How to Learn a Language Effectively at School

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here. So I want to continue this series on studying effectively. And whereas in the previous video I talked about studying effectively in general, and I'm referring of course to studying mostly in a school environment or a university environment, and in the first video I talked about studying effectively in general, in this video, I want to talk about studying effectively when it comes to learning languages.

Remember if you enjoy these videos, please subscribe, click on the bell to get notifications. Why is it that so many people struggle to learn languages at school? Now I'm referring to the situation, for example, in Canada, within the English school system, where very few, uh, outside of French immersion, which is where English speaking kids do all of their schooling in French, which is a great program. And perhaps a few hundred, I don't know, four or 500,000 kids every year do that. But in the regular French stream, very few kids end up speaking French. I mean, that's just the reality. Uh, I don't know what the situation is in the US with regard to foreign languages, Spanish or in the UK for that matter.

I know that in countries like Sweden, and in Europe, in many countries in Europe, kids do learn. I'm not sure if they learn in school or whether they learn because in the case of Sweden, they have, um, you know, uh, the, uh, television programs, English or American television programs are not dubbed. So they're provided in the, uh, original version.

So the kids actually, before they even start school, they've heard a lot of English. And so they speak English. Well, But if I look at the situation in Canada, uh, I think there are a number of reasons why language instruction in school is not effective. And it kind of goes against some of the principles of effective study.

So first of all, the emphasis in schools, despite what people say is on tests. And it's on testing people for specifics of grammar. So, um, I mentioned in that previous video that in the UK for their, uh, geez, can't remember the GSE or whatever general, you know, national tests that they have. They were testing people on specific points of grammar, and this would then determine whether the learner got their diploma or didn't get their diploma. Issues of grammar that are actually quite minor.

They're there, yes. For example, in French you say "joue au football", "joue au..." whatever, you know, a sport, for example, "joue du piano". But if you got that wrong, it would not inhibit communication. If a person understands French well and is able to communicate well and makes the odd mistake like that, it's not that serious because the majority of students in the school system end up not being able to speak at all, not being able to understand at all. So what's the possible point of testing them on these specific points of grammar? All it does is introduce an element of frustration, um, sense of failure. Uh, plus it's unfair because, okay, as I pointed out in the earlier video, our brains are not so good at grabbing these details, but are our brains will gradually develop a series of patterns around how this foreign language works.

And so given enough exposure to the language, the learners will gradually get better. And if the goal is to be able to use the language in a practical way to understand, to communicate meaning then really testing people on specific points of grammar that are taught in grade four, grade six or grade eight, and therefore right away, we will test you on whether you learned it or not.

It's actually pointless. It's just building in more resistance to the language. And again, referring to my earlier video, we want learners to explore the language, to cover the same ground. Using different materials, different stories, different content. And of course the specific grammatical points will show up.

And these other, you know, uh, contexts. And the brain will gradually start to pick up on them. And it's possible that, uh, once the brain has had enough experience with sort of these aspects of the language, and if the teacher points out that we say "joue au", and in the case of a sport and "joue du" in the case of a musical instrument that that might help the learner remember that, and then they might still get it wrong and it doesn't really matter.

So, uh, I think the, the, the problem in, in language instruction in schools is the teacher decides what the learner is going to use as a textbook. I've even heard teachers discourage learners from going beyond what the teacher is teaching. The teacher wants to control what the learner is learning. The content that learner is using.

Uh, again, on this, uh, exchange I saw on Twitter, there's some discussion in the UK as to which high frequency words learners should have to demonstrate that they know in order to get their diploma. Well, the words that the learner knows is going to reflect what they have read. It's going to reflect what they're interested in.

The fact that they don't know the word "now", if they got into a situation where this word appeared frequently, they'd learn it. So again, I think that's an unnecessary, specific detail to test people on rather, how do you encourage people? And this is difficult in the case of French in Canada. If you live in Vancouver, There's not an awful lot of opportunity to use French, but the emphasis, the focus should be on

how do you get students to graze in the language, to explore in the language? Maybe even if you want them to learn French, let them choose the language they want to learn, because if they learn Spanish and they've got some confidence that they can learn the language, assuming they're more motivated to learn Spanish or Chinese or whatever it might be, if they achieve that,

then it'll be easier for them to learn French. In other words, effective study is based on the idea that the student is motivated. And I know that's difficult. You've got a classroom of 25 kids that aren't very motivated, but the challenge has to be how do we motivate these kids? If what we do in other words, insisting on certain grammatical niceties of the language or a certain set of words that have to be learned, and this will be the proof of whether the student has achieved that level. If we are building in frustration and disappointment and, uh, you know, resistance to the language, um, we're not helping the situation. And the proof is in the pudding because at least in the case of Canada, the vast majority of students in the English language stream graduate after eight or 10 years of French, and can't speak French, don't understand French, can't speak French.

I mean, they speak some, they might understand some, but essentially they're not functional in French. So I think that's why we have to recognize that, that the brain doesn't respond to this kind of, uh, you know, you must learn this now and then you get the student to sit down and try and block learn this thing now. That's not how it works. Effective study involves the sort of grazing. And also again, in, in school instruction, the emphasis is, is A on grammar and B on speaking. They have this sort of role playing and getting the students to speak. They have nothing to say until they understand well and have a sufficient sort of level of experience with the language.

They can't say that much. If they enjoy doing it, fine, but, but that should not be in my view, the main, uh, sort of form of instruction, emphasis on being able to say a few things, because once you have... So you have an artificial situation in the classroom where the student pretends that they're a whatever, uh, you know, a store clerk or buying something.

And once they're back in the real world, none of that's gonna work for them. So it's far better to focus again, as I said earlier, with sort of studying effectively, generally improve the reading skill. And how do you improve reading skills? By reading a lot. So get them to read, let them choose what they want to read.

It doesn't matter what they read. If they're reading a lot, they're going to be improving their reading skills. And get them to listen and listen to material that they like. And to voices that they like. So, you know, they, the same idea that the most efficient way to bring information into the brain, to stimulate the brain, to get the brain to form these new patterns is through a lot of listening and reading.

Of course, when opportunities are there to speak, we should speak, but we shouldn't make that the sort of main short term goal. It will eventually be the long-term goal. And yeah, once the brain has enough experience with the language, has developed these patterns to cope with that language, then of course we want to speak as much as possible, but again, It should be meaningful.

So meaningful conversation talking about meaningful things. And if we will, you know, once we have sufficient, a sufficient base in the language, we can help the student find people if not in the classroom, even online that they can talk to and talk in a meaningful way, not in a circle role-playing way.

So there you go. My view on why language instruction in the schools is not effective, at least in English-speaking Canada. And I have the impression from this exchange I saw on Twitter there are serious problems in the UK as well. And if we look at the results in terms of how many people speak a foreign language in those countries, uh, hasn't been very effective.

So thank you for listening. Bye for now.