MORE effective learners - how can we imitate them?

This post is primarily dedicated to and aimed at students who I hope after reading it can reflect on and improve the way they learn languages, in order to become more effective and successful language students. Having said that, it's important that we as teachers know what it means to be a good language learner, so that we can better advise our students. So I hope that both teachers and learners will find something interesting and practical in this post.

Writing about the characteristics of a good learner has been on my mind for a while, and ever more so since Teaching English - British Council published this poster: "Your languages 5-a-day". The trigger was Marisa Constantinides' post, which I've read recently. And ever since I started teaching, the question of how to learn a language more quickly and effectively has probably been the one I've been asked most often by my students.

Firstly, it is common knowledge that learners are different. And so the learning habits and preferences of our students will differ too. Some are more visual, whereas others prefer to hear things. Some dread making mistakes, while others don't really care.

Students also come from different backgrounds, have different interests and hobbies. They also learn at a different pace. Some flying through the levels, others struggling to grasp even the most basic concepts.
This is all true, and good teachers always do their best to accommodate for all those differences, leaving nobody behind.

However, the question is: why are some learners better and faster than others?

Many of my students hide behind the evasive: "Teacher, I'm just not good at languages..." Of course, innate talent might be playing a role, but I think this response is all too often just a lame and lazy excuse (please excuse me if I'm being too harsh here), or a by-product of years of unsuccessful learning (perhaps caused by poor teaching, bad habits, or both) - read more about this and other language learning myths here. I always tell my students that if I've managed to learn a foreign language, then you can do it too. You might achieve it more quickly or more slowly, but you can, even if you think you don't have a flare for languages.

So since there are successful language learners, what we can do is to analyse what they do to make learning easier, and then imitate those patterns as closely as possible, "and cultivate [them] in all our students" (Harmer 2004: 41). Sounds simple, doesn't it? Because it really is.

Before you read on about the characteristics of good language learners, I suggest you do this quiz first (originally designed by Marissa Constantinides, put in an interactive form by David Mainwood), which analyses how good a language learner you really are. Once you've done it, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page for the results.

So what are these magical characteristics that we want to imitate?

Different authors have suggested an ever growing number of them, mostly averaging around a dozen. For example, Marissa Constantinides compiled a very comprehensive list of 17, which you can read more about here, and which I think is really informative, as it puts together information found in various reference books.

My approach has been slightly different, though. Since I want my students to benefit from the post too, I've tried to simplify the list, and group all the features into 5 broader character traits, which will hopefully be easier to remember and to put into practise. So if you'd like to learn languages MORE effectively, you should be MORE:

  

Motivated:

• find a language area or topic you WANT to learn (e.g. food)
• look for exercises and tasks which YOU find motivating
• think WHY you're learning and HOW you can BENEFIT from it in the future (make it specific and personal)

Opportunistic:

• jump at every OPPORTUNITY you have to practise the language you're learning outside the class
• find somebody for a language EXCHANGE (this website is a good start)
• immediately try to USE the new language (e.g. a word, a phrase, new grammar) in conversation or in writing

Reflective:

• reflect on WHAT you've learned and what problems you've had (e.g. you can start a learning log)
• pay attention to your MISTAKES - don't dread them; but rather LEARN from them
• pay attention to your classmates' and your teachers' language and try to NOTICE positive language patterns which you can IMITATE
• KNOW your strengths and weaknesses - you can always ask your teacher to help you identify them

Experimental:

• take language RISKS and avoid your comfort zone- when you learn a new phrase, try to use it as soon as you get the chance, and ask for feedback
• experiment with and look for NEW WAYS of saying the same thing (e.g. synonyms) and expand your vocabulary
• TRY OUT different exercises and learning strategies and identify the one which works best for you

For all those who are more visual, Bren Brennan has prepared a great inforgraphic which nicely summarises the MORE characteristics mentioned here, as well as adds a few others, such as the need to record vocabulary. Thoroughly recommended!

Some very good tips on learning English grammar from English guider.

 

Quiz results:

If you scored 70% or more of a answers than you are indeed a good language learner. If you have scored 90% or more, then you're a language learning machine! If you scored less than 70%, don't worry! You're like the majority of language students. Read about the MORE Characteristics above to learn what you can do to become a better language learner.

The real deal

If you're like me, you try to use authentic materials in your classes as much as possible. The most common arguments in favour of authentic listening or reading texts (in comparison to course book materials) is that they:

•  are more engaging
• provide a "real" model of language
• give practice with texts students will encounter outside the class
• are topical and up-to-date
• provide a greater sense of achievement when tackled successfully
• can be carefully picked to match student's interests OR the student can choose the text themselves

Of course, there are many other advantages, as well as clear disadvantages (e.g. too difficult, too long), which are listed in detail, for example here. However, in this post I would like to focus on something different.

The question I want to pose has been hinted at in passing in one of my previous posts. Remember the A from the TAPEs? AUTHENTIC with a capital "A". But what I'd like to advocate are authentic TASKS rather than authentic materials, or preferably combining the two.

My premise here is that as teachers we should focus more on designing authentic tasks, rather than looking for an authentic text to use in the class just for the sake of using it. We have to remember that "different texts call for different treatments" (Nuttall, Ch. 1996: 153), and try to design the tasks accordingly.

So what do I mean by authentic tasks? Consider this piece of course book material from NEF Up-Int p.30. The text itself is perfectly authentic, however, what about the task itself?

All 3 questions are typical comprehension tests (1. Gist; 2. Lexis; 3. Implied meaning). Not that they are wrong, but the problem is they

• do not really teach the learner how to approach this genre (a short story) in the future
• are not an authentic response to this genre

So how can we make the task more natural? "A good rule of thumb, [...], is to first consider the sort of things a target reader is likely to do with [the text]" (Nuttal, Ch. 1996: 153). In other words, ask yourself: how would I read/listen to this text in real world? How would I respond to it?

Coming back to our example, one of the most natural reactions to a story/anecdote is that you retell it to your friends later on (possibly altering it, either consciously or unconsciously). The simplest authentic task would be then (presumably after a gist listening, but not necessarily, all depending on the level of your sts) to ask students to retell the story in groups. Then they could check it with other groups, and listen again to the original to see if their versions differed. Can you think of any other tasks that would be more authentic responses to the text than the original course book exercise?

As Wilson (2006: 39) rightly puts it, "listeners cope with different types of listening by preparing themselves according to the conventions and expectations of the genre". Students then must be made aware of those conventions and taught how to react naturally to certain texts. After all, nobody answers true or false questions when listening to a friend telling a funny story over a pint of beer down the pub, do they?

Below then are some typical text types and suggestions for an authentic task to do with your students. Not a definitive list, of course. And not to say that the classical T/F questions should be abandoned completely. There is always some room for them. However, when designing listening or reading tasks, we should ask ourselves more often: how would I react/respond naturally to this text in the real world? WHY would I listen or read it? And how can I design the tasks to reflect this?

Some of the most obvious advantages of authentic tasks are:

• they resemble tasks learners will have to perform in English outside the class
• they are more meaningful
• often there is no right or wrong answer, which avoids the disappointment and frustration of getting the answers wrong
• they provide learners with skills they can use outside the class
• they prepare them to attack similar texts more effectively in the future

So when you read it through the list, think why these tasks are presumably more authentic than a typical T/F or multiple choice question. And try to think of other authentic tasks either for these genres, or for other ones. I'd be more than happy to include your suggestions in the post :)

1. Story:

• retell your partner
• T or student pauses the recording, the student reacts (e.g. That's incredible/sad/unbelievable. etc.)
• T pauses the recording at different points and asks students a question which will involve them in the process of telling the story: e.g. What do you think X looked like?

     2. News article:

•  read the title and decide if it's worth reading and why
• skim through the paragraphs and find one which you'd like to read in more detail
• skim through, and retell the news to your partner
• compare the presentation of news in two different newspapers

     3. Interview:

• respond yourselves to the questions
• find one surprising/interesting piece of information and read more about it on the internet

     4. Dialogue:

• ask for clarification when you don't understand
• try to interrupt politely
• T stops the dialogue, the students respond appropriately (i.e. to practise functional language or adjacency pairs)

     5. Lecture:

• use the information from the ppt to identify the main points of the lecture
• pause after signposting language and predict what information comes next
• take notes
• summarise the content using the notes or convert them into an essay

Read up on reading and listening task design:

• Nuttal, Ch. 1996. "Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language". Heineman
• Willson, J.J. 2008. "How to teach listening". Person