Talent for languages?
In respect to the Language Gym project going on in Berlin (languagegym.net), I wanted to say something about philosophy of learning and teaching. The Germans have a great word for this, that feels to me like a blending of learning and teaching — beibringen.
In my opinion, when we set out to learn something new, and go to a language school, we are surrendering our power to the teacher with respect to our learning. Why is this so? Mostly our experiences of school are bad. Think back to highschool. How was it? Mostly boring. We go to school, and we kind of tune out. We’re not sure why we need to learn this stuff. We don’t get the feeling the teacher really wants to be there. It’s often a crappy experience.
Instead, we could imagine a world where we are completely responsible for our own learning, but where the resources, people, and enthusiasm are available for us to tap into when we want. We might think that the ultimate test of whether we understand an idea is when we can teach somebody else, and they get it. It’s not really about cramming endless amounts of stuff down your throat to pass some exam, that says nothing about confident you feel to actually speak the language.
As a grown up, I don’t need anybody telling me when to come to class, or making me feel bad if I don’t. I’ll come to class if I want to. But I’ve paid, so maybe I should really go… oh, problem. I don’t want to miss anything. If I don’t go today, then I won’t understand tomorrow.
Really, this is just a convenience for the school. And what is a school anyway? It’s a room, a book, and a teacher. If the teacher’s good — it’s good. If not — it’s a horror. How do you know? You can’t know until you try it out. So, when the teacher’s good, it’s better. But do you have any idea of the master plan? The teacher may be entertaining, but are you really getting 1 hour’s worth of learning in a physical hour of sitting there on your bum?
It’s probably better to have video lectures. Then when you come to a session, it’s easy to catch up — just watch the movie. Now it’s time to work together and say something. But don’t you just hate it when the teacher tells you who to work with? God, I hate that. I’ll other work by myself, or choose the person to work with myself, thank-you. I mean, we are all adults.
Peter Merrick PhD
You can watch some movies at languagegym.net. Language Gym is blended learning. People, tutors, video, audio, exercises, Skype… It works with agile/lean Kanban principles taking from software project management. It exists for the benefit of German learners. languagegym.net — show up work out.
