049: Sharpening The Saw in Language Learning

Now, the final habit in Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is what he called ‘Sharpening the Saw'. In other words, doing things to… if you're a manager you want to work on making sure you have good values. He stresses values in his book, y'know, developing certain skills, whether it be the ability to use certain modern technology or if you're a professional in some field, you need to constantly take courses to make sure you're up to date and so forth.

In the case of language learning, there are a number of ways in which we can sort of sharpen our saw. One of them is simply through exposure to the language and building up your vocabulary because a good vocabulary is going to help you in every situation. Also, I find that occasional review of grammar, especially if the grammar is heavy to examples rather than explanations.

The brain has trouble dealing with theoretical explanations, but the brain is very good at creating and recognizing patterns and creating connections that relate to patterns. I find it useful to review patterns, so that it makes me more conscious of certain structures and then I start to notice them better, so an occasional review of grammar. Another way of sharpening the saw is actually to start speaking because it's all going to make you more attentive.

But, If we take this sort of image of sharpening the saw, so we are doing something that is not urgent. In other words, rather than sort of being all concerned about this next engagement with the language that I won't understand or I won't be able to say what I want to say, it's sink in that I am doing something that is going to build up my skills for the future. So what I'm doing is important, but it's not urgent. I'm developing my skills; therefore, I have this sense of, y'know, satisfaction, achievement. I'm doing things to improve my skills and the benefits will come later on.

And so, I think we can have this sort of sharpening-the-saw approach to all of our language learning activities so we don't get discouraged when we feel that we're not making as much progress as we would like, because all of our activities are actually improving our skills and the benefits will flow to us later on.

So there it is, I've tried in these short videos to kind of go over again how Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has application for us in our language learning, and I hope it kind of helps to stimulate you to put that effort in to, y'know, reaching your language goals. Thanks for listening, bye.