Welcome to the listening time podcast.
Hey, english learners, this is connor and you're listening to episode 247 of the listening time podcast.
I hope you're ready to practice your listening comprehension with another episode, and today we're gonna talk about something that will be very useful for you.
I'm going to talk about language learning advice.
And I don't just mean that I'm going to give you advice.
I want to talk about all the advice that you hear on the internet or in person about language learning, because many people give their advice on how to effectively learn foreign languages and this advice will often contradict other people's advice, and different people propose what they think is the best method to learn English or learn a foreign language, and it can be overwhelming, meaning you feel like it's too much.
You don't know who to listen to.
This can be troubling for some people.
So I want to talk today about about this topic and about what you can do and how to treat the different advice that you hear regarding language learning.
So I'm sure this will be a very useful and relevant topic today.
And I want to remind you that if you want my help to understand native English speakers when they speak fast, then make sure to sign up for my training so you can get my listening practice seminars in which I help you train your listening and I help you understand why certain things are hard to understand in English.
People learn a lot in these seminars and people have really enjoyed them.
So if you want them, make sure to click on the link down below to sign up for those.
And make sure to check out my U.S.
Conversations podcast in which I talk to different English teachers from around the U.S.
It's a lot of fun.
It's great practice for your listening.
And if you need an English teacher, that's a great resource where you can find an English teacher.
So that link is also down below.
Okay, let's talk about language learning advice.
The reason why I chose this topic for today was because I just had a conversation with a student of mine who was telling me that she was listening to a person give advice on how to learn a language, and that person had a very strong opinion regarding output versus input.
Meaning, what you produce your speech and your writing that's output, and what you listen to and read, which is input.
And this person was saying that You shouldn't do this.
You should do that.
This doesn't help you.
This helps you.
And we were both laughing, because both of us have had experience doing the exact opposite of what this person was saying and it worked for us.
So I thought it was hilarious that this person was saying that this thing doesn't work, don't do this.
But both of us have done that exact thing with success.
So that's why I wanted to talk about this world of language learning advice.
This is a whole world.
You'll find many, many videos blogs websites, podcast episodes talking about language learning, and it can be overwhelming, like I said, and you might not know who to listen to.
So first, let me just talk about the people who give advice.
And before I even mention the different types of people, I want to say that in general, for anything in life, it's important to take advice from people who have done what you want to do.
So if someone has a failed marriage, you probably shouldn't go to them for marriage advice.
I think we can all agree on that.
We can of course learn things from other people who have failed for sure.
But in general we want advice from people who have successfully done what we are trying to do.
So that's the first thing that I wanted to mention.
So who gives language learning advice?
Well, polyglots often give language learning advice.
These are people who speak many languages.
They've successfully learned different languages.
Language teachers typically give language learning advice.
If there is someone who teaches English online, they often give advice on how to learn English.
So that's another group of people.
Linguists give language learning advice.
People might have different definitions of what a linguist is, but in general a linguist might be someone who is an expert in language, some domain in the language learning world.
Maybe they've studied language acquisition, or maybe they study some particular subfield in the language learning world.
There are different types of linguists who focus on different things, probably.
So linguists might give language learning advice.
Immigrants.
People who have moved to another country and they have learned the language often give advice to other people on how they learned that language.
And not just immigrants, but maybe people who have had to learn a language because of some specific situation, like their job or whatever, but they have no real linguistic background.
Right.
And then. language enthusiasts give language learning advice.
I like to think of myself as an enthusiast, like someone who is very interested in a subject.
And of course, an enthusiast can also be a polyglot or a language teacher or whatever.
Those people are probably enthusiasts as well, but I separated this because not every enthusiast is a polyglot.
Maybe they've only studied one foreign language, right?
Or not every enthusiast is a language teacher or a linguist.
So there might just be someone who is very interested in foreign languages, but isn't one of these other people?
So there are pros and cons to listening to advice from each of these people.
OK, so for example polyglots, you might think like these are the absolute best people to listen to.
And that might be the case because they are the experts.
They have done this multiple times.
So they usually have very valuable advice.
I love listening to polyglots talk about language learning.
And so these might be the best people to listen to overall sometimes, but at times you might feel discouraged when you listen to polyglots, because it almost seems like they're superhuman sometimes.
They're not just normal people like you and me.
Like, it seems like they have some insane talent for learning languages.
And that can be really discouraging.
And, apart from that, many polyglots often want to protect their public image because they have this image of being an expert language learner, someone who is really talented and experienced at learning languages to a high level.
And they might not always want to show their failures and their progress.
That's taking really long and the hard things for them.
They often want to make content that shows their skills, their ability.
And so many people want to watch that content, to see these talented polyglots and to hear their advice.
And so they might feel the need to protect their image a little bit.
And so they might not always make content That is really relatable for you and me.
We might just feel discouraged when we see how good they are at all these languages.
So that can be a negative.
Language teachers often have good knowledge of technical aspects of a particular language and that can help them give some good advice, but they're not always the most qualified people to coach you as you're trying to learn that language.
They're really good at correcting you, helping you, teaching you, but they're not always necessarily experts on just the language learning process.
They're experts just in that language.
Does that make sense?
So there are some pros and cons when it comes to language teachers giving advice.
And linguists are really theoretical and scientific and have often conducted research and experiments to show that a particular language learning technique really works, and that's great.
I like when people show the facts, the science, the research.
That's great.
But sometimes these linguists have theories that can be a little restrictive, like their theory is all about how this one technique is really effective, and so it might make you feel like you just have to do this one thing, because that's what science says is effective, and sometimes it can be restrictive and not effective overall if you're only following that one particular technique.
It might not work for everyone, it might be too restrictive for some people.
And how about immigrants?
Immigrants have a non-linguistic background, which can be both good and bad.
So it's kind of good in the sense that they're not trying to propose all these theories as an expert or protect their image as a language learner or make a living off of giving language learning advice.
So they're often just honestly telling you what worked for them.
But they're not language learning experts at all.
And they've probably only done this once.
And they probably don't even know much about other methods, other ways to learn a language.
They lack that experience.
So that can be a negative.
And then enthusiasts, an enthusiast, a language learning enthusiast is often pretty honest and open to different methods.
Like they just love language learning and they want to. learn languages and talk about them.
And they don't always present themselves as an authority, an expert.
So they're a little more relatable and And maybe open to different methods.
And they're not just trying to get you to subscribe to this one method of theirs.
But they're also not experts in the sense that they haven't done this before.
Many times, like a polyglot maybe, and they haven't done all the research that a linguist has done.
They might not have all the technical knowledge of a teacher or whatever.
But they are maybe more relatable and it might be good to hear what they have to say.
So there are pros and cons to listening to different types of people who give language learning advice.
And like I mentioned before, you will hear a lot of contradicting advice sometimes.
You'll hear some people say that input is everything.
It's all about what you listen to and read.
Some people say the opposite, and they say that output is the only way to learn to speak fluently.
Some people propose that you speak early.
Some people say you shouldn't speak early.
Some people say that translating words into your own language is not good, and other people say that it's very helpful.
Some people say you should focus on grammar and learning explicit grammar.
Other people say that you should just acquire grammar naturally through listening and reading.
And some people say that it's great to learn vocabulary using flashcards.
And other people say that this is not the best technique.
So you're going to hear all kinds of contradicting advice.
So how is it that so many people can tell you that this method is the best method?
This is what works and other things don't work.
How is that possible that there can be so many different best methods?
Well, people come up with their own best method based on their experience and their preferences, and maybe even their research and what has worked for them.
But the negative about proposing a best method is that when someone does this, they aren't taking other factors into consideration, meaning they're not thinking about other things that might affect this process or that might be important for other people.
For example, when someone gives their idea of the best method to learn a language, but they have only learned languages that are in one family, like the most common one is the romance languages.
So if i have only studied spanish and french and italian and portuguese, for example, and I tell you what the best method is to learn a language,
Well, I'm not taking into consideration that other English speakers might be learning Tagalog or Mandarin or Arabic or Hebrew or whatever it is.
And I can't say for sure that all of my advice is valid for people learning those other languages that are completely different from the romance languages.
So that might be something that needs to be taken into consideration, and it's often not.
Another thing would be the context, like why someone is learning a language.
Based on their particular needs and their life.
Certain methods might work better for them or not be useful for them.
And that's just because they have a different life situation, right?
And the same thing goes for their motivation.
Maybe they only want to do certain things in that language and and not other things, and that might change the method.
The most effective method might be different for someone who wants to focus more on conversation versus someone who wants to learn a language more for their career or their academic study, for example.
So there are a lot of other factors as well.
I just mentioned a couple, but these are things that people don't think about often when they propose things.
The one best method to learn a language
And in my experience and I can speak from experience here.
I am someone who has a lot of experience with this I talk to people from different countries, who are from different language backgrounds, who have different levels of English, and I've spent thousands of hours talking to learners of English and I can tell you that they have learned in different ways, doing different things, and some of them have learned with one method really well And other people have tried that same method and it didn't work at all for them.
Some students really like using flashcards.
Some students really like translating things into their own language.
Some students really like speaking early and other students don't like those things.
They actually don't agree that those things are helpful.
Yet I've had many students that have done different things, that have reached the same level in English.
So what should we do?
It's kind of hard to know how to proceed with all of the different methods proposed, the different advice.
What should we do as language learners when it comes to listening to people's advice and learning, putting it into action?
Well, I think it's really important to see what other people have had success with, and we should learn from them and see what worked for that person.
But we shouldn't expect to have the same exact results doing the same thing.
Just because it worked perfectly for that person doesn't mean it will work perfectly for you.
Or maybe it will work well, but not as well as for the other person.
Maybe there's a small percentage of that method that should be changed to be adapted to your needs, for example,
So I think it's good to try people's tips, see what it is that they had success with.
Try them out before we just discount them and say no, that doesn't work.
If we haven't tried it, we can't say for sure that it doesn't work, because that other person did it and it worked for them, right?
So we should try people's different tips, see what works for us and what doesn't, and be honest and not just say well, it worked for him.
So it must be working for me.
I know I'm not seeing any benefit, but it must be working because the person who gave that advice is hyper polyglot.
No, be honest.
If it's not working for you, it's not working.
So we should try their tips, see what works, see what doesn't.
We should adapt.
We should Change our methods when necessary.
Don't just say that you can't do anything different, because you know that this one theory is correct and you have to do everything according to this language learning theory.
It's not working very well.
Why not adapt, change things and try something else, even if it goes against the theory that you believe?
I can't emphasize that enough.
Be willing to adapt and change your mind, okay?
And don't take any advice as being the absolute truth, even mine, okay?
I give a lot of advice about language learning, but it's my opinion and I will always encourage you to do what works for you, even if it's not what works for me.
Okay.
I'm not going to not give advice, even though I've talked about some of the negatives when it comes to language learning advice.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't give their advice.
I think people should talk about what has worked for them.
However, I don't think people should propose something as being the absolute best language learning technique because, like I said, I'm speaking from experience when I say that people learn differently.
Some people learn really well with one method and other people end up hating that same method.
So when people give advice and say this is how you learn a language period, that might not be the best way to present the advice.
I want people to give advice, but I think we should all start to understand that people are different and people learn differently.
And what works for someone might not work for someone else, at least when we're talking about language learning.
So I will continue to give my advice, but I hope and hopefully.
I've never done this before, but I hope that I never give you the impression that what I'm saying is the truth and other methods are inferior.
No.
I'm not an expert.
I'm not someone who knows everything when it comes to language learning or when it comes to anything.
And I'm just an enthusiast who is also a teacher.
And I try to learn different languages and experiment and do different things and see what works, what doesn't work.
One good thing about my language learning experience Is that I'm willing to try things that I don't think will work, just to try them and see if they do work.
Many people won't do that because they don't want to waste their time with something they think works won't work.
But I know that some things that I don't like can be really helpful, and so I want to try them.
So I experiment a lot, I change my mind about things, and I will always let you know if I change my mind about a certain idea that I had before, a certain preference.
Like before I was more into just input and listening stuff for many many, many hours hundreds, thousands of hours.
But now I've developed a more balanced view that output has a bigger role, maybe even earlier on, when language learning.
So I'm constantly adapting and changing my mind.
And I don't think that's a bad thing.
I don't think It's good to just have your theory, because maybe it worked for you once, and then you just do this and tell everyone that this is the best thing.
This is how it's done.
And then you never try other things or change your mind about anything.
I am very open to changing my mind about different things if I am shown that that other thing is actually good when I thought it was bad or whatever.
So I will continue giving advice. but just know that my advice is not the absolute truth.
You should always try things, see what works for you, and even if someone is telling you that you should be doing the opposite, if what you're doing is working, stick with that.
In my opinion, there is no best overall method.
There is a best method for you, and even that might change depending on the language that you learn.
The best method for me to learn Spanish might not be the best method for me to learn Greek.
So there might not even be a best method for a person, because they might use different methods for different languages.
Okay,
So I know I didn't give you a whole lot of practical tips on exactly what to do, but hopefully you get my point that we need to be careful and not just think that every time someone says that this method is the best, that we should do everything they say and expect the same results.
We need to try things, experiment, see what works for us, etc.
I hope that you enjoyed this episode.
Remember that you can sign up for my training if you want help understanding native English speakers when they speak fast.
You'll love my seminars, so check those out.
The link is down below.
And check out my US Conversations podcast to practice listening to the conversations that I have with other English teachers from around the country.
It's great practice for your listening and you can find an English teacher there.
A lot of my listeners have found English teachers through that podcast, so it's a great resource for you.
That link is down below as well.
Thank you all for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
