anxiety, but it also gives
(31:09):
you a lot of benefits in termsof language acquisition.
So, the, the idea is that themore output you produce, the
faster you'll acquire thelanguage.
It's not so much a question ofspeed, it's more of just, you
will acquire more of thelanguage.
Jeremiah (31:29):
Yeah.
So the thing with that, from mypoint of view is I, I subscribe
to a certain theory ofknowledge, which says that to
learn things you have to.
put them into practice.
And that means making mistakes.
Because as a human being, youcan't learn without making
mistakes.
Because you experience reality,you make assumptions about how
(31:51):
the world works, you act onthose assumptions, and find out
if they're true based on whetheryou get it right or not.
So if you never get anythingwrong, if you never make any
mistakes, then that just meansyou're not making decisions, and
it just means that you're notdoing something because the only
way to not make mistakes as ahuman is to not do something in
the first place.
You can't mess something up ifyou don't try.
(32:12):
And if you don't mess up, thenyou're not learning because how
that's how we learn by makingmistakes through practice.
So part of the reason thatspeaking is so important is
because you can make mistakeswhen you're listening.
You can make mistakes reading bymisreading a word, or you can
make mistakes listening tosomebody else talk by mishearing
them.
But what is really the feedbackthat you're getting there?
(32:34):
You're like, oh, I misheardthem.
Either you don't even realizeyou misheard them, or you do,
and it's like, oh, they saidthis.
Speaking, you're actually doingsomething.
And that's not to say thatlistening isn't active, because
you can listen actively.
You know, the distinctionbetween these skills isn't as
cut and dry as saying speakingis this and listening is that.
But when you're speaking, thatis a very active thing to do.
(32:56):
It's hard to speak passively.
And so when you're doing it,You're just going to make a lot
more mistakes speaking than youare listening or reading.
Uh, same goes for writing.
But speaking is, I think, whereyou make the most of those, and
where you get the most immediateand meaningful feedback.
Because if you're speaking andyou mess something up, you'll
know, because either the personwill correct you, or, more
(33:18):
likely, they just won'tunderstand you.
And you'll be able to tellbecause they'll look at you
weird.
And that doesn't feel great,but...
that process of making mistakesand learning from them happens
so much faster when you'respeaking because you're making
more mistakes and you're gettingreal time feedback.
Marina (33:34):
Well said.
Jeremiah (33:36):
Thank you.
Marina (33:37):
So, some things that you can do in the classroom to work
on this is to ask questions tothe teacher in the target
language.
They might already have, like, arule in place for this, but if
they don't, still try and do itas much as you can.
Uh, even if you're not sureexactly how to translate the
sentence from your L1 into yourtarget language, say it in,
(34:00):
like, a simpler way.
You know, it doesn't have tobe...
Um, exactly how you would say itin your L1, just do your best
and see if you can get yourmeaning across.
Also, if you are in a classroomwith other students, try and be
the first one to speak whenyou're doing a small group
activity.
(34:20):
Um, in my experience, usuallywhen you get into a small group
and you're given a task, No onetalks.
No one is the person toinitiate, uh, the conversation.
Try and be that person toinitiate the conversation.
And in fact, when you do that,the other people will start
talking and then you don't haveto talk as much.
(34:42):
And then, lastly, try and gobeyond the activity that your
teacher has prescribed to geteven more practice.
And especially low stakespractice.
So for example, if you're inyour small group and you've, and
you're done, you've done theactivity, you've written your
paragraph, you've completed theword search, whatever it is,
(35:04):
don't be silent.
Uh, talk to each other and don'tuse your L1, like try and make
small talk in the targetlanguage.
Because that's also not practicethat you get very often.
In a language class, usuallyyou're working on a very
specific task that requires veryspecific things.
Try just making small talk.
(35:24):
Try talking to your peers in theway that you would in your L1 or
your common language, and tryand use the target language
instead.
That's how I got a lot of extraspeaking practice in my Spanish
class, making my peers alsospeak Spanish, even if they try
and speak in your L1.
Keep speaking in the targetlanguage.
Maybe they'll start doing ittoo.
Jeremiah (35:46):
Yeah.
Oh, and there's one thing Iwanna say about this point that
I think listeners might bethinking.
And so I want to put it outthere, which is that,"Well wait,
if my classmates are alsolearning this language and
they're not, uh, experts at it,aren't they gonna make mistakes?
Aren't we gonna make mistakes toeach other?
And if neither of us is anexpert in this language, like
(36:08):
the teacher is, then won't wejust be learning each other's
mistakes?
Won't we be learning the wrongversion of the language because
we're just messing it up and notable to correct each other?" And
the short answer is no.
Marina (36:24):
You're not gonna fossilize an ungrammatical
construction in a two minuteconversation.
Jeremiah (36:32):
Yeah, and, y'know, fossilization is a thing and
we'll definitely talk about itanother time.
but you don't have to be afraidof just hearing mistakes or
making, making mistakes that gouncorrected in the moment.
Ideally, mistakes get corrected,or at least you become aware
(36:53):
that they're mistakes so thatyou don't just fall into the
habit of doing them.
Um, again, that's kind of acomplicated topic that we'll
talk about later,
Marina (37:01):
But I think, you know, teachers...
Um, don't, well, I won't saythey don't universally, but they
shouldn't correct every singlemistake that you make when you
talk.
Because that is going to becounterproductive.
And so if your teacher isn'tdoing that, you can't expect
your peers to do the same thing.
Jeremiah (37:19):
So true.
And yeah, we should have a wholeepisode about learner errors,
because it's a reallyinteresting area.
But the last thing I'll sayabout it is that language is
first and foremost, I think, atool for doing things, just in
the same way that a hammer is atool for hammering in nails,
(37:39):
language is a tool foraccomplishing social action.
It's a tool for making otherpeople aware of things, it's a
tool for getting other people todo things, it's a tool for
building relationships.
It's a very versatile tool, butthe point is that language is
something that you're trying todo stuff with.
And...
What that means is that thepoint of learning a language,
(37:59):
the point of using language,isn't to like, avoid making any
mistakes and get it perfect.
The point is to accomplish yourintended social action.
And so in this case, if you'retalking to a peer in your class
and your intended social actionis A, using the language, B,
getting them to use thelanguage, and C, you know,
making small talk the way younormally would.
(38:20):
As long as something ishappening, as long as that
action is being accomplished,then you're doing what you're
supposed to be doing and you'regetting what you're supposed to
be getting out of that.
Because especially in a languagethat isn't your first language,
a lot of what accomplishingsocial action looks like is
negotiation.
(38:40):
It's negotiating with the personyou're talking with to arrive at
a meaning that both of youunderstand.
Uh, and especially in aclassroom, there's probably
going to be a lot of that.
Where they're like, looking atyou weird, they're like, what
are you trying to say?
And then you look at them weirdbecause you don't understand
what they're trying to say.
But eventually you get it.
That is the skill that you'relearning.
It's not how to perfectly useeverything in the language.
The skill you're learning is howto use it as a tool.
(39:03):
Exactly in a situation likethat.
So, you're not learning thewrong language.
You're learning it exactlyright.
You're learning it for how it'ssupposed to be used.
Marina (39:11):
Great point.
Yeah.
Also, bonus tip (39:12):
talking in the target language more in your
language class will make yourteacher like you.
And I'm saying that as ateacher.
Like, they love it when theirstudents talk.
Jeremiah (39:25):
Yeah, because talking in the tips that we're giving
you here are things that yourteacher To the degree that
they're able, is also trying todo, they're also trying to lower
your effective filter.
They're also trying to make youspeak as much as possible.
And so what we're really talkingabout here is being an active
participant in the learningprocess in the classroom
context.
It is helping them do their jobso that they can help you do
(39:47):
yours.
Marina (39:48):
That's much more eloquent
Jeremiah (39:50):
No, no, no.
Marina (39:51):
productive than the way that I
Jeremiah (39:52):
No, you.
Marina (39:52):
"Your teacher will like you."
Jeremiah (39:54):
no, I mean, no, that's 100 percent true is that yes,
your teacher, your teacher willlike you because you are making
their job easier, um, becauselike any public speaking
situation, it's hard to get upthere and it's hard to get up
there and talk and do all thisstuff.
And so you're really makingtheir life easier and making
this whole experience ofteaching in a classroom, uh,
(40:16):
more fun for them as well.
And so you're just, you're justbeing a good.
Um, a good participant in thatsocial interaction, in that
exchange, so definitely, yeah,your teacher will like you.
Marina (40:30):
We need to pump the breaks, we are taking way too
long.
Jeremiah (40:34):
That's the opposite of, if we needed, pumping the
brakes would make us slow down.
We need to step on the gas.
Marina (40:39):
We need to step on the gas.
So this next strategy foroptimizing your language
learning inside the classroom.
It's something that I did when Iwas learning Japanese and
Spanish in a language class.
And this is priming yourselfbefore you go to class.
So I guess this is like, kind ofan outside of class strategy,
(41:02):
but its implementation reallyhappens inside the classroom.
So this idea of priming, ifyou've ever taken Psychology
101, you've probably heard ofthis, but it's a concept in
psychology.
where you are exposed to astimulus at some earlier point.
When that happens, it willaffect how you react to some
(41:23):
other stimulus in the future.
So, as an example, Jeremiah, ifI were to show you a picture of
a banana, and then 30 minuteslater, I ask you to give me the
name of a random fruit, you aremore likely to say banana
because you were primed.
Right?
I gave you the stimulus of abanana, and then the second
(41:45):
stimulus was asking you for thename of a random fruit.
You were primed, and so you saidbanana.
You're more likely to saybanana.
Jeremiah (41:54):
banana.
Banana.
Marina (41:55):
Thank you.
The neat thing about this isthat it can be applied to
language learning, or any kindof learning, really.
But in the case of languagelearning...
If you already know what topicthe teacher is going to cover
that day, you know, if luckilythey give you the syllabus or
(42:16):
they tell you the chapter thatyou're going to go over, you can
prime yourself by reviewing thattopic before you go to class.
Okay?
So, for example, let's say thatyour teacher is going to be
teaching relative clauses inyour ASL class, okay?
(42:36):
Then it might be a good idea todo your own research about that
topic.
For example, reading the chapterif you have a textbook.
Maybe watching a YouTube videoabout relative clauses in ASL.
Maybe you want to read about iton Wikipedia, especially if you
don't know what relative clausesare, right?
(42:57):
You don't necessarily have tounderstand it to mastery, that's
something that you can save forlater.
But, you should know enoughabout it so that when you're in
class, it's not 100 percent newmaterial.
Does that make sense?
Jeremiah (43:13):
Yeah.
That makes a lot of sense.
Marina (43:15):
This is especially helpful for challenging topics,
maybe topics that you haven'tencountered before.
Jeremiah (43:21):
Like the subjunctive.
Marina (43:22):
Like the subjunctive in a lot of romance languages.
Or just kind of more complextopics, topics that are
significantly different fromyour own, first language.
Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrit (43:33):
Having
Marina (43:33):
not be entirely new makes it a lot less scary, for
one thing.
And it almost makes going toclass a little bit like review,
which also makes it feel not asdifficult.
It's just easier, easier to pickup once you're in class.
In general.
Jeremiah (43:51):
Yeah, totally.
I don't have anything to add.
Marina (43:54):
This was my secret sauce when I was taking language
classes in college.
Jeremiah (43:58):
Nice.
That's a good secret sauce.
Marina (44:02):
It also allows you to actually practice the concept in
class, rather than just focusingon like learning the mechanics
of it.
Now if you're like in a flippedclassroom situation that's a
little bit different.
This is what you're doinganyway..
But if you're not, if you're ina more traditional classroom,
then this is gonna allow you tojump in a little bit more
(44:25):
quickly than you would normally,uh, which is another benefit.
Jeremiah (44:30):
So, these are all strategies that you can employ
when you're in class.
That last one is like a littlebit of both.
But, there are also a lot ofstrategies that you can use
outside the classroom,exclusively or, primarily
outside the classroom that willhave kind of a knock on effect
in class that will help you getmore out of that class.
(44:51):
Uh, I think priming kind ofpartly falls under this, but
there are others.
Marina (44:55):
So, yeah, independent learning, as we talked about in
the previous episode, is stillvery beneficial, even when
you're taking a language class.
It gives you more practice thanyou would have gotten just
inside a class, because, youknow, typically in school you're
only taking it for like maybe anhour every day, not even every
(45:16):
day, and this just gives youmore exposure, more time with
the language, and it also helpsto solidify what you learned in
class, so it doesn't just exityour brain the second you turn
in your final exam, right?
So out of class learning is whatis often called in this, in this
scholarship.
(45:37):
it helps you balance the type oflearning activities that you're
doing, which is something that'sbeen shown to improve learning
outcomes.
So one study that I found thatkind of exemplifies this.
is by Lai et al.
And they looked at 82 middleschool EFL students.
(45:58):
EFL stands for English as aForeign Language.
so these students were learningEnglish in China.
They wanted to know what out ofclass activities the students
were doing that seemed to resultin good language learning
outcomes.
And the way that they measuredgood was through things like
grades, were they getting bettergrades in their class, on their
(46:21):
assignments, did their overallcompetency go up, were they
enjoying the class more, thoseare how they measured the
outcomes.
And they found a few things, youknow, related to Parent
involvement in technology.
It wasn't just about one thing,but their main finding was that
creating a balanced learningecosystem is the key, which is
(46:46):
just an awesome way of sayingthat the learning activities
that you do should be varied infocus.
Do I have you so far?
Jeremiah (46:56):
Yes, uh, ecosystem.
Marina (46:58):
Yes.
Um, I just think that's such afun term.
Balanced learning ecosystem.
So, in China, a little bit ofcontext, um, the authors say
that language classes are veryform focused.
form focused means that...
The focus is on sort of the nutsand bolts of the language, how
it works, the linguistics, sothings like conjugation,
(47:20):
sentence structure, things likethat.
That's what we call formfocused.
However, they saw that the bestoutcomes from students came from
those who engaged in moremeaning focused activities.
So this is a quote from thestudy:"Form focused activities
(47:41):
placed more emphasis on thelinguistic system and the formal
elements of the language.
Examples of form focusedactivities included doing
grammar exercises, reviewing thetextbooks, taking remedial
tutorial classes, and so on.
Meaning focused activities weremore authentic activities, which
gave the participantsnaturalistic language exposure
(48:03):
with the overriding emphasis onmeaning and communication.
Examples of meaning focusedactivities included reading
novels in English, watchingEnglish language movies, playing
computer games in English,online chatting, and so on."
Online chatting.
so.
To apply this a little bit morebroadly, kind of what, what does
(48:24):
all this mean?
The things you do outside of theclassroom should be somewhat
different than what you doinside the classroom.
So if your class is more formfocused, where you focus on the
grammar and the linguistics ofthings, try watching media in
(48:44):
your target language, tryjoining a language exchange
where you talk to people yourown age, try.
Reading a book, or reading acomic book, or something around
your level.
Um, try talking to otherlearners online.
Things that you find fun and aremore about using the language
rather than learning about thelanguage.
(49:06):
then on the flip side of that,if your class is more meaning
focused, if it's a little bitmore loosey goosey, maybe it's a
flipped classroom, somethinglike that, try doing a little
bit more form focusedactivities.
Try making flashcards.
Try making your own vocab list.
Let's use apps like Duolingo,study conjugation tables,
(49:27):
whatever you feel like you needto kind of solidify the form of
the language.
The point of all this is to tryand balance, right, that
balanced learning ecosystem.
Form and meaning we'll probablydo like a whole episode about
form versus meaning versus use.
Because that's a triangle ofthings that are very important
(49:50):
in language acquisition.
But, for now, these things workthe best when they are in
balance.
Right?
You can't use one without theother.
One can't exist without theother.
Jeremiah (50:03):
Being in class and doing in class work and being
out of class and doing out ofclass work, that kind of
represents a contradictionalmost in the learning process
if you are learning in this way.
So, that is to say that even ifyou are taking a class, there is
an out of class.
(50:24):
There's an out of classcomponent.
So that sort of duality, if youwant to think of it like that,
is It's like an opportunity or astructure that you can then map
a duality in learning approachesonto, so if you have an in class
and an out of class, then youshould be doing one thing in
(50:47):
class and one thing outta class.
Marina (50:49):
Yeah, it's kind of like two sides of the same coin,
where everything that you do inclass has some corresponding
activity that you can do outsideof class that complement each
other.
So, like I said, if your classis a lot of, like, drills and
conjugation and, like, explicitgrammar instruction, then the
other side of that is to try andfind opportunities that are a
(51:13):
little bit more meaning focusedoutside of class, like watching
movies, Reading materials in thetarget language, things like
that, and vice versa.
So I think the sort of bigtakeaway that I want to pass
along from this episode is abouttaking back your learner
autonomy.
Even when you're taking a classwhich is a very structured
(51:36):
environment to be learning alanguage in, just because it's
being led by someone who isn'tyou, the path is sort of laid
out before you already.
You can still take control ofyour own learning in the ways
that feel the best to you tomake the most out of that
experience, both inside andoutside the classroom.
And whatever approach you taketo do that is going to be suited
(52:01):
to you.
And that is the most importantthing, because that is going to
optimize your time in class.
You know, you can take thesestrategies that we talked about,
and implement them, butultimately, you know yourself,
and you know what works for you.
Jeremiah (52:17):
I, I would even put it this way, which is that it's not
even just that these are thingsthat you can do to make the most
of your language class.
So in that sense, our title is alittle clickbaity.
It's actually that, that thereis no passive learning.
It seems like a passive process,but it's not.
And if you want to actuallylearn something, and quote
unquote get the most out of it,but actually just get...
(52:40):
the right amount out of it, youhave to be an active part of
that process.
You don't have to do exactlythese things because, like you
said, you as the learner knowwhat works for you, or at least
you're going to find out whatworks for you through the
process of learning.
but, all this is to say thatit's not just that, oh, these
are ways that you can, like,boost or supercharge the
language class.
It's like, this is stuff thateverybody should be doing
(53:02):
anyway.
This is how classes should work,but they don't always, and you
have a role in kind ofcompleting the dialectic, one
way to put that, by meeting yourinstructor or just meeting your
class halfway and doing yourshare of the work outside of
class as well as inside of classand being an active learner.
That might be a little, a littleharsh, but.
Marina (53:25):
Harsh truths are necessary.
But, I don't think any of thisshould...
Or, I hope that none of this,you know, scares anybody away
from taking a language classbecause I think we've both had
very good experiences takinglanguage classes.
And they are extremely valuableand they do have a place.
Jeremiah (53:46):
And the last thing I'll say about that, about like,
oh, this is kind of scary, Iactually have to talk, is that
there are lots of ways toparticipate, and there are lots
of ways to be an active learnerthat don't require you to become
a social butterfly or whatever.
Like, if you find that some ofthis stuff is difficult for you,
then you should do what ends upworking for you.
(54:07):
And so, if you find that like,It's just too much to always be
the one to talk first in groupprojects, like, that's fine.
Like, not doing everything thatwe've listed isn't gonna break
your language learning, and youmight find that there are other
ways to accomplish the samethings that we're talking about
that are just more comfortable.
And this goes back to theaffective filter is...
(54:29):
Whatever you're doing, it shouldmake you feel as safe and
comfortable in that learningenvironment as possible, because
that's one of the biggest thingsthat's going to determine what
you take out of it.
So if you're putting yourself inpositions and situations where
you're just getting, like,really, overwhelmed, and it's
giving you a lot of anxiety,then it's going to backfire.
You should, whatever you do, youshould be comfortable.
(54:51):
So that comes down to knowingyourself.
Marina (54:55):
Yeah.
Jeremiah (54:56):
Do your homework!
Marina (54:57):
Do your homework.
Show up to class.
And maybe you'll actually learnsomething.
Jeremiah (55:06):
Thanks for listening to this episode of How to
Language on how to make the mostof a language class.
If you like what we do, you canrate and review us on your
favorite podcast platform, andmaybe follow us on Instagram and
X at HowToLang for more languagelearning content.
See ya!
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