Staying Focused & Avoiding FOMO in Language Learning
hi there Steve Kaufman here today I want
to talk about staying focused in our
language learning and it's particularly
relevant right now because I think to
some extent we're all concerned about
the coronavirus kovat 19 pandemic and in
our behavior we're doing things that
hopefully will you know slow it down but
language learning is something that we
can do right now I'm certainly sitting
here with my wife or sort of in Palm
Springs more or less you know isolated
that we don't go out much I will
eventually go back to Vancouver but I
didn't want to fly back with all the you
know people all descending on the
airport's at the same time we have a
small second-hand car which we could we
can drive back depending on how things
develop but so meantime I'm here so I am
deriving great enjoyment from learning
my Persian and Arabic and I noticed that
you know it's very important when I'm
say reading in Arabic or Persian or
listening to our bigger Persian that I
don't sort of constantly want to check
the Twitter feed to see what is
happening with the coronavirus and stuff
like this because there's nothing I can
do about it we wash our hands we keep
our distance we do the things that were
told to do and so then the rest of the
time I enjoy you know studying languages
and so I came across this term on
Twitter called formal fear of missing
out now typically that refers to fear of
missing out light other people are
having fun and I'm not having fun but
obviously if you're engaged in something
like the language learning which is
tremendously rewarding and where the
more effort we put in the better we get
then it's important to stay focused on
that and I find the more I focus the
more I stay focused on you know whatever
it is I'm reading or listening to the
more I'm able to stay with it and enjoy
it so I think we just have to resist the
temptation to sort of dash off and do
something else we kind of have to stay
with what we're doing
and then I also sort of thought about
how much of a of an international
cooperative venture language-learning
has become so in the case of my Persian
I have a collaborator and Aram Safra who
not only is creating stories where she
talks about herself and has other
friends talking about themselves and we
call this the Iranians and then she has
created circling questions for each of
these little episodes and they're
proving quite popular for people and
linked to our learning Persian but also
she obtained permission from a Persian
podcaster who goes into mostly English
language self-help books and provides a
synopsis of them in Persian and Sahar is
going in and divided them into five six
minute segments and then creating
circling questions for each segment so
there I have a collaborator in Iran who
is helping me learn Persian I have a
similar connection with an Arab speak
Arabic speaker in Morocco who is doing
the same for Arabic podcasts dividing
them into shorter segments creating
these circular questions by the way I
touch my notes I've gotta stop doing
that so and of course on my youtube
channel you'll soon see that I'm having
conversations with people in Germany and
Spain in Japan and so there's this
global effort and of course there's any
number of people online creating content
creating learning systems are creating
YouTube content in different languages
so it's really quite an international
community where we are connecting not
only to learn languages but we're
learning about each other and so the
world continues to get smaller now some
people may look at the current you know
Koba 19 pandemic as an example of the
sort of negative side of globalization
and there will undoubtedly be
adjustments in terms of how much people
fly and in terms of supply chains and
so forth but we remain global globalized
we will continue to be connected it
might be more remote work more virtual
connection more online learning but we
will remain very very connected and this
is a good thing and you know the fact
that the kovat 19 emanated from Wuhan
China there have always been pandemics
from the Black Plague in Europe you know
Spanish flu which by the way didn't
originate in Spain it was first reported
on in Spain but it originated people are
uncertain as to whether it was in Europe
or Kansas or in North China where this
thing originated in h1n1 and all of
these others have originated in
different places so we are always
vulnerable to pandemics what I think is
unique this time is the degree to which
the world is coming together the
resources are being put into you know
there is a four-hour testing system
developed in Singapore another for our
testing system in by a company in
Switzerland you know I saw that at the
University University of Saskatchewan in
Canada which is relatively small they're
developing a vaccine I saw there was a
bit of a news report that a company in
Germany is developing a vaccine and
there was an effort by US interest to
buy that and take it back to the US so
that it would only be for the benefit of
the US I I don't I haven't seen that
story verified although it was reported
in some fairly reputable newspapers
we'll see if that's true or not if that
is true that course goes against the
whole spirit of sharing of information
sharing of research information sharing
of experience so that this threat which
is our global threat can be you know
mitigated in a global way and I think we
will get the vaccine and we'll get you
know home testing kits and we'll get you
know perhaps some drugs that can
mitigate the effects of the disease
we'll get them quicker than ever because
people are so connected and of course
computing power and all this stuff now
I have to admit that I am by nature an
optimist and in that regard one of the
episodes in the B+ podcast is a synopsis
by Ali of a book written by a Swede
whose name I can't remember was it Hans
Rosling I'm not sure and it's called
fact fulness and he points out how
people tend to interpret facts or with a
lack of facts always assume that the
situation is worse than it is and he has
a number of examples I haven't come to
them yet because I've only started into
this podcast and of course it's in
Persian so I'm progressing somewhat
slowly although I take it with me when I
run and then I come back and I read it
again but you know the current pandemic
which will undoubtedly create a lot of
hardship death suffering we have to
remember that the vast majority of
people will not have serious symptoms
although a lot of people will so there
will be a tremendous burden on our
hospitals and huh it's conceivable that
hundreds of thousands of people will die
or more we don't know we don't know
however you know every year if I look at
statistics from the United States
millions of people die of cancer 40,000
or so I'm roughly going from memory here
about 40,000 people die from automobile accidents four million people are
accidents four million people are
hospitalized for automobile accidents
not that that's a good thing and not
that not that that makes this suffering
worse
Orsini it makes itself the suffering
less of these people nor does it mean
that we don't have to do everything
possible to increase you know intensive
care unit beds and ventilators and all
of this other stuff but it is in the
pandemic is adding to these other you
know the heroin overdoses or suicides
which you're 17 or 20 thousand people in
the US and I'm not picking on the u.s.
it just so happens that those statistics
are readily available
you google so it's a net addition of a
significant significant number of people
who will die but it still needs to be
looked in looked at in the context of
yeah we do face risk in our lives and
but I think this global cooperation in
finding solutions to cancer solutions to
other diseases that afflict us that this
is a very positive sign so the kind of
small scale cooperation that we're
seeing in sort of language learning
community is being replicated in many
other fields including medicine so the
current pandemic is a bit of a gut punch
no doubt and it'll have significant
economic consequences but in the longer
term I think that this increasing
international cooperation globalization
perhaps with less flying with less face
to face is a good thing and I think we
will come out of this stronger with a
new new way of operating a globalized
economy and so you know I can't
influence these things I can follow them
but I don't want to follow them too much
because I want to stay focused on my
language learning and I recommend that
you do the same don't have formal fear
of missing out and make sure that you
wash your hands for a good twenty
seconds which is longer than you think
and there's all kinds of videos on the
internet showing you how to wash your
hands and stay away from people you
don't know and crowds and that kind of thing
thing
and I think the best thing is I mean I
operate on the assumption that I have
Corbin Nike and I don't want to spread
it to other people therefore I don't
touch anyone I don't shake hands I stay
away from other people and we will see
how these things of all but I don't see
that
there is it going to be a dramatic
short-term improvement and therefore we
have to you know continue to do
everything we can to mitigate spread in
order to you know prevent the worst
possible outcome for vulnerable people
and therefore you know undo strains on
our hospital systems in in different
countries so I just wanted to share that
with you thank you
bye for now