Four Techniques to help you learn

Dr Phyllis Oakley

FOCUS/DON’T

The brain has two modes of thinking that Dr. Oakley simplifies as “focused,” in which learners concentrate on the material, and “diffuse,” a neural resting state in which consolidation occurs — that is, the new information can settle into the brain. (Cognitive scientists talk about task-positive networks and default-mode networks, respectively, in describing the two states.) In diffuse mode, connections between bits of information, and unexpected insights, can occur. That’s why it’s helpful to take a brief break after a burst of focused work.

TAKE A BREAK

To accomplish those periods of focused and diffuse-mode thinking, Dr. Oakley recommends what is known as the Pomodoro Technique, developed by one Francesco Cirillo. Set a kitchen timer for a 25-minute stretch of focused work, followed by a brief reward, which includes a break for diffuse reflection. (“Pomodoro” is Italian for tomato — some timers look like tomatoes.) The reward — listening to a song, taking a walk, anything to enter a relaxed state — takes your mind off the task at hand. Precisely because you’re not thinking about the task, the brain can subconsciously consolidate the new knowledge. Dr. Oakley compares this process to “a librarian filing books away on shelves for later retrieval.”

As a bonus, the ritual of setting the timer can also help overcome procrastination. Dr. Oakley teaches that even thinking about doing things we dislike activates the pain centers of the brain. The Pomodoro Technique, she said, “helps the mind slip into focus and begin work without thinking about the work.”

“Virtually anyone can focus for 25 minutes, and the more you practice, the easier it gets.”

PRACTICE

“Chunking” is the process of creating a neural pattern that can be reactivated when needed. It might be an equation or a phrase in French or a guitar chord. Research shows that having a mental library of well-practiced neural chunks is necessary for developing expertise.

Practice brings procedural fluency, says Dr. Oakley, who compares the process to backing up a car. “When you first are learning to back up, your working memory is overwhelmed with input.” In time, “you don’t even need to think more than ‘Hey, back up,’ ” and the mind is free to think about other things.

Chunks build on chunks, and, she says, the neural network built upon that knowledge grows bigger. “You remember longer bits of music, for example, or more complex phrases in French.” Mastering low-level math concepts allows tackling more complex mental acrobatics. “You can easily bring them to mind even while your active focus is grappling with newer, more difficult information.”

KNOW THYSELF

Dr. Oakley urges her students to understand that people learn in different ways. Those who have “racecar brains” snap up information; those with “hiker brains” take longer to assimilate information but, like a hiker, perceive more details along the way. Recognizing the advantages and disadvantages, she says, is the first step in learning how to approach unfamiliar material.

Lina Polonsky-Doyle

Director/Teacher

After living in Mexico, Italy, Holland and Yugoslavia, Lina taught bilingual students in public schools in San Antonio, Texas, and Woodburn, Oregon. She started the Colegio de Axixic in 1999, when she concentrated on early childhood language acquisition. Beginning in 2009 she has taught Spanish to Americans and Canadians living in Ajijic.

Over the last 8 years the experience she acquired teaching older students has been invaluable to improving the lifestyles of the retired residents of the area.  Not only have they learned to speak to their neighbors, new friends and service people, but they have found that their brains are more alert and their memories have improved.

Many of her students have become movers in the community to help the less fortunate; working with children with special needs, resale stores and other non-profits that improve the community.

Native Speakers

An integral part of the course is access to native speakers who are trained to listen, speak slowly, and encourage the beginner to talk and who are also able adapt their speech to students at different levels of fluency.

Ramona Diaz is a retired primary school teacher, whose patience and knowledge of learning styles is very popular with the students.

Josefina “Chepa” Ibarra is a moher, grandmother, and great grandmother from the barrio, whose great sense of humor and stories about Ajijic make the students see how the language is a living and exciting way to get to know the town of Ajijic.

Daniela Perez is a college student who is studying English and loves dogs and all kinds of animals and is a fresh face at the school.

The cognitive benefits of multilingualism

The Atlantic, Kelly Shuttercock

There’s a certain sinking feeling one gets when thinking of the perfect thing to say just a moment too late. Perhaps a witty parting word could have made all the difference. There is no English word to express this feeling, but the French have the term l’esprit de l’escalier—translated, “stairwell wit”—for this very phenomenon.

Nor is there an English word to describe the binge eating that follows an emotional blow, but the Germans have kummerspeck—“grief-bacon”—to do just that. If we had the Swedish word lagom—which means something is just right—the English explanation of Goldilocks’ perfectly temperate soup could have been a lot more succinct. Or the term koi no yokan, a poetic Japanese turn of phrase that expresses the feeling of knowing that you will soon fall in love with the person you have just met. It’s not love at first sight so much as an understanding that love is inevitable. Keats and Byron could have really used a word like that.

There are many words that English speakers don’t have. Sometimes Anglophones take from other languages, but often, we have to explain our way around a specific feeling or emotion that doesn’t have its own word, never quite touching on it exactly.

“The reason why we borrow words like savoir faire from French is because it’s not part of the culture [in the United States] and therefore that word did not evolve as part of our language,” says George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive science and linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Multi-linguals are more perceptive to their surroundings and better at focusing in on important information. It’s no surprise Sherlock Holmes was a skilled polyglot.
“Speaking different languages means you get different frames, different metaphors, and also you’re learning the culture of the language so you get not only different words, but different types of words,” Lakoff told me.

But the benefits of speaking multiple languages extend past just having access to different words, concepts, metaphors, and frames.

Multilingualism has a whole slew of incredible side effects: Multi-linguals tend to score better on standardized tests, especially in math, reading, and vocabulary; they are better at remembering lists or sequences, likely from learning grammatical rules and vocabulary; they are more perceptive to their surroundings and therefore better at focusing in on important information while weeding out misleading information (it’s no surprise Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot are skilled polyglots). And there’s certainly something to be said for the cultural pleasure of reading The Odyssey in ancient Greek or Proust’s In Search of Lost Time in French.

“Cognitive traps,” or simple mistakes in spelling or comprehension that our brains tend to make when taking linguistic shortcuts (such as how you can easily read “tihs senetcne taht is trerilby msispleld”), are better avoided when one speaks multiple languages. Multi-linguals might also be better decision-makers. According to a new study, they are more resistant to conditioning and framing techniques, making them less likely to be swayed by such language in advertisements or political campaign speeches. Those who speak multiple languages have also been shown to be more self-aware spenders, viewing “hypothetical” and “real” money (the perceived difference between money on a credit card and money in cold, hard cash) more similarly than monolinguals.

One theory on why this might be is that there’s increased psychological distance when speaking a language that isn’t your mother tongue. Researchers in the spending study posited that subjects had less of an emotional reaction to things heard in their second (or third, or fourth) language, perhaps allowing for a more levelheaded decision.

More recently and perhaps most importantly, it’s been found that people who learn a second language, even in adulthood, can better avoid cognitive decline in old age. In fact, when everything else is controlled for, bilinguals who come down with dementia and Alzheimer’s do so about four-and-a-half years later than monolinguals.

“Just having the basics of those linguistic connections can delay dementia.”
Dr. Thomas Bak, a lecturer in the philosophy, psychology, and language sciences department at the University of Edinburgh, conducted the study and found that level of education and intelligence mattered less than learning a second language when it came to delaying cognitive decline.

“It’s not the good memory that bilinguals have that is delaying cognitive decline,” Bak told me. “It’s their attention mechanism. Their ability to focus in on the details of language.”

Polyglots tend to be good at paying attention in a wide variety of ways, especially when performing visual tasks (like searching a scene or a list for a specific name or object) and when multitasking, which, according to Bak’s theory, is likely improved thanks to the practice of mentally switching between one’s native and foreign language while learning the foreign language.

This is great news for anyone who is multi-lingual, but, really, it is positive news for everyone. The dementia-delaying effects of learning a second language are not contingent on becoming fluent; it just matters that a person tries to learn it. Even if you’re still confounding your sí’s and oui’s, as Bak says, “Just having the basics of those linguistic connections can delay dementia.”

Plus, speaking more than one language means you’ll have access to all sorts of new words. So the next time you need to, let’s say, express your burning desire to squeeze a fat baby’s legs, you’ll know what to say. That’s gigil in Filipino.

SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.

This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.

They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.

Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.

In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.

The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.

Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.

The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.

The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).

In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.

Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.

Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?

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By Joseph J. Keenan

Inhibitions:
The greatest enemy of learning a language, especially as an adult, is a person’s inhibitions. These vary with the individual, of course. Some people seem to have been born without any, while others are so afraid of making a mistake that they never give themselves the chance to. Methods of overcoming these inhibitions also vary with the individual. Most people lose their fear of sounding silly after a few weeks of speaking a foreign language; others lose all inhibitions entirely after a few cervezas under the stars on the town plaza. One rule applies universally: to learn a language you’ll have to conquer your inhibitions eventually, so the sooner you get started, the better.

One way to get started is to remember that however silly you might sound using your incorrect Spanish, you’ll sound a lot worse trying to speak English to someone who speaks none. Then again, you could simply choose to clam up altogether. After all, as they say, better keep quiet and b thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. If this is your strategy, you’ll neither improve your Spanish nor become acquainted with the new world the Spanish-speaking one that for whatever reason you are making an effort to get to know.

So relax. You’ll definitely make mistakes. But you won’t be the first one to make them.

Learning tricks:
In general, try to speak to as many people in Spanish as possible. While that sounds easy, the sad fact is that it’s often awkward to speak to your fellow citizens in a foreign language, and from there it’s a short jump to seeking out your English speaking friends and then speaking with them in English almost exclusively.

The intellectual energy that goes into starting a conversation in a foreign langue can be quite daunting, especially in the early stages. Sill, it’s worth the effort. Concentrate at first on short ‘conversations’ (or extended greetings) and gradually lengthen them as you find people whom you feel comfortable speaking with (and are able to get away from when your vocabulary expires).

Finally, don’t hesitate to ask others to speak slowly. No one expects you to understand rapid-fire Spanish in your first few months of learning it, yet many people speak that way out of habit and need to be reminded that you comprehend at about one-fifth the rate they’re speaking.

You will progress by small leaps and bounds, followed by long, frustrating plateaus. The plateaus, furthermore, always seem to hit when you think you should be progressing the most – after an intensive course, for example. At times it will seem that your brain is too busy absorbing new information to be bothered with relaying it to your mouth. Fear not. The information is oozing in and assuring itself a place, and one day it will suddenly be available and act as if it had been there all along. So stick with it. The day will come.

Stephen Krashen (University of Southern California) is an expert in the field of linguistics, specializing in theories of language acquisition and development. Much of his recent research has involved the study of non-English and bilingual language acquisition. During the past 20 years, he has published well over 100 books and articles and has been invited to deliver over 300 lectures at universities throughout the United States and Canada.

This is a brief description of Krashen’s widely known and well accepted theory of the monitor hypothesis.
The Monitor hypothesis explains the relationship between acquisition and learning and defines the influence of the latter on the former. The monitoring function is the practical result of the learned grammar. According to Krashen, the acquisition system is the utterance initiator, while the learning system performs the role of the ‘monitor’ or
the ‘editor’. The ‘monitor’ acts in a planning, editing and correcting function when three specific conditions are met: that is, the second language learner has sufficient time
at his/her disposal, he/she focuses on form or thinks about correctness, and he/she knows the rule.

It appears that the role of conscious learning is somewhat limited in second language performance. According to Krashen, the role of the monitor is – or should be – minor,
being used only to correct deviations from ‘normal’ speech and to give speech a more ‘polished’ appearance.

Krashen also suggests that there is individual variation among language learners with regard to ‘monitor’ use. He distinguishes those learners that use the ‘monitor’ all the time (over-users); those learners who have not learned or who prefer not to use their conscious knowledge (under-users); and those learners that use the ‘monitor’ appropriately (optimal users). An evaluation of the person’s psychological profile can help to determine to what group they belong. Usually extroverts are under-users, while introverts and perfectionists are over-users. Lack of self-confidence is frequently related to the over-use of the ‘monitor’.

Research to Find Effects on Brain of Bilingualism
A project at Bangor University aims to explore the benefit of being bilingual.

There is evidence bilingualism can sharpen the brain.

Researchers will be recruiting 700 people aged between two and 80 to take part in the £750,000 programme.

Prof Virginia Gathercole said the obvious benefits included being able to converse and to participate in two cultures.

But she said there was also evidence of non-language benefits, such as the ability to protect the brain from ageing.

“The very act of being able to speak, listen, and think in two languages and of using two languages on a daily basis appears to sharpen people’s abilities to pay close attention to a aspects of tasks relevant to good performance,” she added.

“Running two parallel language systems throughout life has had positive benefits in a number of ways”
Prof Virginia Gathercole, Bangor University

Research carried out already had also shown having two languages helped protect against the decline in the brain’s abilities when ageing,” she added.

“We already know that language processing is one of the most complex activities that our brains carry out.

“Running two parallel language systems throughout life has had positive benefits in a number of ways,” she added.

The Marriage of the Sun and the Moon.
Excerpt from Dr, Andrew Weil’s book Publisher in 1980:

I knew that Latin America would be a rich source of information. Therefore, I went to Mexico to learn Spanish. Once in Mexico, I quickly abandoned my plan to take formal language classes in Cuernavaca and settled instead in the nearby village of Tepoztlán. There I became one of the first students in a new, experimental school called the Colegio de Tepoztlán, under the direction of Marco Polonsky, an offbeat teacher and unforgettable character.

Marco’s philosophy of learning languages was out of the ordinary but struck me as correct. He said that we all had the capacity to learn languages, since we did it as infants, that it had nothing to do with intellect but rather was an operation of the unconscious mind. The only abilities it depended upon were accurate listening and accurate imitating. Therefore, the way to learn a new language is to want to learn it badly and immerse yourself in it, letting as much of it flow into the unconscious mind as possible. Whether you understand it or not is irrelevant. Forget about grammar books and formal instruction, Marco said. Just listen and imitate.

Classes were bizarre. Sometimes Marco would have us fall into trance states to the accompaniment of recorded chamber music while he intoned vocabulary words from a Spanish comic book. When pressed for more-structured help, he would decline, saying that there was no way to teach another person a language.

He did arrange for us to be apprenticed to local people to force us to talk. I was placed in the care of the village carpenter and spent many pleasant afternoons with him in an outdoor shop, helping to make furniture.

I must say that the Polonsky method worked like a charm. In three months I was speaking passable Spanish and three months after that I was speaking good Spanish. The only other language I ever learned as well was German, and that took four years of painful work in high school. I would never again attempt to learn a language by studying it and I have no doubt that I can learn any language now just by really wanting to and placing myself in the right part of the world.

“Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill.”
Stephen Krashen

“Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language – natural communication – in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding.”
Stephen Krashen

“The best methods are therefore those that supply ‘comprehensible input’ in low anxiety situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow students to produce when they are ‘ready’, recognizing that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensible input, and not from forcing and correcting production.”
Stephen Krashen

“In the real world, conversations with sympathetic native speakers who are willing to help the acquirer understand are very helpful.”
Stephen Krashen

Introduction
Stephen Krashen (University of Southern California) is an expert in the field of linguistics, specializing in theories of language acquisition and development. Much of his recent research has involved the study of non-English and bilingual language acquisition. During the past 20 years, he has published well over 100 books and articles and has been invited to deliver over 300 lectures at universities throughout the United States and Canada.

This is a brief description of Krashen’s widely known and well accepted theory of second language acquisition, which has had a large impact in all areas of second language research and teaching since the 1980s.

Description of Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition

Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition consists of five main hypotheses:

the Acquisition-Learning hypothesis,
the Monitor hypothesis,
the Natural Order hypothesis,
the Input hypothesis,
and the Affective Filter hypothesis.
The Acquisition-Learning distinction is the most fundamental of all the hypotheses in
Krashen’s theory and the most widely known among linguists and language ractitioners.
According to Krashen there are two independent systems of second language performance: ‘the acquired system’ and ‘the learned system’. The ‘acquired system’ or ‘acquisition’ is the product of a subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo when they acquire their first language. It requires meaningful interaction in the target language – natural communication – in which speakers are concentrated not in the form of their utterances , but in the communicative act.

The ‘learned system’ or ‘learning’ is the product of formal instruction and it comprises a
conscious process which results in conscious knowledge ‘about’ the language, for example knowledge of grammar rules. According to Krashen ‘learning’ is less important than ‘acquisition’. (Veja o texto ao lado e também outra página em português sobre
Acquisition/Learning).

The Monitor hypothesis explains the relationship between acquisition and learning and defines the influence of the latter on the former. The monitoring function is the practical result of the learned grammar. According to Krashen, the acquisition system is the utterance initiator, while the learning system performs the role of the ‘monitor’ or the ‘editor’. The ‘monitor’ acts in a planning, editing and correcting function when three specific conditions are met: that is, the second language learner has sufficient time at his/her disposal, he/she focuses on form or thinks about correctness, and he/she knows the rule.

It appears that the role of conscious learning is somewhat limited in second language performance. According to Krashen, the role of the monitor is – or should be – minor, being used only to correct deviations from ‘normal’ speech and to give speech a more ‘polished’ appearance.

Krashen also suggests that there is individual variation among language learners with regard to ‘monitor’ use. He distinguishes those learners that use the ‘monitor’ all the time (over-users); those learners who have not learned or who prefer not to use their conscious knowledge (under-users); and those learners that use the ‘monitor’ appropriately (optimal users). An evaluation of the person’s psychological profile can help to determine to what group they belong. Usually extroverts are under-users, while introverts and perfectionists are over-users. Lack of self-confidence is frequently related to the over-use of the ‘monitor’.

The Natural Order hypothesis is based on research findings (Dulay & Burt, 1974; Fathman, 1975; Makino, 1980 cited in Krashen, 1987) which suggested that the acquisition of grammatical structures follows a ‘natural order’ which is predictable. For a given language, some grammatical structures tend to be acquired early while others late. This order seemed to be independent of the learners’ age, L1 background, conditions of exposure, and although the agreement between individual acquirers was not always 100% in the studies, there were statistically significant similarities that reinforced the existence of a Natural Order of language acquisition. Krashen however points out that the implication of the natural order hypothesis is not that a language program syllabus should be based on the order found in the studies. In fact, he rejects grammatical sequencing when the goal is language acquisition.

The Input hypothesis is Krashen’s attempt to explain how the learner acquires a second language. In other words, this hypothesis is Krashen’s explanation of how second language acquisition takes place. So, the Input hypothesis is only concerned with ‘acquisition’, not ‘learning’. According to this hypothesis, the learner improves and progresses along the ‘natural order’ when he/she receives second language ‘input’ that is one step beyond his/her current stage of linguistic competence. For example, if a learner is at a stage ‘i’, then acquisition takes place when he/she is exposed to ‘Comprehensible Input’ that belongs to level ‘i + 1’. Since not all of the learners can be at the same level of linguistic competence at the same time, Krashen suggests that natural communicative input is the key to designing a syllabus, ensuring in this way that each learner will receive some ‘i + 1’ input that is appropriate for his/her current stage of linguistic competence.

Finally, the fifth hypothesis, the Affective Filter hypothesis, embodies Krashen’s view that a number of ‘affective variables’ play a facilitative, but non-causal, role in second language acquisition. These variables include: motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. Krashen claims that learners with high motivation, self-confidence, a good self-image, and a low level of anxiety are better equipped for success in second language acquisition. Low motivation, low self-esteem, and debilitating anxiety can combine to ‘raise’ the affective filter and form a ‘mental block’ that prevents comprehensible input from being used for acquisition. In other words, when the filter is ‘up’ it impedes language acquisition. On the other hand, positive affect is necessary, but not sufficient on its own, for acquisition to take place.