In Language Learning Do It WRONG The First Time

In language learning, you wanna do it wrong the first time and you

want to continue doing it wrong.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here again to talk about language learning.

And in particular, today I'm going to talk about the need to get it right or, uh,

as, um, one often hears in, feels like engineering or construction or industrial

production, get it right the first time.

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I do appreciate it.

So I worked for a forest products company and we were making

lumber and pulp and newsprint.

And of course, quality control is very important and as often happens

in large corporations, we get these consultants to come in and run programs.

You know, six sigma and all these other different, you know, buzzwords

around the idea of, of improving quality, like fewer errors.

And there was one program they had in one of our mills because the company

was quite sort of decentralized.

And this one pulp and paper mill brought in a consultant who had

a program called DIRTY FOOT.

Do it right the first time.

And all the sort of management people and, and production people had name

cards with DIRTY FOOT on the back and they had a whole bunch of different

programs around the idea of making sure that at every step along the

process, everything was done just right.

You know, met certain specific standards.

And the idea was do it right the first time and then you don't have to redo it.

Now, how does that apply to language learning?

Well, the short answer is it doesn't, doesn't apply in language learning.

You wanna do it wrong the first time and you want to continue doing it wrong, and

you wanna accept the fact that you're going to continue doing it wrong if you

are too obsessed with getting it right the first time or the second time, you

put unnecessary pressure on yourself and you'll probably hold back and stay with

material that is easy enough so that you can get it right, which is not a good idea

because you want to expose yourself to as, as much of the language as possible in

as many different situations as possible.

And that's going to mean getting it wrong.

It's going to mean not understanding, it's gonna mean answering questions

wrong with the wrong tense, or the wrong, uh, preposition, or the wrong

ending, or any of these things.

You're gonna continue getting it wrong, and you have to be willing to get it

wrong over and over again in order that you get enough exposure to the language

that eventually you start to get it right and, and very often I, I think

part of the problem here is the way we were taught languages at school where

you don't, obviously you don't wanna get it wrong on the test, you want to

get it right on the test, but what if you aren't going to get it right until

you've actually had enough exposure or until you've done it wrong enough

times that you start to get it right.

So Okay, get it wrong, but don't penalize people for getting it wrong.

Maybe we congratulate people for getting it wrong.

And encourage them, encourage them to keep on getting it wrong, uh,

because eventually they're gonna get it right with enough exposure.

So, uh, the idea that you're gonna master the basics at some early stage,

like if you're building a house, well, you've gotta get it right.

Uh, if you don't line things up square or level, and then the floor isn't

level and you know, the, the stud goes up and it is isn't at 90 degrees.

Now the wall isn't square and so many bad things happen in many industrial processes

if you don't do it right the first time.

But that's not the case in language learning.

It's not as if you're you, you're not building something where if you get

it wrong at an early stage, then you will build it wrong on top of that.

In fact, you will get some things right and some things wrong, and this will

continue for quite a while, and at some point the things you were getting wrong,

you'll start to get them right, but you can't force yourself to get them right.

At least that's been my experience.

I encourage people to accept to own their mistakes, and that's another reason

why, by the way, why I, why I'm not a big fan of correcting other people.

If they ask for it, fine.

If they don't, just let them communicate.

Let them engage, say things, they get input back, and gradually they'll

start to hear a more correct version of what they were trying to say.

Yes, it's possible that some people will have certain

errors that they never correct.

And, and I've seen this, people who speak English very well, they'll have

certain patterns from their, uh, native language that they never ever correct.

And they continue to use that same pattern in English, for example, or in some

other language that they're learning.

However, my experience has been, even if you correct them, they won't change.

So at some point they have to naturally feel, develop a new

habit where this pattern they were.

, they switch to another pattern.

But in the meantime, in most cases, if someone says to me, if a German

speaking person says, I have lived in Canada since many years, which is not

correct in English, it's correct in German, I understand what he's saying

or she, so it's not a big problem.

But if that person has lived in Canada for a long time and is comfortable

speaking English, and I then say to them, well, actually, while we're talking

about something that's of interest to both of us, and then I jump in there

and say, oh, by the way, you keep on saying that, but that's not correct.

If they ask me to correct their language, fine.

But otherwise I would never do that.

I would just say live with that mistake, either it'll naturally, you

know, self-correct at some point, or that person will continue comfortably

communicating in English, even with the odd trace of say, a German or a

Swedish or a French or a Japanese or a Chinese, you know, turn of phrase there,

where based on my experience, even if I correct them, it won't do much good.

So message is do it right the first time is very important in industrial

processes, in manufacturing, in construction and engineering.

But when it comes to language learning, do it wrong.

Do it wrong, not only the first time.

Do it wrong many times and accept your mistakes.

There you have it.

I look forward to your comments and I've left a couple of videos

where I talk about the importance of mistakes in language learning.

Bye for now.