Learning How To Learn

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here. You know, I think many people want to learn a number of things, including they want to learn languages. I think a lot of people don't know how to learn. So my video today is about learning how to learn. And remember, if you enjoy these videos, please subscribe. You can click on the bell and you'll get notifications.

Now, what I'm about to say is very much personal. How I view learning based on my experience, watching others, what works for me and the reading that I have done about how the brain learns. And I'm not a neuroscientist. I often quote Manfred Spitzer Lernen...you know, brain research and the school of life.

And I just looked into my library, you know, uh, The Mind and the Brain, which talks about how we can will our brain to do certain things. The Right Mind. I mean, there's lots of books I've read on the brain. My view is that to be successful at learning, in other words, to learn how to learn, you have to have

uh, an image, a vision of how you think your brain learns. Um, my vision of how my brain learns is based on my experience and what I've read on how the brain learns. So I'm persuaded that our brain, and Manfred Spitzer refers to this quite often, our brain starts to form neural connections between... connections between neurons.

Uh, based on our experience. And as long as the brain is gaining new experience, it's forming new neural connections. So it's constantly learning, the brain cannot do otherwise than learn. Um, however, Spitzer points out the brain is not very good at learning details because whatever it learns, it forgets.

So that the specific things that we are trying to learn, which might be a list of vocabulary items, it might be grammar rules, it might be something else... those things, we can retain them for a short time and then they're quickly forgotten. But the underlying patterns in those bits of information is what the brain is very good at putting together.

And that's why the... if we weren't able to do that, we would be dealing with every situation in life as if it was the first time we ever encountered that situation. Whereas in fact, what happens is the brain builds up these patterns to enable us to navigate our way through life. That's true of everything that happens to us in life.

It's true in language learning. So my focus in language learning, as I've said many times, is to expose myself to as much language, if I'm learning a language, language, content as possible and not to worry too much about specific rules, specific words. Uh, you know, I saw a thing the other day, teachers on Twitter were saying, you know, should we teach kids

these words or those words? You know, two different word lists. It's not up to the teacher to decide which words the kids should learn or to attempt to teach these words. All the teacher can do is to provide an environment where the learner is motivated, is interested because it's something of interest.

And by being exposed to this over and over again, gradually certain patterns will form in the brain. And so, you know, I'm quite content in my Arabic. I'm not ever going to test myself. Uh, I'm just happy to listen to, uh, you know, a transcript of an, of a podcast, uh, go through it, maybe in sentence view, maybe in full text view, listen to it, read it.

Of course, if I spoke more, I'd get better at speaking, but let's not underestimate the power of listening and reading because when you are reading.,You're interpreting symbols and converting those symbols into meaning. That is a powerful activity that is active. That's not just passive. Now we know, for example, you've heard that say a London taxi driver who has to memorize, has to get to know all the little streets and alleyways in london. That part of his brain, a certain part of his brain grows as a result. So yeah, all of our activity, even what we might consider to be passive activity in fact, is creating changes in the brain. Learning is about change. Learning is not about being able to produce something.

Now, you know, here's a test, get it right. It's not about that. It's about gradually exposing yourself to a variety of stimulus, allowing your brain to form patterns. And, and having the confidence that the brain is doing its job. It's not going to do it, you know, according to some timetable that you set for the brain. The brain learns, but the brain learns slowly.

That's what Spitzer says. Similarly, even if you are an adult say, or an older person like me, and maybe you create new neural connections more slowly, or the plasticity of the brain is not as quick as it used to be when you were 12, on the other hand, the brain is bringing in this information, relating it to things that you already know, experience, life, experience, knowledge, vocabulary, uh, you know, knowledge about different content areas and stuff.

All of which makes it easier in some ways for you to learn. But the process is essentially the same and you have to have confidence in that ability. Once you've had enough exposure to the language, uh, your brain has started to form certain patterns. If you want to look at some rules to remind you of things or to point some things out that you didn't notice, that's fine.

But the idea that somehow the brain can absorb specific rules or specific lists, that they can, that the brain can deliberately learn these things at one sitting I think has been increasingly debunked. So learning to learn means learning to learn in a way that corresponds to how your brain learns or how you would like to think of your brain learning, because it's also very subjective.

And so putting pressure on yourself to, uh, you know, to, to learn certain things that I want to learn them now, eh, that is not a very effective way of learning. If you can find a way to enjoy, in the case of languages, content, or if you're trying to learn through the language about the history of a certain period, if you can get a variety of different content items on a related theme, where to some extent related vocabulary is going to appear, and the subject that you are gradually becoming familiar with, you know, shows up in all of these different stories, uh, all of that is going to help you learn.

So, so you have to have this approach of just letting it come to you, having the confidence that you can do it, um, enjoying the process and trusting your brain. I think a big part of learning how to learn is to, to learn to trust your brain. And don't worry whether you got five out of 10 on a drill. Uh, or whether you remembered a certain, uh, you know, word list. If the, the language comes into you and you keep staying with it, you're going to learn.

That's what you need to know. That's to me learning how to learn. Don't let the teacher impose this word list or these stories, get out and explore. Let the brain enjoy the language. Let yourself enjoy the language and the brain will learn. And I think learning how to learn is, is no more complicated than that.

Yes, there are details on where you can go find, you know, content of interest and people can help you find that. Or how do you, how do you utilize, you know, Google translate or text to speech or Netflix or YouTube or LingQ or any of the other, you know, online dictionaries and different apps and all of that kind of stuff.

But those are the details again. Learning how to learn to me means having a, uh, um, sort of, uh, a vision of yourself as a learner, which corresponds to how the brain learns and just sit back and enjoy the process. And you will succeed. You will succeed. You have to believe that you're going to succeed.

Don't second guess yourself. And so that's what I wanted to talk about. And, um, I'm going to leave you with two videos that I did, uh, Over the past few years, which touch on the same theme because more or less the, the theme is constant. You have to believe in yourself and you have to enjoy the process.