Is There a LAZY Way to Learn a Language?
I'm a lazy language learner.
I don't do tests.
I don't do flashcards.
I don't use the International Phonetic Alphabet, the IPA.
I don't go to class.
I study on my own when I feel like it.
When I'm tired of whatever I'm doing, I move on to something else.
I fluctuate between difficult content and easy content.
The well known and outstanding Brazilian educator described why comprehension tests
about things that we read are so futile because reading is a vagabond experience.
We don't want to challenge the reader to try to remember or try to understand
or to explain what he or she read.
We just want the reader to enjoy the process.
And so that's kind of been my approach.
There are definitely arguments against the sort of lazy language learning.
Attitude.
I've read a couple of books recently that give reasons why we need to
be more deliberate, although with the nuance, Outsmarting Your Brain
by Dan Willingham, Make It Stick.
Now, these books do point out that sort of deliberate block
learning, forcing yourself to learn something is not very effective.
However, they and others like Justin Sung, whom you can find on YouTube,
and I'll leave a link, and many others point out that retrieval.
Is very effective if you're forcing yourself to try to remember something
as in tests, the effort of retrieving things helps anchor things in our long
term memory, or you need to have it structured so that you're learning
things that are at that proximal zone of capability or of knowledge so
that you're never attacking anything that's too, too difficult for you.
And of course, that's the difficulty in a classroom
because the teacher doesn't know.
What each student knows, so how can they then give them just that next level,
that proximal level of difficulty.
And then there's Bloom's taxonomy where it's not enough to retrieve things.
We also have to develop the ability to discuss, to evaluate, and to understand.
Things that we are learning, but that then brings me to why I think
lazy language learning is the best approach for language learning.
When we're talking about language, we're not talking about developing
or retaining with accuracy, bits of information that we have learned.
We're talking about using the content, the material that's a hopefully of
interest to us to learn the language.
When I read a history book on Poland in Polish, I don't care
if I remember all the details.
I'm not going to do it.
Uh, a test on Polish history.
I'm just aware that just by reading and listening in Polish to whatever it
might be, my ability in the language is improving again, this zone of
proximal knowledge, because we are selecting things of interest to us.
We are typically moving from one bit of content in a particular area, using a
podcaster or an audio book or whatever it might be, to something that is
more or less related to that subject.
So we are helping ourselves, both in terms of the subject matter and in
terms of the vocabulary, stay within our area of proximal knowledge.
Similarly, when I start out in a language.
I do a lot of repetitive listening to our mini stories because there, again,
I'm staying within the limits of my sort of proximal level of knowledge.
Another advantage of this lazy approach is that it keeps me motivated because
whatever theoretically can be said about the advantages of retrieval
practice and testing and these other things, if it demotivates me.
Then it actually is counterproductive.
Similarly with, say, trying to learn the basics of grammar upfront.
If I find that a demotivating thing to do, even if it could be proven that it
helps me master the grammar, which I don't believe to be the case, if it demotivates
me, then it's a bad thing to do.
Given that retrieval is an important part of developing long term memory,
so then some might argue we should be doing tests to force us to
retrieve things that we have learned.
However, when we are listening and reading, covering a lot of different
types of material, maybe some of the same essential subject matter using different
books or different sources, we are in fact forcing ourselves to retrieve things.
That we have in our memory, so we don't have to have a deliberate retrieval
practice or exercise that's going to force us to retrieve things by the mere
fact that we are reading and listening to things where there are words that
are in various stages of being acquired.
So in the case of LingQ, if they're white, we know them.
If they're different shades of yellow, we're in different
stages of learning them.
If they're blue, they're brand new.
By listening and reading, we are again, retrieving them so that the exercise
of retrieving takes place naturally in an input based learning style.
The big thing of course, is to remain curious.
It's our curiosity that drives us.
Curiosity about the language, about the people.
So as long as we have that curiosity and we have that sort of lazy attitude, it's
almost the sort of Wu Wei effortless attitude of Zen or of Zhuangzi in
Chinese philosophy, we're going to be moving forward, even though we have.
A lazy approach to language learning, and we resist the testing and the
other things that traditional classroom instruction tries to force on us.
And I think we are living in the golden age of vagabond or lazy language learning.
Never has there been a greater variety of resources available through
YouTube, through podcasts, and I now discovered that I can go to a podcast.
And even if the MP3 file isn't available, I can turn on the audio, open up
Audacity, get an MP3 file, and then I can bring that MP3 file into LingQ.
LingQ will automatically transcribe it.
I have a lesson.
So the fields, the areas that we can wander around, meander around
like a hobo, like a vagabond, as a lazy language learner.
And increase our ability in the language has never been greater.
I have spoken previously on the subject of lazy language learning,
and I will leave you a couple of videos that I did at different stages.
And with this video, I'm kind of updating my position on this.
Thank you for listening.
Bye for now.
