Do You Need to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone? Yes... & No.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here and today again I'm gonna talk about

language learning, of course, and in particular, I want to talk about the

learning zone and the comfort zone.

Now, obviously learning a foreign language is all about getting outside

your comfort zone because we are typically most comfortable speaking our

own language, however, because speaking of foreign language is something that's

desirable for many, many reasons that I have talked about in my videos.

All the reasons why we wanna be able to access another language

and another culture, communicate with people in another language.

So it's a desirable thing to do, but it is something that takes

us outside of our comfort zone.

Different people, of course, have, um, different levels of resistance to

getting outside of their comfort zone.

So, um, and, and I'm gonna leave a link to, uh, various or at least one, uh,

page I found on the internet, which talks about the comfort zone and the

learning zone, and sort of suggests that when we are in a comfort zone,

we're not learning new things...

it's not that we're stagnating, but we're not expanding.

Once we push ourselves into the learning zone, we're meeting new challenge.

But then as we overcome these and meet the new stimulus and absorb it all, we grow,

we learn, and that's the learning zone.

Uh, some people even talk about the panic zone, where we're in a zone where

things are too difficult for us and we can't cope, and then it's panic.

So obviously in learning a language, we want to push ourselves

outside of our comfort zone.

However, I have always found as a strategy that it's very important to

find as many ways as possible to take some level of comfort, some of your

comfort zone into the learning zone.

Now, what do I mean by that?

For example, I've said before, I don't like to get too deep into

the sort of exotic, esoteric aspects of another culture.

In other words, things that are very unfamiliar to.

It could be the festivals that are related to that culture.

It could be, uh, special names they have for members of

the family, special customs.

All of those things I will eventually learn.

But when I start into a new language, I would rather start with

situations that are familiar to me.

You know, it's interesting...

a lot of people find it easier to learn a language using, say, literature

translated from their own language, so Harry Potter for example, where

they're already familiar with the story.

I always start a new language doing our mini stories at LingQ because

those are sort of familiar situations, scenarios, things that people do in

any culture, meet with their friends, eat food, clean up their room.

So these are also very familiar situations, uh, and the more

familiar something is, the more comfortable we feel.

I always like to develop a high level of listening comprehension

and reading comprehension and, uh, a significant level of vocabulary so

that I can understand what is said.

That, again, increases my comfort level so that when I'm speaking with

people, at least I can, you know, almost, or try to or feel that I can

understand much of what is being said to me, even if I struggle to speak.

And of course, in struggling to find words and in and worrying about

whether I use the correct, uh, you know, structure that gives me a, a

sense of, you know, lack of comfort.

But if I have a comfort on the comprehension side, I am again

carrying some of my sort of comfort zone into my learning zone.

Uh, even in terms of the kinds of learning activities that we do, we

should focus in on the situations that we're more most comfortable.

So, uh, even in terms of reading, of course I like to read on LingQ.

I like to look up words, but there's also something comforting

about holding a paper book.

It's something that I've always done.

And so I typically, as I've said, get a starter book for a

language that I'm starting into.

Uh, I like when I reach a level where I can start to read and

there aren't too many new words.

I like to read books away from the computer because again, I'm introducing

something that's comfortable to me, something that I'm used to doing

that increases my comfort level while I'm in the learning zone.

Um, some of my learning activities, uh, for example, at LingQ, our

newsentence review function.

Uh, obviously if I'm focusing in on, you know, a particular sentence

and using the matching pairs to go over some of the vocabulary and then

reassembling the sentence at the end.

These are learning activities that in a way slow me down because

I'm not acquiring new words.

But by the same token, there's a sense of comfort in focusing

in on this level of detail.

And, and it's also an activity which is pleasing.

So if you have a, an activity, a learning activity that is pleasing,

that also introduces a level of comfort.

I was even thinking that now with my Polish.

I'm gonna try writing.

You know, I'm reluctant to write in languages where the writing system

is different because again, it's a another level of stress trying to

write in this new writing system.

Other people may be more comfortable doing that.

However, Polish is written in the Latin alphabet, so as familiar and because

Polish has rather unique sort spelling system where the SZ, CZ, and whatnot.

That, uh...

and write writing by hand is something that's familiar to me,

and apparently writing by hand is good for us in terms of learning.

So I'm gonna do some, some writing by hand.

I even started doing that when I do the sentence mode.

I then have the sentence which I've reassembled, then I write

that sentence out by hand.

Again, a familiar activity that's bringing some familiarity, some

comfort into my learning zone.

Uh, I think dealing with content that's of interest.

So typically content that is of interest is content that's familiar to us.

So again, when we have familiar, uh, topics, which might be sports, if

we're into, into sports or anime or anything that's familiar to us, that

increases the level of familiarity, the comfort that we experience

while we're in that learning zone.

So, uh, just some things that I was thinking that relate to this

issue of, of, uh, learning another language, which ultimately is all about

getting outside of your comfort zone.

Uh, but there are things that we can do to increase the level of

comfort in that learning zone.

Another one now that I think of it is, is while I'm learning that language, I try

not to think of myself as a foreigner, learning a strange language, but rather

as someone who wants to penetrate that cultural environment and be like them.

So if I am like them, then I feel more comfortable being with them,

and that again is an element of comfort within the learning zone.

So I hope that was of interest to you.

It's something that came up, uh, while I was, uh, doing

some research on the internet.

Uh, thank you for listening.

Bye for now.