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Introduction and guidance

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This free course, How to learn a language, is for anyone thinking of learning a language. Whether it is the first time you are venturing into language learning, or if you have already started, this course will show you how to keep motivated, set your own goals, and develop strategies to learn a language. You will understand what is needed to succeed, and get lots of advice on how to develop the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. You will also find out how to learn vocabulary, and how to evaluate language learning resources. Finally, you will also learn how to create a ‘virtual language immersion’ for yourself.

The course lasts 8 weeks, with approximately 3 hours of study time each week. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week there is no problem with pushing on to complete another week’s study. You can also take as long as you want to complete it.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

understand your motivation for learning languages
set realistic goals in language learning
memorise vocabulary
evaluate independent language learning resources for personal learning goals
create a virtual immersion environment.

Moving around the course

In the ‘Summary’ at the end of each week, you can find a link to the next week. If at any time you want to return to the start of the course, click on ‘Full course description’. From here you can navigate to any part of the course. Alternatively, use the week links at the top of every page of the course.

It’s also good practice, if you access a link from within a course page (including links to the quizzes), to open it in a new window or tab. That way you can easily return to where you’ve come from without having to use the back button on your browser.

Who wrote this course?

This course has been written by three authors, who are all language teachers and learners.

Figure _unit1.1.1 Tita Beaven

Tita Beaven is a Senior Lecturer in Spanish at The Open University. Her research is in the area of innovative pedagogy and open education. Tita speaks Spanish, English, French and Italian. She is also currently learning German, and she has also already decided what three languages she’s going to learn next! You can find out more about her teaching and research on Tita’s OU Profile.

Figure _unit1.1.2 Olly Richards

Olly Richards is a polyglot who speaks eight languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Arabic and Cantonese) and is the founder of I Will Teach You A Language, a website that provides study hacks and mindtools for language learners.

Figure _unit1.1.3 Fernando Rosell-Aguilar

Fernando Rosell-Aguilar is a Senior Lecturer in Spanish at The Open University, and his research is in the area of online language teaching and learning. Fernando speaks Spanish and English, and some French and Italian. You can find out more by visiting Fernando’s OU Profile.

Each author has written specific weeks of this course, and share with you their insights into how to learn a language as both expert teachers and learners of languages.

There are also videos from learners speaking about their language learning journey, and some comments from Laura, an OU languages graduate, who will also offer her reflections and advice.

What is a badged course?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

While studying How to learn a language you have the option to work towards gaining a digital badge.

Badged courses are a key part of The Open University’s mission to promote the educational well-being of the community. The courses also provide another way of helping you to progress from informal to formal learning.

To complete a course you need to be able to find about 24 hours of study time, over a period of about 8 weeks. However, it is possible to study them at any time, and at a pace to suit you.

Badged courses are all available on The Open University’s OpenLearn website and do not cost anything to study. They differ from Open University courses because you do not receive support from a tutor. But you do get useful feedback from the interactive quizzes.

What is a badge?

Digital badges are a new way of demonstrating online that you have gained a skill. Schools, colleges and universities are working with employers and other organisations to develop open badges that help learners gain recognition for their skills, and support employers to identify the right candidate for a job.

Badges demonstrate your work and achievement on the course. You can share your achievement with friends, family and employers, and on social media. Badges are a great motivation, helping you to reach the end of the course. Gaining a badge often boosts confidence in the skills and abilities that underpin successful study. So, completing this course should encourage you to think about taking other courses.

How to get a badge

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Getting a badge is straightforward! Here’s what you have to do:

read each week of the course
score 50% or more in the two badge quizzes in Week 4 and Week 8.

For all the quizzes, you can have three attempts at most of the questions (for true or false type questions you usually only get one attempt). If you get the answer right first time you will get more marks than for a correct answer the second or third time. If one of your answers is incorrect you will often receive helpful feedback and suggestions about how to work out the correct answer.

For the badge quizzes, if you’re not successful in getting 50% the first time, after 24 hours you can attempt the whole quiz, and come back as many times as you like.

We hope that as many people as possible will gain an Open University badge – so you should see getting a badge as an opportunity to reflect on what you have learned rather than as a test.

If you need more guidance on getting a badge and what you can do with it, take a look at the OpenLearn FAQs. When you gain your badge you will receive an email to notify you and you will be able to view and manage all your badges in My OpenLearn within 24 hours of completing the criteria to gain a badge.

Get started with Week 1.

Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This week of the course is written by Tita Beaven.

Figure _unit2.1.1 Figure 1 Tita Beaven, author of Week 1.

Long description

Welcome to Week 1 of this free badged course, How to learn a language.

This week you will think about your reasons and your goals for learning a language, and you’ll explore what the possible barriers to you accomplishing your goals might be, and what you can do about it.

By the end of this week, you should be able to:

visualise your ‘future language self’ and set SMART goals
think about how realistic your aims are, map your journey and consider how long it will take
understand possible barriers to your success, and how to deal with them.

1 Why learn a new language?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Lots of people say they would love to speak another language, but many people are put off, perhaps because they don’t have very good memories of learning a language at school, or because they think it’s too hard, or because, well, everybody speaks English anyway!

If you decide you want to learn a language, then the message in Figure 2 is probably the reason why.

Figure _unit2.2.1 Figure 2 Motivation in learning a language

Long description

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have fallen in love with someone from another country (although that is a very common motivation for wanting to learn a language). One of your children or siblings might have fallen in love with someone from another country, and now you find yourself with a whole new extended family that you want to be able to communicate with – wanting to talk to their new grandchildren is a surprisingly frequent reason for older people wanting to learn a foreign language. You might have fallen in love with a place and visit there often, so you want to be able to communicate with the locals. Or you might have fallen in love with the way a language sounds – I have always loved the sound of Italian, and that was one of my reasons for wanting to learn the language.

On the other hand, you might be asking yourself if there are any bad reasons to learn a language. For instance, choosing one language over another because you think it is the easier choice, or feeling like you want to speak another language, but not really identifying with the people who speak it or their culture.

This is what Laura, a languages graduate at the OU, has to say about the matter. You will hear from Laura at various points throughout the course.

Box _unit2.2.1 Laura says:

I believe the reason I got on with Spanish and German is because I had a real interest in the history and culture of German- and Spanish-speaking countries, and I also had German- and Spanish-speaking friends. Yet my efforts to learn French beyond the basics were ultimately a failure, because I never really had any deep interest to sustain my motivation; I basically thought that because I could speak Spanish, French was a ‘logical’ next step for me, but obviously that was the wrong motivation for me.

Now watch the following video, in which a group of people talk about why they want to learn another language.

Download this video clip.Video player: boc_lll_1_video_week1_voxpops2.mp4 >

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Transcript

LEARNER 1

Some years ago, I wanted to learn Italian, because I love travelling to Italy, and especially, I really love Italian food. And I wanted to be able to talk to people about what was in a shop or what they might serve me or what was on the menu.

LEARNER 2

The first time I heard Spanish spoken was when I was 9 years old. I went to Bilbao with my family. And I was hooked on the sound of the language and being able to communicate with people in different language.

LEARNER 3

I quite enjoy learning new languages. I am Dutch. And of course, I had to learn English to come over here. And I also speak a few other languages. So I know how to learn a language. And I quite enjoy learning languages.

LEARNER 4

I needed to learn Spanish, because I'd moved to Spain. And I didn't speak a single word. And where I lived, nobody spoke any English. So it was a matter of necessity.

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2 A marathon, not a sprint

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Learning a language is a bit like running a marathon. You have to put in the time, the work and the effort. There is really no other way. If you have started this course thinking that you could just pick up a new language effortlessly or learn it in three weeks, you may be disappointed. Whether you’re new to language learning or you have some experience from some time ago, learning a language will take commitment, time and regular practice. However, like running a marathon, it can be tremendously rewarding, and an achievement to be really proud of.

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Figure _unit2.3.1 Figure 3 Learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint

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3 What does success look like for you?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

So, you have seen that language learning is a bit like running a marathon. And it is certainly a marathon, and not a sprint, in the sense that language proficiency will take time to achieve, especially if this is the first time you have set about learning a foreign language.

It is well known that, as well as the importance of their physical training, for athletes to succeed they also need to stay on top of their game mentally. One thing that athletes do to enhance their performance is to use visualisation techniques, imagining themselves completing a race, or stepping onto the podium.

As Angie LeVan of the Clinical Research Unit at the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center explains:

Mental imagery impacts many cognitive processes in the brain: motor control, attention, perception, planning, and memory. So the brain is getting trained for actual performance during visualization. It’s been found that mental practices can enhance motivation, increase confidence and self-efficacy, improve motor performance, prime your brain for success, and increase states of flow – all relevant to achieving your best life!

(LeVan, 2009)

Visualisation techniques have also been shown to be important in language learning. According to Professor Zoltan Dörnyei, a leading researcher on motivation and language learning, ‘a particularly effective way of motivating learners is to enable them to create an attractive vision of their future language self’ (2013, p. 5).

According to Dörnyei, an effective way to enhance your motivation as a learner is to imagine yourself as you will be once you have achieved your goal, just like athletes do. He recommends visualising what success in learning the language you are studying looks like for you.

Figure 4 shows what success in learning German, the language I am currently studying, looks like for me.

Figure _unit2.4.1 Figure 4 Tita imagining her trip to Berlin

Long description

Box _unit2.4.1 Box 1 Tita’s ideal future German self

I have just started to learn German. I am planning to visit Berlin next year. I visited last year for a conference, and did not really speak any German then. I would like to return next year, and I can imagine myself arriving at the Hauptbahnhof, and stopping for a coffee on my way to the hotel. I imagine getting to the hotel, being greeted by the receptionist, and being able to ask for my room in German. I will also enjoy being able to speak German when I go back to the nice restaurant I went to in my last visit, and to order a beer at the terrace by the river. I will also be able to talk to people in the shops, rather than rely on English for everything. If I have time, I will also visit the Pergamon museum, which I didn’t have time to visit last time, and I will get a German guide and try to read that, rather than an English one.

I can also imagine attending some of the conference talks in German, and talking to colleagues about the topic of the conference, which is language learning, in German. I will also see some of the people I met last year, and it will be great to chat to them in German about what they have been doing. I imagine speaking fairly fluently to people in the hotel, shops and restaurants. I think they will be pleased to see that I make the effort to speak in German, although some might reply in English (people always do that). I think my colleagues at the conference will be pleased that I have learned some German although they will also want to speak other languages.

4 Your ‘future language self’

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Now that you have an idea of what a portrait of a future language self might look like, it’s time to do your own. In order to do this, you are going to do a visualisation exercise.

Activity _unit2.5.1 Activity 1 Visualising the future

Allow about 30 minutes

Find a nice, quiet place where you are not going to be disturbed or interrupted for ten to fifteen minutes, and get ready to do the visualisation exercise below. It’s a good idea to sit comfortably in a quiet place, take a few deep breaths to relax yourself, and close your eyes as you listen to the visualisation audio (adapted from Hadfield and Dörnyei, 2013, pp. 35–7). You might be rather sceptical about this sort of exercise, but do give it a try.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: boc_lll_1_audio_week1_section3.mp3 >

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Transcript

TITA BEAVEN

Imagine yourself in the future. You have studied the language you want to learn and now you can speak it well.

Imagine yourself. How old are you? What do you look like now? Where are you living? What is your house like? who lives with you? What job are you doing? Why do you enjoy it? What makes you happy about your life?

How is your new language useful to you? What can you do in that language? Do you use it in your work? Do you use it to study? Do you have friends who speak that language? Do you use it when you travel as a tourist?

Imagine the one that is the most important to you: work, study, friends, travel. Now imagine yourself in that situation. Where are you? In an office, at a meeting, on the phone, with friends, in a university, in the foreign country? In a cafe? In a shop? In the street? At the station? Choose one. Where are you? What does the place look like? What can you see around you? How many people are there? What do they look like? What are they wearing? What can you hear? What are you doing? What are you wearing? You are speaking the language to someone. Who is it? What do they look like? Imagine that you are speaking the language very well. What are you talking about? What kind of things can you say? How do you feel talking in that language? How do people react to you?

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How did you find that? Did you manage to imagine yourself in the future speaking the language you are learning? Now spend some time writing up how you imagine your future language self, in the same sort of format as I provided for myself earlier. It is important that you do this now, as you will need to look back at your description of your future language self in the next activities. You will also find that this written record of how you imagine your future language self is a useful document to return to in the future, especially at times when you are struggling with your motivation.

Box _unit2.5.1 Laura says:

I wish I had done this activity when I first started studying languages! I think doing something like this and (more importantly) having a written record of it that I could look back on when I was feeling demotivated would have been beneficial to me. I would also suggest that you repeat this exercise at regular intervals as you progress in your language learning, particularly when you start feeling demotivated.

5 Reality check

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

You might have found that when you wrote up your visualisation, there were aspects that sounded quite realistic and felt doable, and others that were probably a bit more unlikely. This is perfectly normal, and in the next activity you are going to try to separate your language-learning goals into those that are realistic and those that aren’t.

If you remember my visualisation of my ideal future German self, these are some of the things I wanted to achieve within a year:

ordering a coffee
checking in at the hotel
interacting with shop assistants
ordering food in a restaurant
ordering a beer
visiting a museum and reading the museum guide in German
attending some of the conference sessions in German
talking to colleagues about the topic of the conference
chatting to colleagues in German.

Which of these objectives do you think are realistic, and which are unrealistic?

Table 1 shows my own evaluation of my goals.

Table _unit2.6.1 Table 1 Tita’s evaluations of her goals

Goal	1= realistic, easy to achieve 2= possible but challenging 3= not realistic in the time available	Reasons
Ordering a coffee	1	Realistic. I can achieve this easily, as the language is quite formulaic and predictable.
Checking in at the hotel	1	Realistic. I can achieve this as long as there are no problems with the booking etc.
Interacting with shop assistants	1 or 2?	Realistic. I can achieve this easily at a very basic level, but it will depend on what I am buying (I might not have the vocabulary).
Ordering food in a restaurant	1	Realistic. I can achieve this easily as the language is quite formulaic and predictable.
Ordering a beer	1	Realistic. I can achieve this easily as the language is quite predictable.
Visiting a museum and reading the German guide	2	This might be challenging, but I should be able to use my general knowledge about art to make sense of some of it.
Attending some of the conference sessions in German	3	This will be very challenging. I don’t think I will be able to follow the sessions in German and I would need a lot more time. Not a realistic goal right now.
Talking to colleagues about the topic of the conference	3	This will be very challenging, as I would need quite a lot of specialist vocabulary, and I don’t think I can learn that in the time available. Not a realistic goal right now.
Chatting to colleagues in German	3	This will be challenging, but achievable provided we stay within topics I am familiar with and they are patient with me.

Activity _unit2.6.1 Activity 2 Reviewing your goals

Allow about 10 minutes

Now look back at your own visualisation of your future language self, and write a list of the goals you set for yourself in this table. Make sure you save the document somewhere where you can refer to it again, as you will return to it in Week 8. Then read through your goals, and decide which ones are realistic and easy to achieve, which ones are possible, but more challenging/more long term, which ones are not realistic. Also think of the reasons for your evaluation of your goals.

Now that you know which goals are more realistic, and which ones are less so, put an estimated timeframe of when you think you will achieve each one. As Laura says …

Box _unit2.6.1 Laura says:

I think it is important that you consider the time frame you have available and how long it would realistically take you meet certain goals. Having a specific time-frame (e.g. like a trip to Berlin next year, like Tita) is of course helpful, but if not, it is useful to try to estimate long you think it would take you to get to such a stage. I realise that time frames are covered a little later on (I did look ahead!), but when I started learning Spanish, I didn’t really have any specific time-frame to work towards, apart from my assignments, and I realise now how useful it would have been.

6 What are the barriers?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

We all like to think that we are going to succeed in achieving our goals, but as anyone who has set themselves a New Year’s resolution probably knows, failure is also an option.

This might come as a surprise to you to talk about failure, as so much current thinking is about embracing a ‘can do’ attitude and thinking that everything is possible, and that the sky’s the limit.

You might indeed think it is strange that we would talk about failing in a course that is designed to help you succeed in language learning, but in our experience, there are always lots of things that get in the way of a good plan, ranging from lack of confidence to lack of time, other pressures on your day to day life, an unexpected personal circumstance, a habit of procrastinating, or simply not knowing how to deal with difficulties in your language learning journey.

Box _unit2.7.1 Laura says:

I think it is important to understand that changes in life circumstance doesn’t necessarily mean you have failed – it may well mean you have to take a step back, re-evaluate your motivations, goals, routine etc. and accept you haven’t managed to achieve everything you wanted within the timeframe you envisaged.

There are lots of reasons why people come unstuck when learning languages. Here are some barriers that people have. Do you identify with any of them?

I lack confidence
I am easily distracted
I think I’m just not very efficient
I am easily discouraged
I always procrastinate
I am lazy
I have no willpower
I am really over-committed to too much stuff
I get easily stressed
I am very disorganised.

Activity _unit2.7.1 Activity 3 Identifying barriers

Allow about 5 minutes

Here are some of the unsuccessful behaviours that people can exhibit when learning a language.

For each of the behaviours below, decide which barrier best describes the situation

‘I am not very confident, and I am really scared of speaking and making mistakes. I’m not very good at languages, and I’m not sure if I can do this…’

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‘I know what I’m supposed to do to learn a language, but I just seem to find so many reasons to put off learning new vocabulary or studying grammar… and if I have a test, I can revise for it at the last minute!’

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‘I just don’t like working hard… Life is about having fun and being happy, right? And studying a language is just such hard work!’

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‘I know I should practice speaking and study grammar, but it’s just so much easier to play with this really cool app I found. I know it’s silly, because I’m not making any progress, but I just can’t find the determination to work hard.’

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‘I have all these books, and audio, and films, and apps… I start working on something, and then I give up and try something else. I can’t focus on anything for more than a few minutes.’

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Activity _unit2.7.2 Activity 4 Reflecting on your own barriers

Allow about 10 minutes

Now think of three of the barriers that you most identify with and write a couple of sentences for each explaining how they affect your language learning.

Discussion

For instance, I am quite given to procrastination. I will settle down to study German and find that first I check my Facebook page or my Twitter account, then I might go and get myself a drink, and finally settle down to work. What this usually means is that I’ve wasted a lot of time before I settle down to study and usually run out of time to do the studying itself! I also know that if I have a lesson, I will leave doing the homework or preparation to the last possible minute.

7 Overcoming obstacles

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

It would be unrealistic to think that you will sail through your language-learning journey without ever encountering any obstacle or any of the barriers we’ve talked about. What is important is to be prepared so that you can recognise these barriers and overcome them.

Here is a mindmap of strategies to deal with obstacles you might encounter.

Figure _unit2.8.1 Figure 5 Mindmap (adapted from Hadfield and Dörnyei, 2013, p. 70)

Long description

Activity _unit2.8.1 Activity 5 Deciding on strategies to overcome obstacles

Allow about 5 minutes

Read the following situations, and decide which strategy is being used in each case:

‘To learn vocabulary, I walk around my house naming the rooms, the furniture and the objects in my home in my foreign language.’

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‘I used to get to the end of the day and realised I hadn’t done any language studying, so now I get up 15 minutes earlier and make sure I start every day with 15 minutes of language learning. I do this Monday to Friday. At the weekend, I spend one hour after breakfast.’

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‘When I have done what I set out to achieve in a particular week, I treat myself to something nice.’

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‘I love music, so I find songs in my target language and sing along to them.’

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‘Because I get distracted easily and I tend to procrastinate, I close my email and my social media apps before I start studying. Unless I’m specifically using a language-learning app, I put my smartphone out of sight! I only allow myself to look at my email and social media after I have finished my study session.’

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‘When I sit down to study, I break the session into three parts. First I spend a few minutes reviewing what I did in my last session, then I work on one main task (such as reading a text, listening to a longer piece of audio, or working on my grammar). This takes up most of the study session. Then I like to finish the session by doing something fun, such as revising some vocabulary, or watching a short video.‘

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‘Before I start my study session, I think of what I will have achieved at the end. This helps me to stay motivated.’

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Activity _unit2.8.2 Activity 6 Thinking about your own obstacles and strategies

Allow about 30 minutes

Now think of what issues you are likely to face when learning your language, and what strategies you might use to deal with each situation.

You might want to print out the mindmap in Figure 5 and write your ideas on it.

Try to think of a situation for each type of strategy, and write them down.

8 Mapping your journey

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

So far, you have visualised yourself in the future speaking the language you are studying and you have articulated specific aims. These are key elements that will help your motivation. You then considered how realistic those aims were, thought of the obstacles that might prevent you from achieving your aims and the strategies you can adopt to overcome those obstacles. The next step is to map your journey. One useful ‘map’ you can use is the CEFR descriptors.

The CEFR (or Council of Europe Framework of Reference for Languages, as it is called in full) is a document produced by the Council of Europe that defines six levels of language proficiency: A1 and A2, B1 and B2, C1 and C2. The A levels indicate basic proficiency, the B levels describe independent users, and the C levels correspond to a proficient user.

Box _unit2.9.1 Laura says:

I often use the CEFR descriptors to refer back to in my language learning. It is a wordy document but, to be honest, every serious language learner who wants to progress beyond tourist-speak should be familiar with it.

The six proficiency levels can be summarised in Table 2.

Table _unit2.9.1 Table 2 Common reference levels, global scale

Basic user	A1	Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.
Basic user	A2	Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment). Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters. Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.
Independent user	B1	Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics, which are familiar, or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.
Independent user	B2	Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.
Proficient user	C1	Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.
Proficient user	C2	Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarise information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in more complex situations.

Here’s the table as a word document. You might want to download it and save it for future reference.

You will notice that at the lower levels, the learner has to be able to communicate in familiar, everyday settings and routine context. As a learner moves up the scale and becomes more proficient, they also become more able to communicate in a variety of contexts, so that at level C they can communicate in a wide variety of social, academic and professional contexts.

When we looked at my description of my ideal future German self, most of the aims that I felt were realistic were the ones that correspond to levels A1 and A2 (ordering a coffee, checking in at the hotel, ordering food and drink, etc.). We also saw how some of my aims were not very realistic, or would require more time (reading the guide in German when I visited a museum; attending some of the conference sessions in German, talking to colleagues about the topic of the conference). In order to accomplish these aims, I would need to develop the sort of language that goes beyond everyday contexts, and I would need to be operating at the level of ‘independent user’.

Activity _unit2.9.1 Activity 7 Mapping your ideal future self to CEFR levels

Allow about 10 minutes

So what about you? Have another look at the aims you identified for your ideal future self in your language and try to map them against one of the different CEFR levels.

Discussion

If you are a beginner, your aims will probably match the levels A1 or perhaps even A2 of the CEFR document. As we will discuss later, it is important that your aims are realistic for the time you have available, so don’t feel you have to aim for full proficiency when you start off on you journey. You might want to aim to lower levels in the first instance, and then revise your goals when you reach the different milestones of the various CEFR levels.

Box _unit2.9.2 Laura says:

I remember doing this exercise when I had been learning Spanish for a couple of years and realising that a lot of my goals were on the C-Level! It was useful to do that, as it gave me a more realistic view of my goals and meant I wasn’t so discouraged that I couldn’t read Cervantes in my second year of Spanish!

The other thing that I have learned is that although there are different aspects to language learning (listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation), sometimes I have wanted to prioritise some of those over others. So for instance, while in my undergraduate degree I worked on all of them, more recently, for my work, I have had to learn to read some Romanian and Albanian, but I haven’t necessarily needed to be able to speak or listen to it, or actively use it). However, don’t prioritise some aspects over others just because they are easier (e.g. reading over speaking)!

9 Your goals

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

So far, you have visualised your future language self, and thought about the sorts of things you imagine yourself doing in the language you are learning. Some of those might be slightly unrealistic goals in the time you have available but, having looked at the CEFR levels, you should now have a clearer idea of what you want to achieve. So let’s now focus on setting goals.

As the career development website MindTools explains, goal setting has been shown to be an important aspect in business, sports, and many other fields too.

Why set goals?

Top-level athletes, successful business people and achievers in all fields set goals. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge and helps you to organise your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.
By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you’ll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long, pointless grind. You will also raise your self-confidence, as you recognise your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you’ve set.

(MindTools, n.d.)

One way of setting yourself useful goals is to use the SMART framework. Read the short article about how to set SMART goals for language learning by Agnieszka Murdoch, language coach and author of the 5 Minute Language website (there is a longer version of this article on the website).

Activity _unit2.10.1 Activity 8 Matching objectives to the type of SMART goal

Allow about 5 minutes

Match each objective with the type of SMART goal.

Set 1: learning the past simple

Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it

Set 2: learning to ask for and give advice

Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it

Next, you’ll think about your own goals.

Activity _unit2.10.2 Activity 9 Goal setting

Allow about 30 minutes

If you have already started learning a language, you might have very clear goals in mind, and be able to set your goals now.

You can use this template to set your goals.

If you are new to language learning, you might want to work through the rest of the course before setting your language-learning goals. Regardless of what you do, you should review, update and refine the goals you set yourself as a language learner regularly, so you will revisit this section again in Weeks 4 and 8 of the course.

It is important that you review your goals regularly, and reflect on whether you have achieved them or not. If you are new to language learning, you might find you are setting yourself SMART goals that are a bit too unrealistic.

Box _unit2.10.1 Laura says:

I think it is useful to go back to your goals every few weeks and assess whether they were realistic, whether you have fulfilled them, and if not, why not. It is important to evaluate your goals regularly. As a student new language learning, it is likely that you will make some mistakes in setting goals initially, particularly with regard to what is realistic – I know I did! So get into the habit of reviewing and re-evaluating your goals according to the SMART framework regularly.

10 How long will it take?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Figure _unit2.11.1 Figure 6 Can you learn a language in three weeks?

Long description

Watch the following video, in which a group of people talk about how long they think it will take to learn a language.

Download this video clip.Video player: boc_lll_1_video_week1_voxpops1.mp4 >

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Transcript

LEARNER 1

To get to the level I want to get to more in learning German, I think probably between one and two years. I've been using duolingo now for nine months. I'm making good progress. I'm enjoying it, which is really important. But I think if I'm going to make much more progress, I'll need to do some more formal study, which helps me understand the structure of the language rather than just-- as good as duolingo is, it's not as basic as the old fashioned tapes where you're just repeating phrases or something.

It's very interactive and I'm learning a lot with it. But I think if I'm going to meet my goals, I need to move from that sort of informal learning into a more formal context and actually study the language to some degree.

LEARNER 2

I'm learning Chinese at the moment. And I would love to be able to get to a point where I can hold a conversation with a native speaker. But unfortunately, I think this is going to take quite a long time to achieve. It's going to take many, many years I think, because you have to take into account the speaking and the listening aspects of this. So I think and the fact that I'm not living in China I think just means I have to take it gradually. But it's going to take me a number of years to get to that point.

LEARNER 3

I'm learning Spanish. The level I'm at currently is beginning advanced. I would like to continue until I have real fluency so I can speak and listen with confidence. And I hope one day to be able to return to Spain and work there.

LEARNER 4

I'm learning Japanese. And I'm hoping to be able to understand what my grandchildren say, because they are being brought up bilingual. I would like to be able to have a conversation with them. I can understand quite a lot of what they're saying. But I would like to be able to speak to them in Japanese as well.

Oh, it'll take me ages. I'm useless at remembering the vocabulary. I think I've started it all too late, but it's still, it's very good because I can understand a lot more than I did when I started.

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How long it takes you to learn a language depends on several factors:

the level of proficiency you want to get to
whether you are an experienced language learner or not
the intensity, regularity and efficacy of your study routine
how similar the language you are learning is to the language(s) you already speak
how complex your target language is.

If you are a native speaker of English, you might find it easier to learn German, as they are both Germanic languages that share a lot of vocabulary and phonological features, than to learn Mandarin, where you would have to get to grips with a different writing system and with the fact that Mandarin is a tonal language, and where there are no similarities with English in the vocabulary, grammar or syntax.

There are many estimates of how long it may take a learner to reach each of the CEFR levels, but as a guideline, it might take you a couple of hundred hours to move between each of the six levels. As I’ve already said, learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint. So… beware of snake oil!

11 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Well done – you have reached the end of Week 1 and can now take the weekly quiz to test your understanding.

Week 1 practice quiz

Open the quiz in a new tab or window (by holding ctrl [or cmd on a Mac] when you click the link) and come back here when you are done.

12 Summary of Week 1

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This week you have looked at your motivation, some of the barriers you might come across when learning a language, and strategies to deal with them. You might have started setting yourself some SMART goals, using the CEFR as a map.

You should now be able to:

visualise your ‘future language self’ and set SMART goals
think about how realistic your aims are, map your journey and consider how long it will take
understand possible barriers to your success and how to deal with them.

Before you go any further, reflect on the following: what does learning a language actually involve?

Next week, Olly will talk you though this question, drawing on his experience of learning languages.

You can now go to Week 2.

Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This week of the course is written by Olly Richards.

Figure _unit3.1.1 Figure 1 Olly Richards, author of Week 2.

Long description

Becoming a successful language learner is not simply about discovering the ‘how-to’ tips and tricks. Every language is a bit like a puzzle. Over time, you gradually increase your understanding of how a language works. Grammar that was once hard becomes second nature. Vocabulary that used to slip your mind becomes engrained.

The process of becoming fluent in a language can take many years and success comes with time, providing you are able to stick at it.

For a new language learner, though, it is sticking with a language over a long period of time that is often the hardest thing of all. This is not because they are unwilling to do the work. It’s because unexpected things happen.

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

revisit your language learning aims
recognise four important areas that you need to master: the linguistic, the cultural, the methodological and the self.

1 Challenges you may face

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Take a look at this video describing some challenges in learning a language over time.

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LEARNER 1:

Two things worry me about learning French. One is the amount of vocabulary that you need and also the grammar-- when writing French, to get the grammar correct.

LEARNER 2:

Well, what worries me most about learning a language is not really understanding the concept of language and the things that go into constructing language. So it's not having been taught English in a way that they try and teach you foreign languages. So I don't understand a lot of the concepts they're trying to explain to me. So as I'm trying to understand these things in German, the language I'm learning, I don't even know what they mean in English. So that's a barrier for me right from the start.

LEARNER 3:

Learning a language, I find it difficult in the beginning before you have a set of vocabulary available to you so you can say complete sentences and understand what somebody is saying. You don't have to be able to read difficult texts or to say difficult things. But the first basic vocabulary-- to have that right there and then to use, that's always the first stage I need to go through. And once I've gotten that, I'm away.

LEARNER 4:

The interesting thing about Japanese is that the construction is very different from English. And you've got to learn a different way of thinking when you're speaking.

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All these experiences are a normal part of learning a language. However, when you encounter them for the first time, they can be difficult to deal with.

For example, difficult grammar can often only be mastered not through memorising rules, but by an ongoing process of attention, exposure, experimentation and so on. Otherwise intelligent people can be left exasperated by a problem that can’t be solved through brainpower and hard work alone. How do you react to challenges that can’t easily be quantified and controlled?

2 ‘My goal is to speak fluently!’

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Many people are keen to start speaking their new language with native speakers. However, when they try to do so, perhaps after building up courage for some time, everyone tends to reply in English, leaving them feeling dejected and losing motivation. How do you recover from this?

The journey of learning a foreign language can be a rollercoaster and it’s rarely for the reasons you expect.

Your second foreign language is easier, though. And your third easier still.

In my experience of going through the language learning process almost ten times, what I’ve learned is that success comes in large part from knowing what to expect, picking your battles and, critically, knowing what you want to achieve with the language.

For example, take our earlier example of learning complex grammar. If your goal is simply to travel around Italy and order food in restaurants, do you really need to master the trapassato prossimo (the past perfect)? Knowing that you don’t actually need to know this verb tense for your purposes can save you months of headaches.

Now let’s take the case of the native speakers who insist on replying to you in English. How necessary is it for you to keep torturing yourself if, in fact, your original aim was simply to be able to read academic papers for your research?

You touched on this in Week 1 when you learned about motivation and expectations. At this stage, you may be beginning to see how these decisions might impact on the task of learning your target language in a practical sense.

This week, you’ll be looking at many of these reasons, in order to prepare yourself for what may be to come.

The title of this section is ‘My goal is to speak fluently!’, because that’s what most people tell themselves without digging much deeper. However, in Week 1, you thought in some depth about your language learning aims.

Let’s take a second right now to revisit those.

What does it mean to learn a language? That depends very much on what you want to learn.

Activity _unit3.3.1 Activity 1 Revisiting your language learning aims

Allow about 15 minutes

Answer the following questions. As you’re thinking about them, consider how proficient or fluent you would need to be in the language in order to get the job done:

Who do you want to speak with?
What do you need to talk to them about?
What kind of places will you be in?

Here is an example: ‘I’m learning Spanish for my trip to Mexico in the summer. It’s still 6 months away, so I’m sure that’s enough time to learn to speak a bit! I don’t really have any ambitions to speak fluently, after all I’ll only be there for a couple of weeks. But I’d really like to be able to chat with the locals when I’m there, just saying a few words to avoid being a clueless tourist. Shopkeepers, taxi drivers, that kind of thing. It would be nice to tell them what I need, and also have some small talk so I can get to know them a bit. I basically just want to connect with the locals without having to use English.’

Discussion

As Tita mentioned in Week 1, it is important that you are as specific as you can in the answers, imagining a realistic scenario.

3 Four areas to master

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

As I look back on my own experience of taking a new language from complete beginner to fluency, I can identify four ‘buckets’ that I have needed to become good at, in order to learn with some efficiency and fast-track the process.

Those are:

Linguistic – learning the language itself
Cultural – understanding the culture
Methodological – your language learning method
Self – staying focused and motivated

Figure _unit3.4.1 Figure 2 The four areas to master.

Long description

I have experienced both feeling a mastery of, and feeling utterly useless at, each of these four ‘buckets’. These ups and downs have shown me that if any of these go wrong, you will struggle to reach your goals. On the other hand, when you learn to master these elements, you unlock the secret to learning any language quickly.

3.1 Linguistic

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This is what is most familiar to aspiring language learners – the language itself. You need to master the various elements of that language, from the words it uses, to the order you put them in.

Activity _unit3.4.1 Activity 2 Matching the linguistic elements

Allow about 5 minutes

Look at the various linguistic elements of a language. Match each one to its definition.

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Discussion

Learning a language means learning the elements of that language. In the following weeks, you will look in particular at learning vocabulary and at the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, which you will focus on in Weeks 4–7.

Box _unit3.4.1 Laura says:

I think it is very common as a learner to focus too much on certain elements at the expense of others, simply because they are easier and more in your comfort zone. I think a balanced approach is key, and I have found that the different language elements are interdependent, so, for instance, a good grasp of pronunciation can also aid listening comprehension and so on.

3.2 Cultural

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

If you have ever travelled abroad, you’ll know that the locals do things differently. How differently depends on the country.

The difference might be subtle, such as different meal times from what you’re used to. If you’ve ever travelled to Spain, think for instance about the differences between the UK and Spain.

Box _unit3.4.2 Box 1 An example

I was recently invited by a Spanish friend in London to go for lunch with her and some friends. We didn’t confirm the exact time, and so I blocked off a few hours on my calendar on that day, and arranged to meet another friend afterwards – at 3pm. ‘Even if it’s a relaxed lunch’, I thought, ‘that will leave plenty of time’. The day arrived, and I texted my friend to ask what time we were meeting for lunch. ‘At 3pm’, came the reply. ‘¡Horario español!’ – Spanish time – I had to scramble to rearrange my day! While lunch in the UK usually happens around midday or 1pm, it is an integral part of Spanish culture to eat late. La cena, dinner, can easily begin at 11pm. One can easily imagine the amount of comical misunderstandings that can happen as a result of arranging schedules around meal times. This is a cultural issue, rather than a linguistic one.

While the Spanish example is a fun one, it is not always so light-hearted. Having lived for almost two years in Qatar, an ultra-conservative Muslim state in the Gulf, I have experienced how the cultural misuse of language can have serious consequences.

Let’s look at an example in the middle ground.

When I lived in Tokyo, I quickly learned that Japan is a society governed by conventions – things you are expected to say and do in all manner of situations, from sitting down to eat, to meeting someone new.

Activity _unit3.4.2 Activity 3 Thinking about etiquette

Allow about 30 minutes

Read the following: A short guide to Japanese etiquette. As you read it, imagine you are learning Japanese, perhaps because you will be transferred to Japan for work. Although it would be unreasonable for you to learn all the social customs from the start, are there any that you would want to learn as soon as possible? Are there any customs you would come to feel embarrassed to get wrong, as someone who is learning Japanese?

Figure _unit3.4.2 Figure 3 A Japanese tea ceremony.

Long description

Discussion

While you would probably not be expected to know every rule, and the advice to take your cue from others is usually a safe one, if you were the guest at a meal, you would need to know some basic rules. For instance, you should know about the etiquette for making toasts (as you would be expected to make one), for sitting arrangements (including where and how to sit), for starting to eat (saying itidakimasu, the equivalent to bon appetit) and for thanking your host for a great meal at the end. You should also know not to drink or eat until your Japanese host does. Not knowing both the cultural aspects to basic etiquette, as well as the set phrases expected in such situations, might seem impolite and offend your host.

On the other hand, the tea ceremony ritual is obviously extremely complex in terms of etiquette, and you probably would not be expected to be familiar with all of it. Again, the advice to take your cue from others would work in this setting.

Knowing the etiquette around hygiene is also important (e.g. removing your shoes, never stepping on the genkan but immediately stepping up onto the tatami in order not to bring dirt into the house, wiping your hands (not your face) with the towel provided before you touch any of the food, etc.). After all, if a foreign guest were to do something considered unhygienic in your culture at the dinner table (such as farting or picking their nose), you would find it rather rude!

Finally, to avoid awkward misunderstandings, you should know about the etiquette for paying for meals.

Cultural faux pas may not initially seem to be linked to the language, but you certainly cannot successfully learn a language without also behaving appropriately with its people.

Learning a language means becoming culturally literate.

Box _unit3.4.3 Laura says:

I think knowing the social and cultural conventions of the people whose language you are learning is important, but it is somewhat inevitable that at some point you will encounter hitherto unknown norms of behaviour. One useful strategy I use to minimise any social awkwardness in this context is to learn appropriate phrases of apology or ways to convey that I don’t understand.

3.3 Methodological

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

You have already noted that learning a language means learning the words, phrases, grammar and so on, but how? How do you memorise the vocabulary, master the grammar or learn to understand native speakers?

When I first started learning languages on my own, aged 19, the only experience I had was that of my language classes at school. As a student, I wasn’t particularly interested in languages and didn’t have a very positive learning experience. In French class, we would practise giving directions to the station ad infinitum. For homework, we would have a list of ten French words to memorise.

When I suddenly discovered a desire to learn languages as an adult, the only way I knew how was to get a textbook and start memorising words. Needless to say, I didn’t learn much at first.

Over the years, as I learned more languages, I began to notice new things that worked – often discovering them by accident. When I trained as a language teacher, I discovered many formal language teaching methodologies, such as the Audio-Lingual Method and the Communicative Approach.

The kind of questions I began to ask and answer are:

Which activities are most effective?
Should I study by myself or find a teacher?
How should my method change as I become more proficient?
Does watching movies help?

I noticed that, as I became a better language learner, I developed certain skills:

Self-monitoring (DeKeyser, 2007) – being able to identify my own strengths and weaknesses as a speaker of a foreign language without relying on someone to point them out to me
Noticing (Schmidt, 1990) – being able to read or listen to the language I was learning and notice important features, enabling me to improve independently
Obtaining feedback (Little and Ushioda,1998) – seeking out people, such as language exchange partners, who could give me feedback on my speaking. For example, by correcting what I say or answering my questions.

These days, I have all but stopped following any one method, and simply learn languages in the way I have realised are most effective – at least for me.

And it’s that last bit that’s key: For me.

There are many ways to learn a language, and your goal should be to figure out what works for you personally. The key to becoming a successful language learner and developing the ability to learn languages quickly is to discover how you learn best.

Learning a language means discovering how you learn best.

3.4 Self

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

As if there wasn’t already enough to learn, you also have to be in control of yourself. Focus, discipline, motivation, emotions: these factors all govern whether or not you turn up and study in the first place.

The perfect method, a great textbook or the world’s best teacher, are of no help to you if you’re not disciplined enough to study every day or if you feel too anxious to practise speaking with people.

On the other hand, if you remain focused, and work at it day after day, you will struggle not to make progress.

All of this, of course, is easier said than done. Until you have the experience of learning a language, you will be at the mercy of your surroundings, for better or for worse. When you are more experienced, you can learn to create your own conditions to help you learn more effectively, wherever you live in the world.

Box _unit3.4.4 Box 2 An example

When I learned Spanish, I was living in the UK. I became good friends with a Spanish speaker and decided to take the opportunity to learn Spanish. We were studying at the same university and spent a lot of time together. Without having to study particularly hard, I was able to become fairly fluent in Spanish over the course of a year, simply by speaking it every day. (Luckily, my motivation to learn Spanish turned out to be stronger than my friend’s motivation to learn English.) It was the ideal language learning environment, possibly even better than moving to Spain.

Many years later, I moved to Japan. Japanese was the first Asian language I had learned and it proved to be far harder than I expected. I struggled to make friends who would speak to me in Japanese and my progress in the language was slow at best. In spite of living in the country itself – in theory an ideal language learning environment – I found myself becoming demotivated and losing the will to study by myself. Overcoming this obstacle was one of my biggest language learning challenges. However, the experience of coming through it and successfully learning Japanese gave me the tools necessary for me to now engineer a good language-learning environment wherever I am in the world.

Learning a language is a big task. Comparable to writing a novel, perhaps, it is an undertaking that many people will find it hard to see through due to the amount of time required to stay motivated and stick at it – and that’s assuming you know how to do it in the first place.

Skills such as time management, overcoming the fear of speaking and dealing with negative experiences are not unique to language learning, but they affect is hugely.

You will look at these in more detail in the forthcoming weeks.

Activity _unit3.4.3 Activity 4 Reflecting on previous successful challenges

Allow about 20 minutes

Think about the last time you successfully completed a big task, e.g. passing a driving test, submitting your tax return, reading a hard book, perhaps for your studies. How did you control your environment to help you successfully complete the task? Did you struggle with anything? What?

Discussion

Motivation, self-discipline and focus are perhaps not what you were expecting from a course on learning languages. However, hopefully you can see from these examples how they have the power to make the difference between success and failure, and learning to be in control of your environment is perhaps the ultimate secret weapon!

Box _unit3.4.5 Laura says:

Too often, people seem to think that, to learn a language, you have to have some secret inner talent that is unobtainable to most ‘normal’ folk. Thinking of language learning in the same way as other goals in life that require persistence and dedication makes it seem more attainable. You don’t have to be a genius to learn a language. You just need perseverance and commitment.

Learning a language means working hard, staying disciplined and being in control of yourself and your environment. The work you did in Week 1 to identify your SMART goals but also to reflect on the potential barriers to your learning and the strategies to address them should enable you to stay focused and motivated.

4 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Well done – you have reached the end of Week 2 and can now take the weekly quiz to test your understanding.

Week 2 practice quiz

Open the quiz in a new tab or window (by holding ctrl [or cmd on a Mac] when you click the link) and come back here when you are done.

5 Summary of Week 2

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

By now, you are probably itching to get going, especially as there are so many resources out there for you to start learning a language.

You should now be able to:

revisit your language learning aims
understand four important areas that you need to master: the linguistic, the cultural, the methodological and the self.

Next week, Fernando will draw on some of his recent research to show you how to evaluate those resources, so you make the choices that are right for you.

You can now go to Week 3.

Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This week of the course is written by Fernando Rosell-Aguilar.

Figure _unit4.1.1 Figure 1 Fernando Rosell-Aguilar, author of Week 3.

Long description

So far, you have looked at motivation, setting realistic goals, and hopefully also gained a better understanding of what it means to learn a language. This week I will show you ways to find useful resources to support your language learning and present a framework to evaluate the resources you find according to your own individual learning needs.

By the end of this week, you should be able to:

find resources for learning languages
understand the different sorts of resources you can use
choose and evaluate resources for language learning.

1 Where do I start?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Watch the following video in which two language learners talk about what they find hard about selecting and using resources.

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Transcript

LEARNER 1

I've had difficulties identifying particular learning apps that I've found useful for me. So I've tried a few different ones. But then you have to take quite a piecemeal approach, because I've tried a few different ones. And I've thought, well, this one looks interesting. That one looks interesting. And eventually I settled on one that I found was particularly useful and fit my own personal time constraints and my own learning preferences as well.

LEARNER 2

When I started out learning languages, one of the problems was finding resources and knowing which resources were good and which weren't-- it was really kind of trial and error. And it involved investing quite a bit of time in that resource before you realised it wasn't quite useful.

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You may be taking a language course, and in that case your teacher may supply language learning materials or recommend that you buy a course book. Some people choose to do extra work on top their coursework and look for additional learning resources. Alternatively, you may be studying independently, or have stopped formal learning and are looking for resources to keep up with the language(s) you already have a good knowledge of. There are many resources available to support language learners: grammar books, books in the target language or bilingual books, graded readers, newspapers, films, TV channels, audio recordings, websites with all sorts of content, either aimed at language learners or at native speakers, and mobile apps, to name just a few. With such a wealth of material available yet often so little time to spend practising languages, it is sometimes hard to decide which material is the most appropriate for you.

2 Resources for language learning: classification

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

There is a wealth of resources available both in physical formats and online: bookshops (both high street and online) and sometimes large libraries stock books, CDs, DVDs, and newspapers in other languages. They may also stock dictionaries, grammar books and publications about the culture and history of the areas where your target language is spoken.

Online resources available include newspapers and websites from media outlets of the areas where your target language is spoken, which often offer text, audio and video streams either as websites or apps, as well as sites dedicated to any number of topics which you may find interesting to read in the target language. There are also websites and apps produced specifically for language learners.

We classify language learning resources as follows:

those that are primarily designed as language learning tools
those that are primarily designed for native speakers
dictionaries and translators.

2.1 Resources: language-learning tools

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Watch the following video in which the first of these different categories of resources are discussed.

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Transcript

FERNANDO

There are many resources available that have been designed primarily as a language-learning materials. These can be divided into those that offer full language-learning solutions and those that focus on one skill in particular. Full language-learning packages include self-study courses that come with books, audio, and video materials. They offer a variety of grammar explanations, texts, and media with exercises.

Similar online propositions also exist in several formats, such as podcasts, websites, and apps, including well-known providers such as Duolingo or Busuu, to name but two. Some of these also offer opportunities for interaction with other students and native speakers, as well as support from communities of learners. Many of these offer some content for free, but require a subscription to access full content.

The second main group of resources designed for language learning are those that offer activities to develop different areas of language, such as grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Again, many are available in traditional format, but there are also podcasts, websites, and apps available for these purposes.

Breaking it down into different areas, we find grammar resources that provide grammar drills, often providing lots of repeated practise. These can be very useful to practise verb forms, for example. For vocabulary, there are some software packages that provide flashcards that can help you revise words that you want to learn. These range from basic designs that provide a word on one side and its translation on the other to more advanced designs that offer images and sound. Some of these also allow you to create your own cards.

To practise reading, there are graded readers and stories written in simplified language, and they also often provide a glossary to help you understand. To support your writing, there are resources to help with spelling and also writing characters in languages that use different types of script, for instance. Then there are resources that help develop your writing skills, and some online services provide peer support from native speakers who can correct your writing.

You will also find resources that focus on listening, including using audio with transcripts and vice versa, texts with a read-along audio track, and pronunciation guides with exercises to improve your pronunciation. There are websites and apps that focus on providing opportunities to speak and interact with teachers, native speakers, or fellow language learners, such as italki, HelloTalk, and Tandem. They match language learners with partners or tutors for text, voice, and video interaction, either in real time or asynchronously.

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Have you tried these types of resource before? Full learning packages are particularly useful to learners who are at beginner and intermediate levels, as they offer ways to practise the language in fairly controlled environments, usually presented by clearly stated levels of difficulty. It’s a good idea for the complete beginner to start with a book (with audio) that will offer such approach. The resources available for separate skills can vary in terms of quality and support they offer, but all of them can provide ways of practising your target language. You may want to browse your local library and bookshops or do online searches to find relevant materials for you.

2.2 Resources: designed for native speakers

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Watch this next video about resources not primarily designed for language learning.

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FERNANDO:As well as resources designed for language learners, there are many materials available that have been designed primarily for native speakers of the language but can be very useful to language learners. Learners at beginner level can try these types of resource and find them useful, although they're usually beyond the scope of the language they know at beginner stage. These types of resource are usually better suited for intermediate and more proficient learners, who may find it's a way of practicing the language they know and expand it outside or after formal tuition.

Texts in the target language are relatively easy to find for most languages. These include newspapers, blogs, and content on just about any subject in the shape of magazines, books, comic books, e-books, or websites. Similarly, there is a wealth of audiovisual material available to language learners. Music, television programmes, and films can be obtained from shops and libraries or streamed and rented from a variety of distributors.

Watching a film in your target language with subtitles in your own language will help you to get used to the sounds of the language without compromising your understanding. They're also an excellent way to learn about the culture and habits of the target language areas they're set in. You may wish to watch them again with subtitles in the target language, as you already know the plot and can focus more on the language. The subtitles often help you to hear better, as you can read the words as the dialogue is being spoken.

Radio and music are a way of enjoying the sounds of the language. You can have them on and just let the sounds wash over you without focusing on understanding what is being said. There are many podcasts available in different languages from radio and TV stations, as well as organisations and individuals, which you can download and listen to as a focused activity, or simply as you commute, exercise, or carry out chores. You can also find a large amount of material on video and streaming services such as YouTube or Vimeo.

You can also practise your writing by commenting or leaving reviews on those sites that offer that possibility. Whether you comment on a picture on Instagram or Flickr using a word or two, leave a review of a book or film on an online store, or add your thoughts to the comments section of an online newspaper article, your views will be of interest to many, as they will provide a different perspective to those left by native speakers.

A way of practicing your speaking skills is to produce your own content for sites such as YouTube or podcast aggregators. Although this may seem scary at first, the more advanced language learners will find this a way of interacting with target-language speakers. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter will allow you to produce short texts or media and interact with people all over the world.

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A very useful aspect of these types of resources is that they can cater to all tastes and help you personalise your learning. Looking for equivalents in your target language of the type of material you like to read, watch or listen to in your own language will mean that you can expand your vocabulary and knowledge of your favourite subjects and improve your language in those areas at the same time. Whether you like current affairs, comic-books, style magazines, history, cinema: all these and many more are catered for.

Check nearby or online bookshops for materials available. If you are a member of a steaming or rental film provider, check whether they carry films and TV programmes in the language you are learning.

Box _unit4.3.1 Laura says:

I like to watch programmes with subtitles in the target language, or turn them off completely, depending on how I feel. I also sometimes change the audio to watch English-language shows with Spanish dubbing.

2.3 Resources: dictionaries and translators

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Now watch this video about resources for language learning: dictionaries and translators.

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FERNANDO

We classify dictionaries and translators separately from other resources, as they are designed for both language learners and people who may not speak the language or be interested in learning it at all and just want to look up a word. Every language learner should have access to a good bilingual dictionary regardless of their language level, either in print or online, such as words reference or reversal. More advanced learners should aim to use both bilingual and monolingual dictionary like those that native speakers use, which provide definitions of words in the target language rather than translations into their own language. As well as the obvious use of looking of the meaning of words, your dictionary can help in a number of other ways.

Entries in dictionaries provide information about the category of word that you're looking up, whether it's a verb, noun, adjective, adverb. This can be very useful when trying to understand the meaning. Most dictionaries also provide synonyms, which can help you make your writing more varied. They also include the phonetic representation of the word, which will help you pronounce it.

Good dictionaries also provide examples of the words used in context. Online dictionaries sometimes have links to audio files with the pronunciation too. And dictionary apps and those that can be installed in e-book readers can sync with texts so that you can click on a word in the text you are reading to find its meaning.

Online translators are another type of tool available to language learners. These offer machine translations with the option of entering text or speaking. And it will produce a translation, sometimes also with its pronunciation. The best known and most used online translator is Google translate. You can look up single words and online translators will offer a good result. Although you should be aware of the different meanings that the same word can have. Although opposition to the use of translation software has been raised by some language teachers. Realistically, these pieces of software remain the first place where many language learners turn to when composing texts in the target language.

The machine translation algorithms have improved vastly in recent years. But translations can be erroneous, especially when sentences are looked up without context. Some language combinations work better than others, as these tools tend to rely on available texts and translations of sources. So for example, whereas the English, French or Spanish, English combination tends to provide very good results, other combinations such as Hungarian, English may produce results that are not as accurate.

When using online translators, try to use simple sentences and avoid colloquial expressions. Never take the translation offered as the correct translation. And always evaluate the text provided for possible errors. A way of checking the translation is to use the translator to translate the translation provided back to the original language.

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Box _unit4.3.2 Laura says:

When I started learning Spanish, I was not sure how to choose the right dictionary. Some are marketed for beginners, and I started off with one of those when I first started learning Spanish, and then spent a little more money later on, and bought myself a more comprehensive dictionary.

Activity _unit4.3.1 Activity 1 Trying out online translators

Allow about 20 minutes

Go to an online newspaper or news organisation in your target language and copy a paragraph of text from a news item. Then go to an online translator, such as Google Translate, and paste the text onto the translation box to provide a translation into your main language. Look at the results. Does the text make sense?

Discussion

It is probably good enough to enable you to understand what the text is about, but it is probably not 100 per cent grammatically correct. Most likely there will be some sentences that convey the meaning effectively, but may sound slightly odd, as if someone who isn’t familiar with the language style wrote them. So if you use an online translator to translate a text you have written in your main language into your target language, don’t expect it to be totally correct either.

Box _unit4.3.3 Laura says:

I think that when you start learning a language, it’s easy to fall into the trap of using online translators without realising that the translation often contains mistakes, so this is a useful exercise to show why you must be careful.

3 Are language-learning resources free?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Many of the online resources primarily designed for native speakers are offered for free, including radio programmes, news channels and many newspapers. Physical resources (books, DVDs and so on) are mostly not free, and users need to pay to purchase or rent them. Similarly, many providers of language learning materials offer an amount of free materials. Some offer everything for free and others just a sample before users are asked for a payment or subscription. Some people think that all online resources should be free, and many download or access copyrighted material illegally. We encourage you not to do this. The authors and developers of these materials have worked hard to produce them, and it may be their only source of income.

4 Choosing and evaluating language-learning resources

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Finding resources is only the first step. You may be overwhelmed by the amount of resources you find, and your time to spend using these may be limited. It’s very important that you choose the activities that offer the best solutions for your own individual needs as a language learner. But how do you decide which resource works best for you? Since many of the resources offer at least some content for free, you can try out what works and what doesn’t. Let’s look at a framework that can help you evaluate the resources you find.

The framework is divided into four primary categories: language learning, pedagogy, user experience, and technology, each with a number of criteria. The evaluation framework is presented as a list of questions to help you decide whether a resource meets your learning needs. Watch the video below to find out more.

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FERNANDO

Here are the main four criteria for evaluating language learning resources-- language learning, pedagogy, user experience, and technology. To decide if a resource is what you need in terms of language learning, you should ask yourself the following questions as applicable to the resource you are evaluating.

Reading-- does the resource provide text in the target language? Listening-- does it provide audio in the target language? Writing-- does it offer opportunities to write in the target language? Speaking-- does it offer opportunities to speak in the target language? Vocabulary-- does it offer specific activities for vocabulary acquisition?

Grammar-- does the resource offer specific activities for grammar practise? Pronunciation and intonation-- does the resource offer specific activities for pronunciation and intonation? Cultural information-- does it include information about customs and traditions in the areas where the language is spoken? Use of visual content-- are images and videos stereotypical or stock images? Do they represent the diversity of the areas where the language is spoken? Language varieties-- does it include different regional or national varieties of the language?

In terms of pedagogy-- or teaching, more generally-- here are some things to consider when you are evaluating a resource. Description-- does the description match what the resource actually does? Teaching-- does it present, explain, or model language, or does it just test it? Progress-- does the resource allow the user to track progress or see previous attempts? Scaffolding-- do activities progress in difficulty in a way that supports the learner?

Feedback-- does the resource provide feedback? Is it just right or wrong, or actual meaningful explanations? Quality of content-- does the content have any errors or omissions? Use of media-- does it make use of sound, images, and video in a meaningful way? Differentiation-- does the resource offer different levels depending on ability? Can these be accessed directly? Engagement-- does it keep the user interested, or are activities repetitive?

With regards to the user experience, it will be useful to consider the following points. Interaction-- does the resource allow users to interact with each other? Interactivity-- is engagement with the resource content active or passive? Sharing-- does it allow or encourage sharing content? Badging-- does it provides recognition that can be shared on social media?

Price-- does the user need to pay to download the resource? Is there a trial version? Registration-- does the resource require the user to register? Advertising-- does it include pop up ads? Are these distracting?

If the resource you're evaluating is a digital tool, you should consider the following technology issues, like interface. Is the interface clear and uncluttered? Navigation-- is the resource intuitive to navigate, with clear menus and options? Instructions-- does it offer instructions on how to use it? Stability-- does it freeze or crash? Gamification-- does it have game-like features to increase engagement or a reward system? Support-- does the resource have a help section? Offline work-- does it require an internet connection to work?

There is some overlap between the criteria, and some of them apply to more than one of the four main categories. For example, feedback could apply to pedagogy-- how it relates to teaching-- to technology in terms of how it's presented, language learning-- the quality of the feedback-- and the user experience-- how well the feedback fits with the learning process, where it appears, and how it can be accessed.

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How many of the criteria does a resource need to meet to be considered apt for language learning?

Well, there isn’t really a minimum set of criteria that must be met, and as a learner you may find a resource useful or not depending on your purpose, your learning preferences, your location, your personal circumstances, and other factors. In addition, some criteria will only apply to a resource depending on what it is supposed to do. For example, there would be no point in evaluating a vocabulary resource negatively for not offering grammar practice, as that is not the point of the resource. We would, however, expect resources that claim to offer a full language learning experience, to receive a positive evaluation for a higher number of the criteria.

5 Evaluation activity

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

In the following activity you will evaluate an app used for language learning.

Activity _unit4.6.1 Activity 2 Evaluating a resource

Allow about an hour

If you have a smartphone or tablet, download a free app that offers language-learning courses, such as Duolingo or busuu from your app store (or check for something else you like the look of under the Education > Learn a new language category in your app store). Spend 20–30 minutes trying out the different features it provides and then consider the questions below. If you do not have access to a smartphone or tablet or would rather evaluate another resource, perhaps one that you use regularly or a free resource you’ve found online, then do so.

Score a mark from 0 to 5 for each question, or N/A if the criterion is not applicable to your resource

Table _unit4.6.1

Language learning:	Score (0 to 5 or N/A)
Name of the app	1
Reading: does the resource provide texts in the target language?	2
Listening: does the resource provide audio in the target language?	3
Writing: does the resource offer opportunities to write in the target language?	4
Speaking: does the resource offer opportunities to speak in the target language?	5
Vocabulary: does the resource offer specific activities for vocabulary acquisition?	6
Grammar: does the resource offer specific activities for grammar practice?	7
Pronunciation and intonation: does the resource offer specific activities for pronunciation and intonation?	8
Cultural information: does the resource include information about customs and traditions in the areas where the language is spoken?	9
Use of visual content: are images and videos stereotypical or stock images? Do they represent the diversity of the areas where the language is spoken?	10
Language varieties: does the resource include different regional or national varieties of the language?	11
Pedagogy:
Description: does the resource description match what the resource does?	12
Teaching: does the resource present, explain or model language or does it just test it?	13
Progress: does the resource allow the user to track progress or see previous attempts?	14
Scaffolding: do activities in the resource progress in difficulty in a way that supports the learner?	15
Feedback: does the resource provide feedback? Is it just right/wrong or meaningful explanations?	16
Quality of content: does the content have any errors/omissions?	17
Use of media: does the resource make use of sound, images and video in a meaningful way?	18
Differentiation: does the resource offer different levels depending on ability? Can these be accessed directly?	19
Engagement: does the resource keep the user interested or are activities repetitive?	20
User experience:
Interaction: does the resource allow users to interact with each other?	21
Interactivity: is engagement with the resource content active or passive?	22
Sharing: does the resource allow or encourage sharing content?	23
Badging: does the resource provide recognition that can be shared on social media?	24
Price: does the user need to pay to download the resource? Is there a trial version?	25
Registration: does the resource require the user to register?	26
Advertising: does the resource include pop-up ads? Are these distracting?	27
Technology issues:
Interface: is the interface clear and uncluttered?	28
Navigation: is the resource intuitive to navigate, with clear menus and options?	29
Instructions: does the resource offer instructions on how to use it?	30
Stability: does the resource freeze or crash?	31
Gamification: does the resource have game-like features to increase engagement?	32
Support: does the resource have a help section?	33
Offline work: does the resource require an internet connection to work?	34

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How did the resource score? Did going through the questions help you to think about what the resource offers and lacks? Spend 5 to 10 minutes writing a short reflection about how engaging with the questions may be useful or not when you next consider a resource.

Box _unit4.6.1 Laura says:

One of the things I think is important when I choose an app is what criteria are the most important for me at the time, so which ones I will prioritise above others. For instance, the gamification aspect is fun, but the stability of the app is much more important.

6 Too many resources?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

With so many resources to choose from, it can be hard to choose which ones to prioritise. It’s usually rewarding to focus on activities that you find easy, say for example using flashcards to test yourself on vocabulary. Getting them right and decreasing the number of items that you fail to remember feels like a worthwhile activity. But such activity can distract you from focusing on other activities that may be harder and less rewarding, but fill a bigger gap in your language learning needs. A good way to approach the selection of resources is therefore to think first about what you need more practice on: reading? Writing? Listening? Speaking? Pronunciation? Vocabulary revision? Memorising verb forms? Having a clear outcome of what you want to achieve will help you select resources that focus on what you need. Your time is limited and you need to use it wisely, so adjusting your SMART goals regularly is a useful task that will keep you focussed. And as Olly said in Week 2, learning a language means working hard, staying disciplined, and being in control of yourself and your environment.

7 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

You can now take the weekly quiz to test your understanding.

Week 3 practice quiz

Open the quiz in a new tab or window (by holding ctrl [or cmd on a Mac] when you click the link) and come back here when you are done.

8 Summary of Week 3

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Now that you have a framework to evaluate resources, we will turn to looking at the different language skills.

You should now be able to:

find resources for learning languages
understand the different sorts of resources that you can use
choose and evaluate resources for language learning.

Next week, Tita will guide you through ways to improve your speaking

You can now go to Week 4.

Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This week of the course is written by Tita Beaven.

So far in this course you have looked at motivation, at what it means to learn a language, and at how to evaluate resources for language learning. From now on, roll up your sleeves and prepare to get up close and personal with speaking, listening, learning vocabulary and reading and writing in your chosen language.

By the end of this week, you should be able to:

understand what is involved in speaking
understand ways to practise speaking on your own and with others
understand different activities that you can do to practise your speaking skills.

1 Speaking is not a discreet skill

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

The main reason why people learn a language is usually because they want to speak it. Speaking is probably the ultimate goal for most language learners. One important thing to highlight right at the start of this week is that speaking is not a discreet skill, but one that is inextricably linked to other aspects of language learning, most notably listening, vocabulary and grammar, and to automaticity.

After all, in order to speak, you need to know words and be able to put them together to make coherent sentences, and you need to do this fairly fast, so you need to access the right vocabulary and grammatical forms without thinking too much about it. Moreover, you need to be able to understand what your interlocutor is saying, hence the importance of listening skills when developing your speaking. You might spend some time thinking about how you are going to ask for directions to a museum or thinking about how to ask a new local friend to tell you about life in their country, but if you can’t understand the answer, you will not be very successful in your communicative exchange.

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Figure _unit5.2.1 Figure 1 Asking for directions

Long description

This week you are going to think about what is involved in speaking, and then look at practical ways to develop your speaking skills.

2 So, what is involved in speaking?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

There are lots of ways of thinking about this. On the one hand, speaking is about conveying information (and I mean information in the broadest sense of the word, whether this is factual, about your feelings and emotions, or anything else). In order to convey information, you need to speak accurately (using the right words and stringing them along in grammatically correct sentences), and fluently (if you are too hesitant, or too slow, your audience will find it hard to follow you, or might lose patience and disconnect). Your pronunciation will also need to be good enough not to make understanding you too taxing for your interlocutor. And you will also have to think about your intonation (in some languages, for instance, it is through intonation rather than word order or specific structures that you know if someone is making a statement or asking a question).

On the other hand, it is very unusual that you will be ‘just’ speaking (unless you happen to be giving a lecture or recording a podcast on your own) – most often, you will be speaking with someone, so engaging in interaction with that person: in that sense, speaking is very dependent on listening and understanding, which is why it very often causes a lot of anxiety in learners.

Watch the following video where some language learners talk about their anxiety when speaking in a foreign language.

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LEARNER 1

When I have to speak French, I am mostly nervous because the people I practise with or speak to regularly are native French speakers or always appear to have much more of an understanding of language than I do, even if they're studying beginners level the same as me. They just seem to be so much more confident or competent than I do. So nerves is the main factor that I have to overcome.

LEARNER 2

I found the bit where you have to actually talk just incredibly difficult. I would learn the content and learn the words and have an idea of what you needed to say, but then actually faced with a human being where I needed to produce the stuff, I was just so inhibited about saying anything because it wasn't going to be right and I wasn't sure. Did this agree with that, or was this the right tense of the verb? And so, I would just say nothing, complete silence, which most people know is not very characteristic of me.

LEARNER 3

When I'm speaking French to native speakers or other students who I feel have got a much better grasp of French than I have, I feel very self-conscious. I'm always afraid that I'm going to make myself silly or make loads of mistakes when actually I know that the best way to learn is to actually practise. So it just takes the extra courage to do so.

LEARNER 4

Well, the way I feel about speaking Spanish is I tend to get very nervous, probably because unlike with writing, you have to react quite quickly. And so I worry about being correct. I worry about the grammar. I worry about my pronunciation. And I worry about whether I've understood the person who's talking to me.

LEARNER 5

I find Japanese conversation the most difficult part of studying the language because I get a mental block about the words. I know what I want to say, but I can't get them out in the right order.

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Now watch the next video, where some learners talk about how they practise their speaking skills.

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LEARNER 1

Nowadays, I practise my speaking Spanish with a friend on Skype. And I find that is more real than a formal or academic situation. So we talk about our lives. It's much more personal, and there's much more context for using the language.

LEARNER 2

I'm fortunate that I have some native Japanese speakers who are my friends, and I'm able to practise my listening and speaking skills with them. They are helpful because they're trying to learn English, and so we can share experiences with each other. A lot of the language involves idioms and understanding each other's idioms is quite important in the sort of conversation.

LEARNER 3

To practise my speaking, we've just started, well, recently started a conversation group with a couple of Japanese women who come, and we meet in each other's houses. They speak in English, and we try and speak in Japanese. And then we quite often keep a diary all of us, and we look at what each other have written. And that's very useful because we'll read it to each other, and we'll listen and hear the intonation, which is really good. And they find it useful picking up idiomatic phrases from us.

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Speaking is, in some ways, similar to writing – in both cases you need to produce meaningful content using the right words and the right grammar. But whereas when writing you often have time to think about what you are going to say and how you are going to say it and can check a word up in the dictionary, for instance, when speaking you just have to produce your language ‘on the fly’. And whereas in writing you can often go back and check what you’ve written, and correct any mistakes, once you have uttered your words in speaking, you can’t really ‘un-say’ them.

Most spoken language is unplanned, spontaneous, takes place face-to-face, and is informal conversation. But although that might be your ultimate goal when starting to learn a language, it is very difficult to achieve, and requires literally hundreds of hours of practice.

Activity _unit5.3.1 Activity 1 Speaking recall quiz

Allow about 5 minutes

Match the definitions of the following words used in this section.

Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it

3 How to practise on your own

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Some people advocate that you start speaking from day one, and if you like the idea, the next section will show you how you can do that, but I personally find that a little overwhelming. If, like me, you are a bit of an introvert, you might want to start practising speaking to yourself.

Although it might seem like a funny idea, speaking to yourself out loud gives you plenty of opportunity to get your tongue around all those new sounds of the language you are learning, and to try out bits of conversations such as common or set phrases until you feel you can say them without thinking too much about them.

It is also very useful to record yourself speaking (or even reading), and to listen to yourself again, so you can start evaluating whether you are pronouncing sounds correctly. If you have access to any audio with transcripts, it is a great idea to read along at the same time as the audio, a process known as shadow-reading, and even recording yourself as you do that, so you can also work on your fluency and intonation. Recording yourself every day reading a short passage or simply talking about your day is a really good way to get regular practice and to monitor your progress. You might want to choose a time to do this when others will not disturb you, as at first you will probably feel rather self-conscious.

However, you also need to realise that if your aim is to talk to others in your foreign language, sooner or later you are going to have to talk to others. In the next section, I will show you one of the most effective and enjoyable ways of doing that.

4 Find a language exchange partner

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Figure _unit5.5.1 Figure 2 Speaking a language.

Long description

One great way to get speaking practice from the start is to get a language exchange partner.

A language exchange partner is basically someone who speaks the language you are learning, and who wants to learn the language you speak. In a typical language exchange session, which might last an hour, for instance, you might spend the first half hour speaking in the language you are learning, and the next 30 minutes speaking in the language you partner is learning. Language exchanges have two great benefits: one is that both partners have a stake in making the exchange work, and the other one is that they are free.

If you live in a large city, you might be able to do a language exchange face-to-face. Check online for ‘conversation exchange in …’ and the name of your city. You can also check out Meetup to see if there are any conversation groups meeting nearby. Conversation groups are informal get-togethers of language enthusiasts who meet up to practise a language. You might find something like a French and English conversation group, which attracts both learners of French, and French native speakers who want to practise their English. You might find that the group is too advanced or you might feel a bit intimidated if you are a beginner, but it is worth a try, as you will meet a group of learners who share your interest.

I live in a small town myself, so for me a much better alternative is to do language exchanges online. There are a number of platforms where you can find online conversation partners, and typing ‘language exchange platform’ on a search engine should bring up several possibilities. Notice that some platforms, such as italki.com, also offer lessons with teachers, so if you want to do a free exchange rather than a paid-for class, make sure you look for the ‘partners’ section of the website.

Activity _unit5.5.1 Activity 2 Find a language exchange partner or conversation group

Allow about 30 minutes

Go online and look for a language exchange platform or a meetup in your town. If you find one you like, sign up now.

Once you’ve found a platform you like and you’ve signed up for it, make sure you complete your profile with a bit of information about yourself, so that potential language exchange partners know what you are looking for. Adding a photo of yourself also helps. Similarly, look for partners that you think you might get on with – check out their hobbies or interests, as if you have something in common you are more likely to get on and be able to chat about things that interest both of you.

A good strategy if you are a beginner is to find a speaking partner who has a higher level in the language they want to practice with you. For instance, I practise my very basic German with a partner who speaks fairly good English. That way, for half of the session, we can have interesting, grown-up conversations and we have, over several months, become good friends. Because we can have interesting, fun, meaningful conversations in one of the languages, English, and we have formed a good relationship through English, we can both sit still for the much more basic and stilted conversations we have in German. If we were both beginners in our respective languages, I am fairly sure the exchange would by now have fizzled out.

Once you have found a language exchange partner, arrange a time to meet online, using a service that enables you to do free calls, such as Skype. It is worth exchanging a couple of messages with your partner before you meet for your first exchange, and make sure you both agree how the session is going to work. It is also useful to agree the number of sessions you want to start with – say half a dozen – and at the end of that period, review if you want to carry on for another set period.

Box _unit5.5.1 Laura says:

My first experience with an online exchange partner did not go very well. We only exchanged a brief note about what time to meet and our Skype usernames. When we started, it was immediately apparent that my partner only wanted to speak English, and was not too interested in helping me learn Spanish. It did take me a few attempts to find ‘the right fit’, but exchanging a few e-mails beforehand and outlining what exactly we both wanted to get out of each session meant that my online language sessions became something I actually looked forward to each week. I would also recommend setting a time limit of 20–30 minutes each, so that the whole session isn’t taken up with one language.

5 Learning speaking directly or indirectly?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

One approach to learning a skill is to learn the skill itself. If you want to learn to speak with proficient or native speakers in a foreign language, go ahead and speak with them. The idea is that if you do that from the start you will get better at it.

Another approach, the deliberate-practice method, is to learn a skill such as speaking more indirectly. Even if your final goal is still to learn to speak with a proficient or native speaker, you can break that skill into its constituent parts, and learn those bit by bit.

In order to learn to speak spontaneously, like a fluent speaker, you don’t have to start by speaking spontaneously, and be like a fluent speaker. You can develop your fluency and your accuracy by practising different, smaller tasks that develop specific skills. So, rather than trying to launch into a conversation about any topic on day one, when you might not actually have the vocabulary or structures available to do so, you can start by practising the vocabulary, or the grammar point. It is a bit like learning to drive by either launching straight into driving on a road, or starting with practising individual components, such as how to change gear, how to do a turn in the road and how to do a hill start before putting it all together.

So for instance, if you wanted to be able to have a conversation about what you did in your last holiday, the ‘deliberate-practice’ method might involve starting by looking up some vocabulary to talk about your holiday and checking the pronunciation of any words you are not sure about with your language exchange partner in one session. Then, before the next session, you could prepare several sentences about your last holiday in order to practice that vocabulary and how to talk about the past, and you could go over those sentences with your language exchange partner, who can correct any mistakes and help you pronounce the sentences confidently. Then, before the third session, you might want to prepare some questions to find out about a recent holiday (Where did you go? How long did you go for? etc.), and see if you can answer your own questions. You could then get your language partner to ask you the questions you’ve prepared, so that you do a sort of prompted dialogue. Then you could then also ask your partner the questions you’ve prepared and listen to their answers, checking that you understand and making a note of any new vocabulary or structures. After you’ve done all these separate bits of practice, in a following language exchange session you might actually be already to have a simple, ‘spontaneous’ conversation with your language exchange partner about your last holiday and also ask them about theirs. As you’ll learn in Week 6, when we look at vocabulary in more detail, you will also find that going over the same vocabulary and structures in several language exchange sessions will help you to get that vocabulary and those structures into your long-term memory.

To recap, in the first method, the task you do is the same as your final aim – you launch straight into having a conversation. In the second method, the tasks you do are different from your final aim of having a conversation, but you can think of them as the steps that eventually enable you to get there. In taking those smaller steps, you are getting the practice needed to develop your overall speaking skills, but it is much less daunting and overwhelming.

You are probably familiar with the expression ‘practice makes perfect’. Well, research has shown that that is not totally accurate. Practice just makes permanent. In order for your performance to be perfect, you need to actually engage in deliberate, specific and focused practice. If you play a musical instrument or if you play sports, you probably understand what this means well. As a novice piano player, for instance, you can stumble through a piece and make mistakes as you go. Every time you play the piece from beginning to end, you probably make the same mistakes and stumble on the same tricky sections. As my piano teacher used to say, playing something ten times making the same mistake every time is not going to make you play it any better (and it didn’t…). What is going to help is to identify the sections that you find tricky and to concentrate on each one of those sections, practising each one separately until you get them right, and only then putting the whole thing back together again in the performance of the whole piece. When you are practising speaking, it is also useful to focus on specific aspects one at a time, and to get feedback on each of those aspects, so you can improve them. It is useful to do tasks (like the one about holidays discussed earlier) over and over again, focusing on different aspects every time. By doing that, you are in fact ‘overlearning’, or continuing to practice something after you get quite good at it, so that it becomes consolidated into your long-term memory.

6 Take control

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

One of the worries when you do a conversation exchange and you are a beginner is that you might run out of things to say, that you might not know the words to say what you want to, or that you might not understand what your partner is saying or, even worse, what they are asking you. However, these are all things you can control by taking control of the session.

For instance, you can prepare a set of questions on a specific topic, and also prepare your answers to those questions in your target language. During the language exchange, you can ask your partner to ask you the questions you have prepared or, even better, you can take it in turns to ask and answer questions. Here’s an example you can use for your very first language exchange, and you can find more in the link below.

Figure _unit5.7.1 Figure 3 Language exchange basics.

Long description

For a whole set of suggested questions to get you through your first ten language exchange sessions, have a look at Language Exchange Basics (launching soon).

One useful technique to deal with language exchanges if you are a beginner is to let your partner ask you one of the questions you have already prepared before the exchange, answer them, and then ask them ‘and you?’

So for instance, if your partner asks where you live, you can answer something simple, like ‘I live in Brighton, and you?’ That way, you will know the sort of thing your partner is going to answer, and it will give you some useful listening practice to find out how a native would answer the same question.

7 Ideas for beginners

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

I have talked to dozens of exchange participants as part of my research, and I know that people use conversation partners for all sorts of language practice. These are some of the things you can do with a partner if you are staring to learn a language, so at levels A1 and A2.

Using photos

A useful technique to make your language exchange sessions fun and relevant is to use photos. You can, for instance, share some photos of your town, the last place you went to on holiday or your family and friends. Because they are photos of places and people that are part of your life, you will inevitably be talking about things you know (and care) about, so the conversation (and the vocabulary you will need for it) will feel more relevant. It will also help to create a connection with your language exchange partner.

If you don’t want to share photos of places and people that are too personal, you can use photos that are less so. For instance, in my last language exchange session, I was talking to my partner about a planned weekend away in Vienna, and I was sharing with her some photos I had found online of various tourist attractions, coffee houses and even a transport map, which enabled us to practise a lot of the language I would need in my forthcoming trip.

Playing games

There are lots of language games you can play, even as a beginner, and some of these are great in language exchange settings. Guessing games work well: for instance, if you are learning to describe houses, talk about the different rooms in your home and the furniture in each room, you can play a version of ’20 questions’ where you think of an item of furniture and your partner has to try to guess what it is by asking you questions to which you can only answer yes or no. You can take it in turns to play, and as the structures and vocabulary are quite predictable, it is something you can prepare for effectively before the lesson.

You can also play guessing games by finding a selection of photos. For instance you can look for images of specific things in your search engine and take a screenshot to share with your partner and play 20 questions. Here for instance is a screenshot of images related to ‘people at work’ – so you could ask your partner to select one image without telling you which one, and try to guess which has been chosen by asking yes/no questions such as: Are there lots of people in the picture? Are there any women? Is anyone wearing a helmet? Is anyone standing up?

Figure _unit5.8.1 Figure 4 An example search for images of people at work.

Long description

You can use this technique to practise all sorts of vocabulary.

Writing and reading

In your language exchange, you can go through a piece of writing you have done in advance of the session, and read it to your partner. Ask them for help with making it sound more idiomatic, or to correct any mistakes. Also ask them for help with any words you are not sure how to pronounce. You can also ask them to read the text for you, and record it, so you can listen to it after the session - but remember to always ask for permission to record first.

If you are reading simple stories or articles as part of your language-learning ‘diet’ (see Week 6), you might want to write a summary and then read it to your partner, again asking for corrections with the writing and the pronunciation.

You might think that reading out aloud what you have read is not speaking, and you would be right, of course, but remember that you are practising the sub-skills of using the right vocabulary, correct, idiomatic expressions and refining your pronunciation and intonation, all of which are useful in preparing to speak naturally and spontaneously. You are also building up your confidence, which is essential.

8 Top tips

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Here are my top tips to make language exchanges work:

Find a language exchange partner. Don’t procrastinate – go online now and sign up to a language exchange. Make it your goal to find three potential conversation partners and set up three language exchange sessions with them this week. I know it’s scary, but trust me: do it, and you will never look back.
Look for a language exchange partner with whom you have something in common (hobbies, work, interests).
Try to find a time slot that works for both of you (e.g. Tuesday evenings at 7.30) and stick to it, meeting every week.
Split the time of the exchange equally and stick to it. If your partner is quite fluent in English and you are a beginner in their language, it is easy to spend more time in English than in the language you want to practise. I find that starting with one language one week, and the other language the following week helps to keep things even. Also, set a timer to 30 minutes, so you know when it’s time to swap languages.
Be prepared. If you are a beginner, it is especially important that you prepare for your language exchange, otherwise you might find that you dry up or run out of things to say. And remember, the onus is on you to decide how best to use your 30 minutes. My research has shown that beginners who don’t prepare for their exchanges soon become demotivated.
Although it is tempting to stick to the same tried and tested activities, do try out new things, and make them fun.
If your partner speaks English at an intermediate level or above, and you are not sure what to talk about, ask them to find interesting things to talk about in the English part of the session. One of my conversation partners often sends me a short article or a TED video in English, which I watch before the session, and it means we always have lots of interesting things to discuss in the English part of the session.
Finally, it is a good idea to start off by setting yourself the task to try 2 or 3 partners in your first week. One of them at least is bound to be just what you need or you might be lucky and find several languages exchange partners you get on with.

Activity _unit5.9.1 Activity 3 Taking the next step on your language exchange platform

Allow about 30 minutes

If you are interested in trying out a language exchange and have signed up on one of the available platforms, go and update your profile now, providing some information about yourself. Then, look for three possible language exchange partners and get in touch with them, with the aim of meeting up in the next seven days.

9 What happens if it doesn’t work?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Sometimes, you might find that you have found a partner that is unreliable and doesn’t turn up at the arranged time, that they speak too fast even when you tell them to slow down, or that you simply have little in common or don’t get on. If that’s the case, the best thing to do is to stop the language exchange sessions, and to find yourself another partner.

Also, remember that most learners are nervous when they first start trying to speak the language that they are learning. I know I am, but I remind myself that every language learner has been in the same boat. Everyone has to start somewhere.

10 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Now it’s time to complete the Week 4 badge quiz. It is similar to previous quizzes, but this time, instead of answering 5 questions, there will be 15.

Week 4 compulsory badge quiz

Remember, this quiz counts towards your badge. If you’re not successful the first time, you can attempt the quiz again in 24 hours.

Open the quiz in a new tab or window (by holding ctrl [or cmd on a Mac] when you click the link) and come back here when you are done.

11 Summary of Week 4

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

You should now be able to:

understand what is involved in speaking
understand different ways to practise speaking on your own and with others
understand different activities that you can do to practise your speaking skills.

Next week, Olly will talk about listening which, as you’ve seen this week, is the other side of the coin.

You can now go to Week 5.

Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This week of the course is written by Olly Richards.

Last week, you looked at the first of the four language skills, speaking. When asked why they are learning a language, most people say ‘because I want to speak it’. Although speaking is an important skill, for me listening is the key skill, and this week I will show you why, and guide you through core study skills to develop your listening.

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

understand what is involved in listening
find out about the difference between intensive and extensive listening
understand the different types of authentic and graded audio, and look for audio resources for yourself.

1 In what situations are listening skills required?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Listening is regarded by many language learners to be key to developing competence in a language. Why is that?

Well, as you learned in Week 2, many people think about their language learning goals in these terms: ‘I want to speak fluently’. However, if you can’t understand what’s being said in any given situation, does it really matter how good your speaking is?

This week you’re going to explore the skill of listening and answer the following questions:

What does it mean to listen in a foreign language?
How much should you be able to understand?
What are the different kinds of listening?
What’s the best way to improve your listening skills?
How can you listen and understand when you’re still a beginner?

Activity _unit6.2.1 Activity 1 Reflecting on your native language listening

Allow about 30 minutes

Think about the last 24 hours in your life. Write down every time you had to listen in the language you use most often. Think of as many examples as you can (e.g. watching TV, conversation with a colleague, meeting, ordering lunch).

Look over your list. Now think back to those situations you wrote down, and imagine what would happen if you were unable to understand. How differently would you experience life?

Discussion

You might be surprised at not only how often you need to listen, but how important listening is to living your life.

2 What’s involved in successful listening?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

In the activity you’ve just done, you were probably only evaluating those times when you had to listen in one major way: understanding what you were listening to.

In other words, was the message received and understood?

But understanding the message is actually only the end result, or outcome, of the listening process. As a language learner, when you first start listening to your new language, you’re not going to understand very much. (We all start there, don’t worry.) This course is all about learning how to learn, so in order to gain control over improving your listening skills, you need to appreciate exactly what it is that you’re listening to, so you have a basis on which to work on it.

So, what are the component parts that make each language unique?

Table _unit6.3.1 Table 1 The components parts of a language

Phoneme	Each of the individual sounds in a language.
Tone	In some languages, such as Chinese, a particular pitch pattern on a syllable which changes the meaning of the word.
Intonation	The rise and fall of the speaker’s voice.
Word/sentence stress	Accentuating a certain syllable within a word/ certain words within a sentence.
Connected speech	The continuous stream of sounds with no clear-cut borderlines between words that characterises the spoken discourse.
Accent	A distinctive way of pronouncing a language, especially because of the speaker’s country or area of origin or social class.

Activity _unit6.3.1 Activity 2 Components that make a language unique

Allow about 15 minutes

Listen to this extract of a foreign language that’s very different from English. You probably won’t understand what’s being said, so instead, listen closely to the sound of the language – every sound and every detail. Imagine you are learning this language – what are all the characteristics of the language, and how does it differ from languages you speak?

Download this audio clip.Audio player: boc_lll_1_audio_week5_sec2_act2.mp3 >

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Which of the following elements of this language would you need to be able to hear in order to understand it?

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Some languages share many characteristics depending on their shared roots. For example, phonemes in English and German are similar. However, other languages are strikingly different. The language you heard in the previous example is Mandarin, a tonal language. In tonal languages, the exact same sound can mean different things depending if it’s pronounced with, for example, a high, medium, low, rising or falling tone. There are endless characteristics of language that we could talk about here, but the main lesson is that, in order to become a good listener, you need to be intimately familiar with the features of your target language.

Only once you know the parts can you understand the whole.

3 Setting expectations

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Figure _unit6.4.1 Figure 1 A listening exercise in a classroom

Long description

If you learned a language at school or have studied in a language school, you might remember what it’s like when the teacher plays a recording in class and you have to answer questions about what you hear.

For many people, this kind of classroom listening activity is the only experience of listening to a foreign language they’ve had. It might seem quite unforgiving. You’re used to being put on the spot, and either getting the answers right or wrong.

But, of course, real language doesn’t occur in the classroom. On the one hand, you rarely have the benefits of a silent classroom and the ability to play the recording multiple times. On the other hand, you’re rarely given a test immediately after listening.

This is good news because, as you’ll see, you already have plenty of training of listening in difficult conditions in your mother tongue.

Activity _unit6.4.1 Activity 3 Typical listening situations

Allow about 15 minutes

Listen to the following recording of a typical listening situation you might encounter in English.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: boc_lll_week5_act3_aud2.mp3 >

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Listen to the recording again. What makes it difficult?

Download this audio clip.Audio player: boc_lll_week5_act3_aud2.mp3 >

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In this situation, something is happening that makes it difficult for you to understand.

What percentage of total words do you think you were able to understand?

If you are a confident English speaker, did you notice that you were still able to follow along, despite not being able to hear or understand every word?

You see, even in your native language, listening conditions are often not ideal. But in spite of that difficulty you can still understand. You do this by focusing on key words or bits of information from the speaker and ignoring the rest.

Now think back to a time when you were speaking to someone in your target language or a listening test in school. How did it feel when you started to listen, but didn’t understand a word that was said?

Discussion

In fact, there are plenty of other things that can cause us confusion in our mother tongues too.

You’ve seen how you can follow a conversation perfectly well with only a few key words. But, for some reason, when the same thing happens in a foreign language, it sets alarm bells ringing. As we’ll see below, one strategy that helps in these situations is to know how to ask for clarification in your target language.

However, panicking over not understanding a word is actually illogical, given that you do this all the time in your mother tongue without a problem.

View larger image

Figure _unit6.4.2 Figure 2 Understanding French

Long description

You may have panicked – many people do. You may have worried so much about what that word meant that you forgot to listen to the rest of the recording. Alternatively, you might have just ‘tuned out’ and given up.

Activity _unit6.4.2 Activity 4 Conversations without context

Allow about 10 minutes

Imagine you overhear this conversation.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: boc_lll_1_audio_week_5_activity_4.mp3 >

Skip transcript

Transcript

Would something like this work:

Not, not really.

And this one?

Not sure

Maybe like this?

No, higher. Yeah. Let me. What do you reckon?

Yes, that works.

End transcript

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Now imagine a friend asked you what the conversation you overheard was about. What would you say?

You likely wouldn’t know what to say – it made no sense to you, even though you understood every word.

Discussion

Figure _unit6.4.3 Figure 3 Hanging a picture on a wall.

Long description

What was lacking first time round was context. Body language and facial expressions also play a large part in communication and helping you to understand.

Without context, words have far less (or no) meaning. People may be speaking in your mother tongue and you may understand every word, but you’re still left confused.

This might also happen if you:

overhear a conversation on a bus
you get mistaken for somebody else and asked a question that makes no sense to you
turn on the radio in the middle of a discussion.

The point here is that listening is not always straightforward. So many things, other than the words themselves, determine whether you actually understand what you hear or not.

As such, you must bear this in mind as you listen to your target language.

Can you understand the gist of what’s being said, even though you don’t know some of the words? A mindset shift might be all you need.
Are you fully aware of the context? Don’t be discouraged if you overhear a conversation in the street but don’t understand what’s going on.

Activity _unit6.4.3 Activity 5 Listening to technical explanations

Allow about 5 minutes

Listen to the following recording from an engineering course about the finite element method. How much of it do you understand?

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Transcript

Keith Martin

The engine itself forms a structural member. So it’s the front of the engine which bolts firmly to the tub using six threaded fasteners. No rubber anti-vibration mountings on racing cars. The engine, of course, is hugely stiff, almost a solid lump, in fact. Thus, we can say that the chassis tub connects to an infinitely stiff structure at six mounting points. We say that, under any load condition on the tub, the back end mountings are going nowhere. We assign them a boundary condition restraint of zero displacement in all three directions, x, y, and z. That’s restraining the tub. The load is applied at the front end as equal and opposite moment arms, a couple in other words, acting through the suspension pick up points. The suspension itself is assumed to be very stiff, no spring resilience for this bit of the exercise. So, the chassis tub experiences a pure torsion due to the applied couple.

End transcript

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In this case, you might have been able to understand the individual words, but, as they field is very specialised, you will also need to know about the subject in order to make sense about what the extract was about.

Of course, native speakers can usually survive in difficult listening situations because their knowledge of the overall language is so good. A major part of this is vocabulary. In our earlier example of picking out the keywords to help you understand, you still need to know the keywords themselves and what they mean!

When you start learning a new language, one of the most important things you have to do is to grow your vocabulary. The faster you learn new words and phrases, and the more you add to your repertoire, the more you will be able to understand in the language. Next week, Tita will show you some techniques for growing your vocabulary, but it’s important to highlight the link with listening skills at this stage.

The four skills, together with grammar and vocabulary acquisition, do not exist in isolation. You could spend a year practising advanced listening techniques, but if you don’t know the words you’re listening to, you’ll never understand.

4 Listening: the big picture

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

In this section you’re going to start talking about how to practise listening. When it comes to language learning pedagogy, you can consider there to be two main types of listening:

extensive listening
intensive listening.

It’s vital to understand the difference between these two types of listening, because it will affect the results you get.

Activity _unit6.5.1 Activity 6 Learning about listening

Allow about 5 minutes

Match the two types of listening to their definitions.

Which do you do in a classroom?

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Discussion

Read the explanation that follows to understand the difference between the two types of listening.

If you walk into any language classroom around the world, the majority of listening activities you’ll see being done by the teacher are intensive listening. Here’s how it works:

the teacher plays a recording
the students listen and answer questions on the detail
they then study to analyse the vocabulary and grammar in the text.

This kind of activity can be useful, but here’s the important thing: this kind of activity is designed to improve your language, not your listening.

Although the activity involves listening, the actual amount of time you’re spending listening is minimal. Much more time in the classroom is likely to be spent studying the language you heard through different vocabulary, grammar and comprehension activities later. In that sense, you’re not really practising listening, you’re simply studying language.

To improve your listening skills, you need to listen extensively. This means:

you don’t set out to understand everything
you don’t set out to learn every word
you don’t even necessarily analyse the language.

Your long-term aim needs to be to spend large amounts of time listening, because that’s the only way you can spend enough time with the language to improve your ability to understand.

Box _unit6.5.1 Laura says:

I like having a playlist of podcasts or radio shows that I listen to while driving or at the gym. Even if I don’t understand everything, I get the gist, and that is motivating.

Why do people who move abroad often learn the language far faster than if they stayed at home?

The most basic answer to that question is that they simply get huge amounts of exposure by living in the country. They spend hour after hour listening to native speakers talking, whether in-person, on the street, or on the TV.

As a language learner, you need to ask yourself how much time you are actually spending listening to the language. If the only listening you do is in the classroom, as in the example given above, the amount of time you spend listening maybe very small.

Activity _unit6.5.2 Activity 7 Reflecting on your listening time

Allow about 10 minutes

How much time do you spend every week listening to your target language? Write an estimate in the box below, and a list of listening activities you do.

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Discussion

What’s more, the skills of speaking and listening are not mutually exclusive. When you listen, you learn. The new vocabulary, grammar or expressions you learn then filter directly through to your speaking.

Listening, therefore, is one of the best ways to become a better speaker. For this reason, listening is often considered to be the ultimate skill, and this is why I suggest it is the skill you devote as much time to as any other.

As we noted at the start of this week, when you started learning your target language, your dream was probably to ‘speak fluently.’ However, learning to speak fluently, and being able to hold a conversation, is dependent on your listening skills.

As an independent learner, you’re in a position to say: ‘Okay, I understand how important listening is, so I’m going to spend __% of my study time listening.’

If you take lessons with a teacher, or attend language classes in a school, you will expect to be taught during that time. You would question the value for money of the class if you spent large amounts of lesson time simply listening to recordings. ‘We could just do this at home!’ Of course, most people won’t do it at home, and listening can easily be forgotten.

As an independent learner, this is the kind of question that can be a big factor in your success. It’s also an advantage to independent learning – you’re in control of your time.

5 What kind of material should you use?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

There are generally two kinds of material you can use for language learning or practice:

authentic listening materials
graded listening materials.

An authentic listening is something that has been created for a native-speaker audience.

A graded listening has been simplified for the benefit of learners of the language.

Activity _unit6.6.1 Activity 8 Authentic or graded?

Allow about 10 minutes

Listen to the following two excerpts. One is authentic, and one has been graded for intermediate level English learners. Which is which, and how is the language different between the two?

Download this audio clip.Audio player: boc_lll_1_audio_week5_sec3_act8.mp3 >

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Transcript

COMM 1

The first decade of the twenty-first century saw three worldwide crises that threatened the global economy. Financial markets collapsed, precipitating a massive recession; there were sudden spikes in food prices leading to widespread hunger and riots in developing countries; and the projected environmental impact of climate change left no room for doubt that urgent action was needed on carbon emissions.

ANDREW SIMMS

Each one of these independently is enough to cause a scale of upheaval the likes of which, to see some sort of comparison, we’d have to look back to the Great Depression of the 1930s. What we’re worried about is that the combination of all three happening simultaneously may represent a challenge to our social and economic systems which we have never seen before, and the consequences of which are extremely hard to predict, other than to say that they will be major, they will be destructive and they will threaten the operating systems upon which we depend – our environmental operating systems and our social operating systems.

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WOMAN

At the beginning of the twenty-first century there were three global crises that threatened the global economy. Financial markets collapsed, and there was a massive recession; food prices increased rapidly, and there were hunger and riots in developing countries; and the possible impact of climate change in the environment meant that urgent action was needed on carbon emissions.

MAN

Each one of these independently can cause a very big crisis like the Great Depression of the 1930s. We are worried that the combination of all three happening simultaneously can be a very big challenge to our social and economic systems. The consequences of this challenge are very difficult to predict, but they will be major, they will be destructive and they will threaten the operating systems we depend on – our environmental operating systems and our social operating systems.

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Arguments rage about whether authentic or graded material is best for language teaching, but for you, the important question is a different one: ‘How can I get the most out of the listening activity?’

It is every language learner’s dream to effortlessly understand films, or to hold in-depth conversations with like-minded people, all in their target language. However, the reality is that you won’t be able to understand this kind of authentic language at first. During the early stages of learning a language, you will be reliant on simple, graded material in your textbook. You can then progress to simple audio or video, produced for language learners, and then eventually, when you move beyond the intermediate level, you can begin to work with authentic language intended for native speakers. (It’s a big leap!) As you become more advanced in your learning, you should still regularly revisit and amend your SMART goals, so that you challenge yourself all the time.

Finding good material for listening practice (or reading, for that matter, as Fernando will explain in Week 7) is often a source of great difficulty for learners. ‘It’s either too easy or too hard!’ is a common complaint.

Given that the most beneficial activity, I would say, is to do as much extensive listening as possible – which involves listening to substantial material – the best way to see the challenge is as follows:

‘As a beginner, I will be getting my listening practice from textbooks and other beginners’ resources. However, I will then need to progress to authentic material, so that I can spend more time listening.’

6 Listening study skills

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Now that you’re familiar with the key concepts of intensive/extensive listening, and graded/authentic audio, you will be more aware of how you’re studying, and why different kinds of material or exercises may be harder or easier than others.

In this section, you’ll look at practical recommendations for improving your listening skills.

Activity _unit6.7.1 Activity 9 Listening quiz

Allow about 5 minutes

As a beginner, I should be using:

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In the classroom, most listening activities are:

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A movie is considered to be:

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The best way to develop listening skills is by:

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It goes without saying that authentic material, such as movies or radio programmes, can be extremely challenging to understand, even for more advanced learners. This is why in Week 1 we talked so much about expectations, and making sure they are realistic. Now, here’s the part where those expectations intersect with how you actually study.

Earlier, you saw how native speakers can follow difficult conversations, even when you can only hear half of the words. The lessons for you was that you can understand the main message, and follow along, without understanding every word.

Watch the following video in which Olly talks about a procedure for listening to audio material.

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OLLY RICHARDS

Now, you've probably noticed in your language learning that one of the most difficult skills to get right is listening. When you listen to native speakers, it's pretty fast, whether it's people that you're talking to or whether you're watching TV, or movies, or things like that. And this can be a problem. So what I'd like to do in this video is describe a procedure that I recommend for practicing listening to audio material. It will help you access it, help you make sense of it, and help you enjoy it a little bit more.

So the first thing to do is to find material that is lengthy, which means at least a couple of minutes long, and that comes with the transcripts if possible. This is important because, actually, a lot of material that you find out there can be very short and bite-sized, which is great for learning words and phrases, but is not so good for actually practicing the listening skill as such.

So find something that's lengthy, ideally with a transcript, and begin by listening to the audio from the beginning to the end without stopping or looking up any words. Simply press play, and don't stop until you get to the end. At this point, listen to the audio by itself without looking at the transcript. You're just listening.

As you listen-- and this is easier said than done-- try not to translate in your head what you hear. Simply try to keep your mind in the target language and just capture the underlying meaning of the words you hear. Listen to the sounds. Try and get the gist of what's being said. This can be hard, and it can feel hard, but it does get easier over time.

And as soon as you start to look up words, you actually stop practicing the listening skill. And you start studying instead, which is what most people spend most of their time doing. We're interested in practicing the listening skill, and it's for this reason that you should listen all the way through to the end. And not just that, but listen to the audio many, many times over-- with each repetition, pushing your ear to hear and understand more and more each time.

Now, after you've done that a few times, then you can add the transcript. So you'll listen to the audio, and you're reading as you listen. This is very powerful. When you can read what you're listening to, you'll discover that you understand a lot more than you thought. Because what you can do is you can match the words that you're listening to to the words on the page.

Now, eventually, after listening and reading many, many times, you'll feel a bit stuck. There's probably lots of stuff you don't understand, and you have stopped making progress. And you might even begin to feel a little bit frustrated that it's too hard for you. At this point, this is where you shift from actually doing a lot of listening to beginning to do a little bit of studying.

So at that point, you can begin to look up a few words that you don't know to try and improve your understanding-- unlock the meaning of some of the text. But don't just start up at the beginning and look up every single word. Instead, look up the most important words, because they will help you get access to the rest of the material.

So which are the most important words in the material? Well, the most important words are those words that crop up multiple times. If a word comes up once, it probably doesn't matter that much to the story. But if you see it over and over again, it's far more likely to be important and to be describing something that is central to what you're listening to.

So continue like this, moving gradually from the gist-- just general listening-- to looking up the odd word here or there to start to understand what you're listening to. And as you do this, you move from a position of not understanding anything to gradually understanding quite a lot of what you are listening to. And it all comes down to this repetition-- listening to the material over and over again.

Now, the amount of time this process takes will depend on the material that you choose to listen to. If you choose something that's far above your level in a really complicated radio show on politics or something, you will need to look up a lot of words in order to understand. For this reason, and as a general guide, it's a good idea to choose listening material that is only slightly above your current level.

And in linguistics, this is known as comprehensible input. So it's where you are, but just a little bit higher so you're pushing yourself to understand and to listen to new material without being overwhelmed. Choosing material at this level allows you to focus on the listening skill itself without being obstructed and confused and slowed down by lots of unknown words. However, it can be difficult to find material that is at that specific level, so don't let that be a deal breaker. If you've got movies you like or podcasts you like, by all means, listen to those.

The process is not always easy, especially in the early stages when your ear isn't yet used to the language and you don't know enough words to really be able to understand. However, if you follow this process-- you listen to the material and you do it many times, moving from gist to more detail-- then there are huge gains in your comprehension that are up for grabs. You will find your level and your general listening comprehension improving quickly as long as you're willing to stick at it and work at it over time. It does get easier, and there are big rewards there if you stick at it.

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7 Live listening skills

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

So far, you’ve been learning about study techniques.

But what about when you’re travelling abroad or talking to a native speaker? How can you use your listening skills to survive in the heat of the moment?

Luckily, there are some powerful techniques that can help you get through a conversation, or understand a key piece of information, even when you’re still a relative newbie in the language.

This will now be demonstrated by taking a typical travel scenario.

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OLLY RICHARDS

So far, we've been talking about study techniques. But what about when you're travelling abroad or you're talking to a native speaker of the language that you're learning? How can you use your listening skills to survive in the heat of the moment when everyone is speaking very quickly? Luckily there are some powerful techniques that can help you get through a conversation or understand a key piece of information, even when you are a relative newbie in the language.

So let's take a typical travel scenario, such as being a busy train station and needing to find your train. Let's imagine that you're in the Gare du Nord in Paris, a very busy train station, and you're looking for your train which is leaving down to the south of France. Now, you're going to be listening to announcements over the loudspeaker in French. And that can be quite scary if you are not particularly confident in the language and there's lots of noise going on around you. But the way that you approach listening to these announcements has a big effect on how well you do.

Now, what's going to happen is if you listen to a long announcement in French, and you want to understand every word that's being said, the chances are that you won't. In fact, if you consider that you might be in an airport or train station in your home country, sometimes you don't understand every word that's said, for that exact reason. It can be noisy. There can be distractions. So what you need to do is decide in advance what information you want, and then listen specifically for that information. This is known as listening for specific information.

So if you think about it in that situation, what is it that you need? Well, you need to know the destination. You need to listen for the destination. Is it going to Marseille or is it going to Bruges. Where is the train going to And then you're going to want to know what time it is leaving and you're going to want to know what platform it's leaving from.

It doesn't matter how much French is spoken, how long the sentence or the announcement is, if you can understand or hear the destination, the time, and the platform number, then you have everything you need. So the skill here is knowing what information you need in advance, and maybe if you're not confident, you might look up those words for platform, for example, the word for a platform in your dictionary before you get into the train station. And the key is to listen just for that. So when the announcement comes on the loudspeaker and there's lots of French being spoken, fast French, you are just listening for those three key pieces of information. And it doesn't matter if you don't understand any of the rest of it. That will give you everything you need to figure out where your train is leading from, what time it is, and to check that it is actually the right train so that you get on that train and reach your destination.

This approach to listening skills makes all the difference. If you approach it by trying to understand every word that's spoken, you are setting yourself up for a difficult experience. On the other hand, if you just listen for the specific information, you're far more likely to get what you need and have success.

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Figure _unit6.8.1 Figure 4 Understanding just enough will get you far

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Activity _unit6.8.1 Activity 10 Asking for clarification in English

Allow about 5 minutes

You can use exactly the same principle in conversations – listen for the key information you want. However, in conversations you have the huge advantage of being able to ask for clarification.

Asking for clarification is an important speaking skill, and happens all the time even with native speakers:

Listen to this typical conversation in English and note all the times clarification is required or asked for.

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So can we just all check our diaries and see if we are ok for the next meeting on weds?

Sorry, do you mean this Wednesday or next Wednesday

I mean next week, on the 24th

C :

Hang on, the 24th is a Tuesday. Is the meeting on Tuesday, or do you mean Wednesday the 25th?

Sorry, I meant Wednesday the 25th. Let’s meet at 2.30 shall we, in room 4.3?

Sorry, can you say that again?

Wednesday at 2.30

No, I meant, did you say room 3.4 or 4.3?

4.3

Ok, let me just check this: next weds at 2.30 in room 4.3, right?

Yes, that’s right.

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One of the most valuable things you can do is to learn three phrases to ask for clarification in your target language. So, if you are currently learning a language, find out three expressions or set phrases for asking for clarification, check their pronunciation, learn them and use them several times a day over the next week – even if you are just talking to yourself!

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LEARNER 1

So when I'm listening to Italian, some of the time, I'm amazed at how much I understand when I still speak relatively little. So that's really reassuring. But the other part of it is, they just speak so quickly. And I really need people to slow down so that I can actually process all of those sounds that they're making.

LEARNER 2

Listening to Spanish spoken on TV or on the radio I find less intimidating because I'm receiving that passively. But if I'm in a conversation with somebody, I do worry about finding the right words to-- or, more importantly, making sure I've understood what they're saying to me and often possibly agree to things or possibly give the wrong answer. Nowadays, I don't worry about that too much. But when I was studying Spanish, I worried a lot about getting things right. And I think if I look back now, I should have just relaxed.

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8 Resources: listening materials, and where to find them

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

You will now think about the listening resources you could use and how to find them.

Activity _unit6.9.1 Activity 11 Doing your own research

Allow about 30 minutes

Go online and search for listening resources in your target language. You might want to specify your level in the search terms you use, so search for instance for ‘Spanish listening practice for beginners’ or ‘German listening exercises B1’.

You will need to evaluate the resources you find, so don’t forget about the framework that Fernando introduced you to in Week 3.

For listening resources, you might want to focus on the following criteria:

Listening: does the resource provide audio in the target language?
Pronunciation and intonation: does the resource offer specific activities for pronunciation and intonation?
Language varieties: does the resource include different regional or national varieties of the language?

Discussion

Obviously it is difficult to provide feedback for this activity as every learner will look for something different, depending on their needs. It is important that you are critical about what you find, and decide if it is right for you, and the criteria we have provided can help you.

9 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Well done – you have reached the end of Week 5 and can now take the weekly quiz to test your understanding.

Week 5 practice quiz

Open the quiz in a new tab or window (by holding ctrl [or cmd on a Mac] when you click the link) and come back here when you are done.

10 Summary of Week 5

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This week you have looked at how to develop your listening skills as a beginner and then when you reach a more advanced level.

You should now be able to:

understand what is involved in listening
find out about the difference between intensive and extensive listening
understand the different types of authentic and graded audio, and look for audio resources for yourself.

I mentioned earlier that one of the key things you must do when you start learning a new language is to grow your vocabulary. Next week Tita will cover this aspect of language learning in detail and show you some techniques for growing your vocabulary.

You can now go to Week 6.

Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This week of the course is written by Tita Beaven.

Do you know how many words there are in English? And how many words there are in the language you want to learn? How many words do you need to know to speak a language? And what does it mean to know a word anyway?

Why is learning vocabulary important, and does the size of your vocabulary really matter that much? According to research, vocabulary size is one of the greatest predictors of both first and second language reading comprehension, and is a central aspect of second language learning. This week, you will start by looking at the above questions in a bit more detail. However, if you have tried learning a new language, you probably find remembering the vocabulary really tough, so this week I will also talk you through how your memory works, and you'll learn some memory techniques.

By the end of this week you will be able to:

estimate the number of words you need to learn in a language
differentiate between receptive and productive vocabulary
engage with different strategies to remember new words
engage with different ways to retrieve vocabulary you have learned.

1 How many words are there?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

The answer to this question, of course, depends on how you define what a word is, and on how you count them.

Let’s start with English. The extract below, from the Oxford English Dictionary blog, explains the difficulties in answering the question.

How many words are there in the English language?

There is no single sensible answer to this question. It’s impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it’s so hard to decide what actually counts as a word. Is dog one word, or two (a noun meaning ‘a kind of animal’, and a verb meaning ‘to follow persistently’)? If we count it as two, then do we count inflections separately too (e.g. dogs = plural noun, dogs = present tense of the verb). Is dog-tired a word, or just two other words joined together? Is hot dog really two words, since it might also be written as hot-dog or even hotdog?
It’s also difficult to decide what counts as ‘English’. What about medical and scientific terms? Latin words used in law, French words used in cooking, German words used in academic writing, Japanese words used in martial arts? Do you count Scots dialect? Teenage slang? Abbreviations?

English has over 171,000 dictionary entries for words in current use, and an estimated 250,000 distinct words. That is a lot of words to learn.

Activity _unit7.2.1 Activity 1 How many words are in your chosen language

Allow about 15 minutes

How many words are there in the language you want to learn?

Search online for an answer to this question, and make a note of the number of words in your other language as well as of any issues around how to count them in your particular language.

As you look for information, think about what you count as a word (i.e. do you include only dictionary headwords, or also inflected words?) And do you include vocabulary from the different language varieties of that language (Spanish, for instance, is spoken in Spain and in 19 countries in the Americas, as well as in Equatorial Guinea, and there are many words that are different in the different varieties of Spanish).

Discussion

So, now that you have an idea of how many words there are in English and in the language you are learning or want to learn, how many words do you think you need?

2 How many words do you need?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

You’ve just seen that there are an estimated 250,000 distinct words in English. Imagine you were learning English as a new language from scratch; if you wanted to learn even half the words in the language and set yourself the rather tall order of learning ten new words a day, it would take you over 30 years to achieve it. So what’s going on?

Well, although there are an estimated 250,000 distinct words in English, a conservative estimate of how many words a well-educated native speaker knows suggest the figure is somewhere between 20,000 to 27,000 word-families (Goulden, Nation and Read, 1990; Zechmeister et al., 1995). Well, learning vocabulary at the same rate as before, that would take over 7 years – although remember that learning 10 new words a day, day in, day out, is a tall order, but 7 years seems more manageable, and if you studied intensively, or were able to immerse yourself in the language, it might be achievable.

Another way to estimate how many words a learner might need is to figure out the number of words needed to do what they would like or need to do in the language, such as dealing with spoken language when you go on holiday, reading newspapers or watching TV. Here, the research shows that a small number of word types occurs very frequently and makes up most of the words in spoken or written text. The table below show how the most frequent 1000 word families account for over three-quarters of the words in text. The next two frequency bands (so a vocabulary of 3000 word families) account for nearly 90 per cent of the words in these texts and then the effect decreases, so increasing your vocabulary beyond that makes very little difference to the texts you can understand.

Table _unit7.3.1 Table 1 Frequency bands

Frequency band	Example words	% Coverage added by level	Cumulative %
1,000	the, history	77.86	77.86
2,000	accommodate, prefer	8.23	86.09
3,000	digest, receipt	3.70	89.16
4,000	elastic, thread	1.79	90.95
5,000	locker, tranquil	1.04	91.99
6,000	diligent, undertake	0.70	92.69
7,000	fossil, jagged	0.65	93.34
8,000	abhor, obtrusive	0.40	93.74
9,000	remorse, wrench	0.32	94.06
10,000	barricade, pigment	0.32	94.38
11,000	glitzy, scam	0.16	94.54
12,000	epitome, resonate	0.14	94.68
13,000	outdo, tipsy	0.12	94.80
14,000	secede, yearbook	0.10	94.90

(Source: Schmitt and Schmitt, 2014, figures courtesy of Mark Davies.)

Box _unit7.3.1

Vocabulary size and text coverage for the written LOB Corpus (1,000–14,000 levels) (in Schmitt and Schmitt, 2014, adapted from Nation, 2006, p. 64) – the LOB corpus is a collection of one million words from different UK written sources.

So vocabulary acquisition research shows that knowing the most common 1000 or so word families is sufficient to understand over 75 per cent of texts. All of a sudden, the task seems a bit less daunting!

So, how do you find out which 1000 words to start with? You can get a frequency dictionary in the language you are learning, or do an online search for ‘the 1000 most common words in (+ your target language)’.

However, you might also want to combine learning the most frequent words in the language with words that are useful to you personally. So for instance, the word stieftochter (stepdaughter) in German doesn’t even appear in my Frequency Dictionary of German, which includes the most common 4000 words, and yet, as I happen to have one, I made sure I learned it very early on, so I could talk about both my tochter and my steiftochter when I talked about my family in German.

3 What does it mean to know a word?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

OK, so let’s say that you set yourself the target of learning 1000 words in your target language to start with. The next question you might ask yourself is: what does it mean to ‘know’ a word? You will look at this in the next section.

3.1 Receptive and productive vocabulary

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

If you understand the meaning of a word when you hear it or read it, it is part of your receptive vocabulary. Words in this category range from those you know well, to those you barely know but can understand when you come across them because of the context, for instance. If you are able to produce a word when speaking or writing in a way that is appropriate and that matched what you mean, this is part of your productive vocabulary. Usually, your receptive vocabulary is greater than your productive vocabulary.

I remember in a French class I was teaching years ago, a student was writing a description of her town, and asked me how you say ‘park’ in French. I asked her to look it up in the dictionary, and when I checked later what she had written, it was something like:

Dans ma ville il y a un garer très joli.

The problem with this sentence is that ‘garer’ means ‘park’, as in ‘to park your car’. So the student was saying that in her town there is a very beautiful to park. This, of course, doesn’t make sense, either in terms of meaning, or grammatically. She had looked up the word in the dictionary, but she had not paid attention to any of the specific features of the word she was looking up, or the information she was finding in the dictionary. So, knowing a word is about understanding what that word means, how it is used, and indeed, how you can use it.

3.2 Depth of knowledge

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

As well as breadth of vocabulary (or size) a useful concept when thinking about vocabulary knowledge, both with words in your receptive and in your productive vocabulary, is depth of knowledge. Match the different aspects of what it means to know a word with their definition (based on Qian, 1999).

Activity _unit7.4.1 Activity 2 Depth of word knowledge matching activity

Allow about 5 minutes

The following relate to different aspects of depth of knowledge of words. Match each one with their meaning:

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So, when you learn vocabulary, it is important that you think about what it means to know a word, and that you pay attention to the features we have just highlighted. And when you buy a dictionary (or chose one online), have a look at how much ‘depth of knowledge’ about the words it provides.

3.3 Vocabulary learning strategies

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

There are lots of different techniques for learning vocabulary, ranging from keeping a vocabulary book to writing a word repeatedly or saying it to yourself.

The following activity will enable you to find out which strategies you use most often, but also point out other strategies that you might not use but are worth trying out.

Activity _unit7.4.2 Activity 3 Vocabulary strategies

Allow about 10 minutes

Add your answers to the statements in the table.

Table _unit7.4.1

	Often/ Sometimes/ Not very often/ Never
I use my background knowledge/the wider context to guess the meaning of new words.	35
I look for any definitions or paraphrases in the passage that support my guess about the meaning of a word.	36
When I see an unfamiliar word again and again, I look it up.	37
When I want to confirm my guess about a word, I look it up.	38
I pay attention to the examples of use when I look up a word in a dictionary.	39
I look for phrases or set expressions that go with the word I look up.	40
I look for phrases or set expressions that go with the word I look up.	41
I make a note if I think the word I'm looking up is relevant to my interest.	42
I put synonyms or antonyms together in my notebook.	43
I make a note when I see a useful expression or phrase.	44
I make vocabulary lists of new words that I want to learn.	45
I make online vocabulary flashcards with the new words that I want to learn.	46
When I try to remember a word, I repeat it aloud to myself.	47
When I try to remember a word, I write it repeatedly.	48
I group words into categories when I write them down.	49
I deliberately read texts in my areas of interest so that I can find out and remember the special terminology that I need to know.	50
I try to read as much as possible so that I can make use of the words I am trying to remember.	51
I use the words I am trying to learn in writing or when I speak.	52
I try to use words I am learning in imaginary situations in my mind.	53

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4 Your memory – or how to cope with so many words

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

One of the things that students often tell me when they start to learn a language is that there are so many new words to memorise, it can feel overwhelming. And not just that, but when you have learned some vocabulary and you open your mouth to speak, all of a sudden your mind goes blank and you can’t remember how to say anything.

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Figure _unit7.5.1 Figure 1 Learning German.

Long description

So what are the strategies to learn vocabulary (and everything else)? Allow me to take a little detour to explain what is going on in your mind when you try to learn vocabulary.

As humans, we are very good at processing information. Research into memory, cognition and thinking has sought to understand how we process information, and one important model that has emerged is the information processing model (IPM). According to this model, there are three types of memory: sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory (Schraw and McCrudden, 2009).

Watch this short video about sensory, working and long term memory.

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So, in what way is this important when learning languages, and more specifically, when learning vocabulary? The information that you receive through your sensory memory is usually processed too quickly for you to consciously control. After information enters your sensory memory, it is either almost immediately deleted from the system, or it is forwarded to your working memory. This is where information is processed, or assigned meaning. The processed information is then either transferred to your long-term memory though some sort of mental rehearsal process, or deleted if it’s no longer needed. Unlike your working memory, your long-term memory is more or less unlimited (Schraw and McCrudden, 2009).

What you are trying to do when learning a language is to process the visual and verbal information that you come across and to transfer it to your long-term memory. In order to be a successful learner, you need to do several things:

As what you can hold in your short-term memory is very limited, you need to make sure you use those limited cognitive resources efficiently. Effective learners use processing strategies such as organisation (i.e. how the information is stored in long-term memory), inference (or making connections between separate concepts) and elaboration (or connecting new information to things you already know). We will return to those shortly.
Ideally, you want to achieve automaticity in much of what you do in your new language. Automaticity is about being able to perform a task quickly and efficiently, and this is achieved through repeated practice. When you are first learning to drive, you have to perform a series of complex processes that feel almost impossible to achieve. When you have learnt to drive, you can perform the same series of complex activities without even noticing, because you have achieved automaticity. It is exactly the same with learning a language. At the beginning, you might be hesitant when responding to a simple greeting, trying to remember the correct formula to use, the pronunciation, or the specific grammatical construction you need to address, for instance, a stranger rather than a friend. It might all feel very halting. When you become more proficient, you do this automatically, almost without thinking.
Finally, you also want to be able to focus your limited cognitive resources on what is really important for the task you are doing. So if you are at a busy airport and need to find out the gate for your plane to Manchester, you need to pay attention to the announcements and listen for the key word ‘Manchester’ – paying attention to who is coming and going in the airport, for instance, will only be a distraction. On the other hand, if you were waiting for someone at the airport, you would have to pay attention to the people around you rather than the announcements or any other irrelevant information. This selective processing is in fact what also characterises successful learners: you need to be able to identify the most important things to learn and use your limited cognitive resources to learn that.

Information needs to be encoded into your long-term memory, and it also needs to be retrieved when it is needed. Encoding refers to the strategies that move the information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. Retrieval processes, on the other hand, are those that enable you to search your memory and access the information in your long-term memory.

All this might seem a little abstract, so let’s look at what it means in practice.

5 Common strategies that don’t work

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

One very commonly used strategy when you want to remember something (such as a telephone number, or a postcode, for instance, but also a word you’ve just learned in a new language) is to repeat it over and over again. While that strategy might work in the short term, it is not very likely that, on its own, it will be enough for you to be able to remember that piece of information in the long term.

It might surprise you that there are other commonly used strategies, such as highlighting or underlining important phrases or sentences in a text, that have also been shown to be ineffective learning strategies if your aim is to remember the information. One of the reasons why these strategies don’t work as well as others is that, in order to encode information into your long-term memory, you should engage in activities that are effortful. It is by making the effort that you remember better.

6 Effortful encoding strategies

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

So, what sort of effortful encoding strategies are we talking about? You will now look at the following useful effortful encoding strategies that will help you learn vocabulary:

chunking
mnemonics
memory palaces
self-referencing
spacing.

6.1 Chunking

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

The first one is chunking, or grouping the information into meaningful units.

Listen to the following sequence of numbers. Don’t write them down.

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The reason why you can probably remember the second sequence, and not the first, is because you were able to chunk the information into meaningful bits of information, and that you could relate those numbers to categories you already had in your long-term memory – key dates in UK history.

When learning vocabulary, it is a lot easier to remember vocabulary items in categories that you already understand.

So for instance, it is easier to remember:

Oranges, bananas, pears
Chicken, ham, soya beans
Rice, pasta, bread

than it is to remember those same words in this sequence:

Oranges, ham, pears, bread, rice, soya beans, chicken, pasta, bananas

The reason for that is that while the second list is in a totally arbitrary order, in the first one the items are grouped into categories that you are already familiar with (fruit, protein, carbs). So when you are learning lists of vocabulary in a foreign language, don’t just learn words in a random order, but put them into meaningful categories and that will help encode them into your long-term memory. You can do this, for instance, in a table or in a mind-map.

Figure _unit7.7.1 Figure 2 A way to categorise items.

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Figure _unit7.7.2 Figure 3 Another way to categorise items.

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6.2 Mnemonics

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

A second important encoding strategy is mnemonics. You probably learned some mnemonics at school. For instance, to learn the colours of the rainbow, you can remember the sentence: Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet), or to remember the order of the planets in our solar system, you can use the mnemonic: My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets (the first one, closest to the Sun, is Mercury).

Although most people associate mnemonics with this sort of examples, mnemonics are indeed any sort of memory technique that helps retain information.

One useful mnemonic device is the use of imagery, and this can be very useful when learning new vocabulary.

Vocabulary cards or ‘flashcards’ are a useful way to learn vocabulary. They are cards that have the word you want to learn on one side and, usually, the translation of the word on the other. There are also flashcard apps you can use online, and you’ll review these in Week 8.

Figure _unit7.7.3 Figure 4 A flashcard.

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Figure _unit7.7.4 Figure 5 The reverse of the flashcard.

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Instead of having the word you want to learn on one side and the translation on the other, you can use vocabulary cards that have the word you want to learn on one side, and a picture on the other. And although you can find lots of these already made, it seems that if you actually spend a bit of time and make them yourself, with images that are either meaningful to you, or that you look for yourself, you are more likely to remember them (Wyner, 2014).

So here, for instance, is a card I made to learn the verb können (can) in German.

The front of the card show a sentence with a gap (Laura …. play the piano) in it and a picture, and the back contains the whole sentence, and the infinitive of the verb. What makes this card particularly meaningful to me is that Laura is my daughter, and that the piano in the picture is Laura’s piano. All this helps to encode the German into my long-term memory, because the new information can latch onto lots of other meaningful items that are in my memory already.

Figure _unit7.7.5 Figure 6 A flashcard.

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Figure _unit7.7.6 Figure 7 A flashcard.

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You don’t have to create actual images in flashcards to link to words in order to remember them; you can also make visual or auditory associations in your mind. For instance, polyglot Benny Lewis gives the example of the word ‘Leute’ in German, which means people. I used to find this a very difficult word to remember, as it bears no resemblance to the English word or to the word for people in any of the other languages I speak. What Benny Lewis suggests is imagining a bunch of PEOPLE LOITERING (Lewis, 2016, p. 29) – once you have that image in your head, it is difficult to forget the word.

With a bit of practice and imagination, you can make up these links between words yourself – and they only have to be meaningful to you. For instance, the German word ‘einladen’ means ‘to invite’. To my mind it sounds a lot like the Spanish word ‘helado’, ice-cream, and so the first time I heard ‘einladen’ I immediately thought of the image on one of my German friends inviting me for an ice-cream (‘einladen’ me for an ‘helado’, so to speak), and the new verb was immediately, and indelibly imprinted in my mind.

6.3 Memory palaces

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Another way in which you can use mnemonics is through the technique known as ‘the method of loci’ (from the Latin locus, place) also known as the memory palace

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TITA BEAVEN

Imagine a place you know well, such as your house, your office, or your street. Now walk around that place in your mind, and select ten specific spots in that place in the sequential order you would see them if you walked around it. For instance, in my house, the first room is the sitting room, where there is a sofa, the fireplace and the piano. Then there is the corridor, and a small toilet on the left. Then there is the kitchen, where I can see the dining table, the fridge, the sink and then the hob, etc.

Now if you make a map of that place and identify those specific points in your map, you can use them to remember things. So for instance, here’s a random list of elements:

mouse

bottle of white wine

strawberry

birdcage

stool

biro

shampoo

lorry

The way you would remember those words, in that specific order, is to place each them at a station of your memory palace, and to do so in such a way that each one represents a memorable image:

So, using my memory palace of my house, I would imagine a mouse sitting on the sofa, reading the Sunday papers, then a bottle of white wine inside the fireplace, with a label on it saying ‘drink me’ and then a giant strawberry sitting at the piano playing the tune of Strawberry fields forever. As I go down the corridor, I can imagine seeing a giant birdcage and having to squeeze through the bars of the birdcage in order to get to the kitchen, where the kitchen table has been replaced by a stool, and we are sitting around it trying to make room for our tea on the tiny surface of the stool…. You get the idea…

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It is important that you remember the stations in your memory palace, and it helps to draw them. Here’s a map of the memory palace I used for this activity, with eight stations:

Figure _unit7.7.7 Figure 8 A memory palace.

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This technique of the memory palace can be really useful to learn words in a foreign language too. You can rely on how the word sounds, what it reminds you of, etc, to make it memorable. Now you can put it into practice.

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TITA BEAVEN

Rather than using a language that you might already know, let’s try using a memory palace to learn some vocabulary from an invented language. The language is Toki Pona (or the language of good), a language invented by Canadian translator and linguist Sonja Lang.

Here are three Toki Pona words.

Meli: woman

Ike: bad, negative, irrelevant

Kala : fish, sea creature

So the first word, Meli, means woman. I can imagine Melisandre, the Red Woman from the TV series Game of Thrones sitting on my sofa: meli = woman. Then, as I walk to the next station, the fireplace, I can imagine trying to build a fire with a lot of Ikea catalogues – as the stove fills with smoke, I realise this is a really bad idea (Ike = bad). Sitting at the piano is an enormous squid (Calamari) playing the piano with its eight arms: Kala = sea creature…. and so on.

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Activity _unit7.7.1 Activity 4 Creating a memory palace

Allow about 10 minutes

So now it’s your turn. First, create a memory palace around a place you know well, such as your home, and select ten ‘stations’ in your palace in the order in which you would encounter them if you were walking around it. It is useful to draw it, and number the stations, like I did.

Now, place one of the following Toki Pona words in each station, making memorable associations between the word and what it sounds like, or anything else that will help you remember it.

Jaki: disgusting, obscene

Insa: centre, content, inside

Kasi: plant

Lape: sleeping, resting

Kute: listen, hear

Noka: foot, leg, lower part

Linja, cord, hair, rope, thread

Poki: container, bag, bowl, box

Kili: fruit, vegetable

Nanpa: numbers

Discussion

I hope that doing this activity has shown you how you can use memory palaces to remember vocabulary. Try walking through your memory palace again tomorrow, and try to remember the Toki Pona words you placed there. And try it again in three days’ time, and again next week – by rehearsing your walk around your memory palace saying the words you have placed there, you are making your memories stronger.

6.4 Self-referencing

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

So far, you have looked at chunking and mnemonics. A third key way to help encode information into your long-term memory is to think about how the information refers to you. So when you are learning new vocabulary, imagine yourself or those close to you in the memorable images and stories you make up to remember them, such as in the example of my daughter Laura playing the piano, or my German friend inviting me for an ice cream.

6.5 Spacing

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

One final very useful encoding strategy is spacing. When you prepare for an exam, do you spend a bit of time every day over several weeks studying for it, or are you a crammer, and leave it all till the last day and binge-study? Well, you might not be surprised to learn that ‘little and often’ is a much more effective encoding strategy than last-minute cramming. So, when you learn any aspect of the language, but especially vocabulary, learn a little every day.

Here's how it works! And although the video is aimed at medics rather than language learners, it all transfers to learning vocabulary!

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Activity _unit7.7.2 Activity 5 Evaluating spaced repetition

Allow about 30 minutes

So, spaced repetition can help you to learn vocabulary by making you review the words you can’t remember, rather than those that you can. There are lots of Spaced Repetition Software (or SRS) apps and software available. Try two or three to see which one you like best. Remember you might want to refer back to the framework for evaluating resources that Fernando introduced in Week 3.

Here are some you can try out:

Anki

Duolingo Tinycards

Memrise

Discussion

I hope having a look at several flashcard apps has given you an idea of how they work and how spaced repetition can be a useful tool for learning new vocabulary. Over the next few days keep practising with one or two of them to understand their benefits more fully.

Figure _unit7.7.8 Figure 5 Using an app to learn a language

Long description

In this section, you have been introduced to a number of effective, effortful encoding strategies that will help you encode vocabulary into your long-term memory.

Now watch the following video as a recap of these strategies : Encoding strategies

7 Retrieval strategies

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

So far, you have looked at how important it is to use effective strategies to encode information into your long-term memory. It is equally important to use effective strategies to retrieve information from your long-term memory, and in fact, some of the strategies we have just looked at also help with retrieving of information from your long-term memory. So for instance, when you use spaced repetition, it is helping you to register new words into your long-term memory, but it is also helping you remember those words that you already know. Indeed, spacing is one of the most useful ways to retrieve the knowledge you have in your long-term memory so that you can use it. The other is self-testing.

Read the following post on retrieval practice from The Learning Scientists, a group of cognitive psychological scientists, whose aim is to make scientific research on learning more accessible to students, teachers and other educators.

8 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Well done – you have reached the end of Week 6 and can now take the weekly quiz to test your understanding.

Week 6 practice quiz

Open the quiz in a new tab or window (by holding ctrl [or cmd on a Mac] when you click the link) and come back here when you are done.

9 Summary of Week 6

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

I hope this week has given you lots of ideas about how to learn vocabulary – and some understanding of how your memory works! In Weeks 4 and 5 we looked at speaking and listening.

Next week Fernando will talk you through the two other language skills of reading and writing.

You can now go to Week 7.

Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This week of the course is written by Fernando Rosell-Aguilar.

As well as speaking and listening, the two other skills in language learning are reading and writing.

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

understand how to develop your reading and writing
understand the difference between skimming and scanning
find out ways to check your writing.

1 Thinking about reading and writing

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

First, watch the following video where some learners talk about the difficulties of reading and writing in a foreign language.

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LEARNER 1: Writing it is quite difficult because I find that I start off in English, and I'll still have to translate into Japanese, and you can't translate directly from English to Japanese. It's totally different ways of saying things. And so I think that's one of the major problems, really.

LEARNER 2: So, I mean, when it comes to reading in Spanish, there are some difficulties that I have. If you are reading and you encounter words that you don't know and you get stuck and get hung up on one particular word and therefore you've lost the meaning of the sentence itself, perhaps if you have to go look up the meaning of that word in a dictionary and then you return to the sentence, you perhaps forgot where you were going.

And then writing. Yes, writing in Spanish, you potentially you're trying to write something down and you don't necessarily have a vocabulary that you want, so you have to improvise a little bit and use vocabulary or you that you do have to try and circumvent your difficulty. But then, perhaps, you've written something that doesn't sound very native-like. You looked like you've produced something that is very much from a learner and isn't very naturalistic at all.

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Reading and writing are perceived as the basics of education: if a person can’t read or write, they are considered illiterate. Reading and writing in another language can be a very frustrating experience, after all, you can read and write in your own language.

The first challenge when learning to read and write in another language may be as basic as the alphabet or script. Learners of Greek, Russian, Arabic, Chinese or Japanese, for example, are confronted by texts which offer little that can be recognised for someone who is only familiar with the Roman alphabet. Likewise, learners whose languages use other types of script face the same problem when learning languages such as English, Spanish or German.

The challenges are different depending on whether the language you’re learning has a different alphabet or a logographic script. In the case of different alphabets (e.g. Greek or Russian), you have to learn how to write the letters and which sounds in the language each of those letters represent. The letters are then joined together to make words. In the case of logographic languages such as Chinese or Japanese, each symbol will have a sound, a graphic representation, and a variety of meanings that change depending on the context and to what other symbols it’s linked to form new words.

Learning to write different scripts will take time and a lot of practice, as it did to learn how to write in your own language when you were a child.

Activity _unit8.2.1 Activity 1 Writing hello in different scripts

Allow about 5 minutes

Look at the words for ‘hello’ in Arabic, Greek, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Russian below. Copy the script for each language on a piece of paper to experience what it’s like to write with different scripts.

Figure _unit8.2.1 Figure 1 ‘Hello’ in different languages

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Discussion

If you are learning a language with a different script, you will need to spend some time getting to grips with it, so make sure you factor that into your learning. In many languages there are accented and other special letters, and you will also need to pay attention to how they are used, as using them wrongly or not using them can change the meaning of words.

2 Reading

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Leaving aside the issues of different alphabets and scripts, reading in the target language can present a number of challenges. In this and the next section you will explore reading and writing separately in more depth.

2.1 I want to read texts in my target language: where should I start?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

A text can be as short as a single word on a sign or as long as a novel, but length is just one of the factors you will want to consider when choosing reading material. As a language teacher, I’m often asked by my students for recommendations for what to read.

My reply is normally to ask them what they like to read in their own language. If they mostly read magazines, there isn’t much point in suggesting a literary classic, certainly in the early stages of their language learning. It could well put them off reading in their target language forever.

So if you like comic books, read comic books in your target language. If you like gossip magazines, then read those. Familiarity with the subject will make reading easier and looking up words in that subject will be a worthwhile activity for you, since you have an interest in the topic and will want to use that vocabulary when talking about the things you like.

Figure _unit8.3.1 Figure 2 Reading in a second language.

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Some people assume that children’s books are a good thing to start reading in the target language, after all, they are the first texts that children who are native to that language tend to encounter. While children’s books may have a simple plot, their language isn’t necessarily easier to understand. In fact, they may use expressions that children use and which even advanced language learners may have difficulty understanding if they’ve not had conversations with children who speak their target language. They also often have invented words, or very creative and playful use of language that learners might find puzzling.

In Week 5, Olly introduced you to the idea of graded listening material, and graded reading materials also exist to help you practice your reading. So graded readers are a good place to start. They are books that have been simplified so that language learners can understand them better or books that have been specifically written for language learners. Their vocabulary and grammar complexity is graded for different levels of proficiency in the language, sometimes using the Council of Europe Reference Framework that Tita introduced you to in Week 1. They often come with vocabulary lists and comprehension activities.

Box _unit8.3.1 Laura says:

When I first started learning Spanish, I enjoyed reading graded readers. They often come with audio, so by listening as you read along, you can help train your ear as well as your eyes and learn how trickier words are pronounced.

Bilingual texts are also a great way to approach reading in the target language. They present the text in two languages, with one page in the target language followed by the same page in your first language. Although the language isn’t simplified as it is in graded readers, having the translation next to it helps the reader follow without having to stop every few words to look up meanings.

I often recommend to my students that they pick up a translation of their favourite book in the language they’re learning. Being familiar with the language, characters and plot of the book means that even if they don’t understand many words in the book, they don’t have to struggle with the vocabulary or the plot, as they know what’s happening. It can also be fun to discover what has been changed in the translation. The picture below shows how some of the words and characters in the Harry Potter series have been translated into different languages. There are some interesting choices!

Figure _unit8.3.2 Figure 3 Harry Potter revisioned.

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Activity _unit8.3.1 Activity 2 Research your favourite book

Allow about 15 minutes

Do an online search for the title of your favourite book, comic book or graphic novel in your target language. Does the title vary or is it a literal translation? What do you think of the cover image? Is it very different from the cover in your local edition?

2.2 ‘Seeing a long text puts me off’

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Learners often spend a long time reading a text, looking up words and structures, until they have fully understood it. Not all texts need to be read word for word and often you don’t need to understand every word to get the information you need from a text.

Sometimes all you need is to get the gist of what the text is about. For example, when reading a newspaper, you may only be interested in the headline to tell you what the text is about and decide whether the text is of interest to you. Or you may have been asked to provide the answers to some questions to be found in a text. In that case, skimming the text so you can identify key words from the questions will help you find the information in a text without needing to read or understand every word of it. Sub-headings within a text will also provide clues as to whether you need to read a particular section or not. If the text is in digital format, a search for relevant words will help you too.

If you are looking for a certain piece of information, you may not even have to read for gist, just scanning the text will suffice. We do this all the time in our first language. Just like you don’t read the whole of a train timetable but just look for the information for the particular train you need, you can do the same with a text in the target language.

So remember, just like in your own language, when reading in a foreign language you don’t have to read every word in a text. Skimming (or reading for gist) and scanning are two reading strategies we all use when reading in our first language, and they are equally useful when reading in your target language.

Activity _unit8.3.2 Activity 3 Skimming or scanning?

Allow about 5 minutes

Do you skim or scan in the following situations?

Finding out the weather in your area from a newspaper weather report

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Look through a TV guide to see if there’s anything you fancy watching

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Finding out what a news article is about

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Finding out the price of an item in a catalogue

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Flick through a book to see if you fancy reading it

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Read the first couple of sentence of each paragraph of a long newspaper article to find out what it is about.

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Finding out the departure of your flight in the airport display board

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Discussion

Understanding the difference between when to skim and when to scan is very useful. Sometimes inexperienced language learners feel they need to read and understand every word in a text to make sense of it, and that is not the case, neither in your own language nor in a foreign one!

2.3 ‘It takes ages to look up every word in a text’

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

As we’ve stated before, there are ways in which you can decide whether you need to actually look up every word you encounter. It may be that it’s in a part of the text that doesn’t provide the information you need. But if you’re reading a work of fiction, you may want to make sure that you understand everything in the text. Guessing the meaning of words from the context they appear in is a helpful exercise. You won’t get it right every time, but you will also get used to using this strategy and get better at it.

3 Writing

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

For some people, writing in the target language seems an easier task than speaking as you have more time to think about what you want to communicate and how. Others see this the other way around, as speaking leaves no trace of any errors and in writing your mistakes stay in print, which adds to the pressure particularly when what you’ve written will be seen by others.

Writing presents a number of challenges to the language learner. One of them is how to write the words that you hear. Some languages, such as Italian or Spanish, have a very transparent writing system, where one sound is usually represented by one letter. As long as you can identify the letters that correspond to each sound, you will get the spelling mostly right. Other languages, such as English, have a more complex correlation between sound and spelling, making them harder to write.

So for instance, in Spanish, the sound /f/ is always represented by the letter ‘f’ (in words like final and foto). In English, on the other hand, the sound /f/ is represented by the letter ‘f’ in words like fish and final, by the letters ‘ff’ in offer and off, and by the letters ‘ph’ in photo, for instance. As you can see, Spanish is a lot more transparent than English.

It will take time to get used to writing in languages that use an alphabet that is different from that of your first language (such as Greek), but once you know the correspondence between sound and letter, and with lots of practice so that writing the letters doesn’t present a challenge in itself, it should not be too long before you become used to it. It’s a different story altogether for languages that use logographic scripts, as your mind will need to map the sound to the symbol, the symbol to a meaning, and most likely both the symbol and the sound to a simplified more phonetic spelling version, such as pinyin in Chinese.

Activity _unit8.4.1 Activity 4 Find apps that allow you write in different script

Allow about 30 minutes

There are lots of apps that help you learn new alphabets and logographic scripts, so if you are learning a language that has a different script from yours, look up two apps to learn how to write that script, and compare their features. Remember that you can use the framework I introduced in Week 3 to help you evaluate them. Once you’ve found a relevant app and have evaluated it, you can leave a review in the app store.

4 ‘I know what I want to communicate but I can’t write that in the language I’m learning!’

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This is a very frustrating experience for many language learners. We are used to being able to communicate in our own language, both in speech and writing. When we are learning a language, we have a more limited range of expression and vocabulary. So while you may want to express that you live in a converted nineteenth-century Victorian house that you inherited from your grandmother, if you are a beginner you may only have the tools to write ‘I live in a big house’. You know this may not communicate as much as you would like to, or even mislead the reader, but at this stage in your language learning I would advise you to try to limit your writing to what you know how to communicate rather than what you wish you could communicate. Of course, you can take risks with guessing the necessary vocabulary and expressions to write what you want, but particularly if what you’re writing is going to be assessed it may be safer not to take too many risks. Your teacher will know what you can and cannot do at the language level you’re working at.

On the other hand, if it is not a situation where you are going to be assessed, you might want to experiment a little with your writing and stretch yourself. Writing is a creative process and because you don’t have the pressure of time to reply as you do with oral communication, you can easily reflect on what you’ve written and expand it without taking too many risks.

Watch this video about expanding your writing.

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FERNANDO

Let's look at this short sentence.

I live in a house.

Now if you had written this, you may want to expand it with more detail. So you could add an adjective. I live in an old house.

You could then add another adjective. I live in a beautiful old house.

You can then add information about location. I live in a beautiful old house by the sea.

And keep adding information about who you live with. I live in a beautiful old house by the sea with my family.

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The type of words that have been added to the original sentence are fairly common words when you’re learning a language, so while you’re taking a risk in adding words, you’re not attempting something much more advanced such as: ‘I live in a house where my grandmother used to live’. That addition includes a subordinate clause which incorporates a past tense, and it may be too ambitious for your language level if you have not learned how to talk about the past yet.

Activity _unit8.5.1 Activity 5 Having a go at expanding the sentence yourself

Allow about 10 minutes

Write the first sentence we provided in the language you’re learning. Then try to expand it with the additional words we included in the example or similar.

I live in a house.

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Discussion

In the process of expanding your writing you may have had to consider a number of things depending on which language you’re learning. Perhaps you needed to consider whether the adjective you were adding had to agree with the noun in gender and number. Trying to write ‘by the sea’ may have been more challenging as other languages may use an expression such as ‘near the sea’. You should also have thought about word order.

If you have time, a very useful thing you can do when writing is to put what you’ve written away and look at it again later. As you look at it with fresh eyes, you will have the opportunity to question what you wrote and check your work. For example, the sentence above says ‘a very useful thing you can do…’ Such a sentence could be improved by changing ‘thing’ to a more precise word, such as ‘activity’. Similarly, you could change the overused word ‘do’ for something like ‘undertake’. So from a relatively simple set of words such as ‘a very useful thing you can do’ you can be more precise and stylish by writing ‘a very useful activity you can undertake’

Box _unit8.5.1 Laura says:

I have kept a lot of my old open-ended writing exercises and then gone back to them a few weeks or months later, to see what I could have improved or expanded upon when I learned new tenses or grammar points. It is also quite encouraging to look back and see how much you improve over the course of a few weeks or months.

5 How to check your writing

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

One useful (and surprisingly underused) tool to check what you’ve written is typing it on a word processor and (after setting the language to your target language) using the spelling and grammar tools to check the text. The software may provide suggestions for changes which you will need to consider (as text processors can get things wrong too). This is not cheating, it’s a useful way to learn from any mistakes you have made.

Another useful tool is to input your text into a translation tool. If the translation fits what you wanted to say you can infer that, although it may not be perfect, it communicates what you wanted to write. It is tempting to use a translation tool for composing the text in the first place. The problem is that you wouldn’t be engaging with the task of writing text, just checking the translation, and being able to start composing a text from scratch is a necessary skill in your language learning process.

More advanced learners can follow the process of expanding their writing by checking their use of vocabulary and looking at their sentences and how they link with one another, for example.

Activity _unit8.6.1 Activity 6 Describing a cartoon

Allow about 10 minutes

Look at the cartoon below and write a sentence in English to describe what is happening in each of the vignettes. Start with the sentence: ‘I saw Michael walking down the street’.

Figure _unit8.6.1 Figure 4 I saw Michael walking down the street …

Long description

Now think of how you might improve the vocabulary and add more detail, taking creative licence if you wish. Try to replace common words such as ‘said’ or ‘going’ for more advanced words. Think also about the linking of sentences.

Discussion

Here is an example of what you might have written, although your text is likely to be different.

I saw Michael walking down the street. I said hello. He didn’t hear me. He had his headphones on. I walked up to him and asked him where he was going. He said he was going to play with his friends.

Here is an example of some of the changes you could have made:

I saw Michael walking down the busy street, so I shouted hello. He didn’t hear me as he had his headphones on. I walked up to him, greeted him, and asked him where he was heading. Michael replied that he was on his way to play football with his friends from school.

Even if your target language level isn’t at the stage where you could undertake such an activity (see what we did there?), it is useful to think about how you can expand and improve your writing, however basic or advanced it may be.

There are a number of online sites and apps where you can post your writing and native or proficient speakers can give you feedback or offer corrections. While you will always have to take these with a pinch of salt, you might want to give them a try and decide for yourself if they work for you.

Some of the sites or apps you could try are:

You will also find that sites such as italki.com have a journal facility which you can ask others in the community to correct for you, and apps such as busuu.com include writing exercises that other members of the community can correct for you.

6 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Well done – you have reached the end of Week 7 and can now take the weekly quiz to test your understanding.

Week 7 practice quiz

Open the quiz in a new tab or window (by holding ctrl [or cmd on a Mac] when you click the link) and come back here when you are done.

7 Summary of Week 7

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

You will find that surrounding yourself with the language you are learning, whether it is listening or reading it, will help you enormously. Some sites and apps like the ones we’ve just looked at offer the support of a community of learners that can support you with writing and with speaking.

You should now be able to:

understand how to develop your reading and writing
understand the difference between skimming and scanning
find out ways to check your writing.

Next week, Olly and I will wrap up the course by showing you how to create a virtual immersion for your language learning.

You can now go to Week 8.

Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This week of the course is written by Olly Richards and Fernando Rosell-Aguilar. Olly has written Sections 1, 4 and 5, and Fernando Sections 2 and 3.

In this final week you are going to learn how to bring everything we’ve covered in the course together by creating a virtual immersion environment for yourself.

By the end of this week you will be able to:

think about how to get support from others
find out how to create a virtual immersion in your language
learn how to establish an effective language learning routine
learn how to stay motivated in the long term.

1 Getting support from others

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

In the following two videos, you’ll hear about my experiences of learning Brazilian Portuguese in the UK and learning Japanese in Japan.

Which of the two do you think was more conducive to learning the language, and why?

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Transcript

OLLY RICHARDS

You're about to hear two brief language-learning stories from my personal experience. Firstly, there is learning Brazilian Portuguese in the UK. And secondly, there is learning Japanese in Japan. Now on the face of it, which do you think was the easiest language-learning experience and why?

Firstly, learning Brazilian Portuguese. In the early 2000s, I began to learn Brazilian Portuguese. And over the course of six to 12 months, I worked hard, studied hard, and became fairly fluent in the language, even though I was living in London in the UK. Now looking back on that time, I had what I now understand to be the ideal language-learning environment.

You see, I was studying music at university, and I'd developed an interest in South American music. Part of my education involved going out to watch live Brazilian music. And I was lucky enough to make some good Brazilian friends as a result of that activity.

Now as I began to learn Portuguese, I was surrounded by the language. I had many friends who were willing to talk and to help me practise. And as time passed, this community became an unbeatable source of motivation, even during times when I fell out of a study habit. I continued to have opportunities to practise Portuguese and the real desire to do so with my new friends. In fact, it was much more than that. I was now expected to speak Portuguese.

So despite not living in a Portuguese-speaking country-- I was living in the UK-- I had the ideal environment to learn Portuguese. And that was what enabled me to learn to speak the language so quickly. Unfortunately, it hasn't always been that way since.

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OLLY RICHARDS

Next I'll talk about my experience learning Japanese. Some years after learning Brazilian Portuguese in London-- it was about seven or eight years afterwards-- I went to work in Japan. Now, at that point, I was confident about my prospects of learning Japanese. I had a good track record with languages. Beyond Portuguese, I'd already learned three other languages. And not only that, but I would also be living in Japan. So how could I possibly fail?

Well, as it turned out, learning Japanese was far harder and more frustrating than I possibly could have imagined. The difficulty was not in the language itself-- although Japanese is certainly a tough language-- the challenge, for me, was in the community around me, or lack of. Despite living in Japan and despite my experience with languages, learning foreign languages, I had huge problems with motivation. And I struggled with feelings of isolation, linguistically speaking. I found it hard to meet people who would speak to me in Japanese. I didn't know anyone who was interested in independent language learning. I had no real source of motivation or support to keep me on track with my learning.

Now, as a result of this, I struggled to get dedicated speaking practise in Japanese. I had no one to help guide me through language challenges from a fellow learner's perspective, recommend me books and resources and things like that. I would easily fall victim to motivational highs and lows, resulting in erratic progress in my learning.

Fortunately, I did eventually succeed with Japanese, but it was only through a series of chance encounters and friendships, and only after three long years of frustration, emotional highs and lows, and almost giving up a number of times.

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You’ve just heard about two distinct experiences:

Learning Brazilian Portuguese in the UK
Learning Japanese in Japan

One was fairly smooth, efficient, and a lot of fun. The other was turbulent, drawn out, and at times tortuous!

Chances are when I asked you to think which experience was easier, you will have suspected that learning Japanese in Japan, would have proven to be a big advantage for me.

In reality, it was quite different.

While it might be a mistake to read too much into these two particular experiences, it is nevertheless true that your environment has the power to make the difference between success and failure.

It doesn’t matter how good your teacher is, what country you live in, or how motivated you (think you) are.

Learning a language takes time. There are bumps along the road, and the more support you have from outside, the more likely you are to succeed.

2 Creating your community

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Luckily, we live in the age of the internet. The internet has facilitated the rise of endless groups and communities that can help you become more successful in your language learning.

However, it’s not all online. Through its ability to connect people, the internet has made it much easier for language enthusiasts to organise offline meetups, in the true spirit of language learning.

Wherever you live, whatever hours you work, however you like to interact with people, there are now no excuses not to surround yourself with other who can keep you motivated, answer your questions, and even get speaking practice in the language you’re learning.

2.1 Online communities

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Online language communities have sprung up in all corners of the internet. There are a number of different places such communities can be found:

Social networks: Wherever people hang out, communities form. Facebook is the world’s largest social network, and there are many Facebook groups for language learners. Reddit is another source of in-depth language information.Tip: If you are a Facebook user, head to Facebook, and search ‘learn [language]’ in the search bar. Select Groups from the options tab.
Forums: Forums are less popular than they once were. However, there are still many forums run by private individuals who are passionate about promoting language learning or specific languages. In forums, you will often find many of the most dedicated learners of specific languages, who will be able to answer your most challenging questions and point you in the way of good resources. Popular forums include UniLang and How to learn any language. Tip: Do an online search: ‘learn [language] + forum’.
Language company forums: Many of the larger online language companies have their own communities, which can be a great source of information and support. You may also find additional features, such as the ability for native speakers to correct or comment on things you write. Two of my favourites are iTalki and Lang-8.

2.2 Blogs and podcasts

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Whatever language you’re learning, whatever question you may have, whatever you happen to be struggling with, you’re not the first.

While forums and communities are designed to encourage conversation and interaction, blogs are where people share their own ideas with the world. From novice learners documenting their journey with a new language, to expert language learners sharing their best advice and language material, it’s fair to say you can find literally anything among the world’s language learning blogs.

What’s more, because blogs are often very personal places, if you find a particular blogger or personality you resonate with, he or she can become almost like a mentor to you. Podcasts fulfil the same purpose, with audio. If you prefer listening to reading, you may find more fulfilment from a podcast.

Tip: There are far too many blogs and podcasts to mention, but a simple online search including the word ‘blog’ or ‘podcast’ and ‘language learning’ or ‘learning language X’ , or a search in the iTunes store for podcasts, will yield literally thousands of results.

2.3 In-person meetups

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

There are events in towns and cities worldwide that bring people together with an interest in languages. Events vary in purpose and nature. Some language events are more cultural, while others exist with the specific purpose of speaking that language.

Attending in-person events allows you to connect with people face-to-face. Beyond the obvious benefits of language practice, meeting people with similar interests can be hugely motivating, and can lead to friendships and opportunities that make all the difference in your success with languages.

Tip: Meetup.com is the go-to place to find language events near you. However, in my experience, more niche or low-key events are not advertised on Meetup. Searching Facebook or Google for ‘language exchange’ or ‘meetup’, and including a language and location, can uncover hidden gems. For example, try searching: ‘Japanese language meetup London’.

2.4 Language conferences

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Language conferences are becoming more popular around the world, and are more friendly and accessible than you might think. In addition to more formal, academic conferences, there are many language-related events designed to promote language learning to the general public. Conferences are special because they generate an unbeatable and often long-lasting sense of camaraderie among attendees.

Personally speaking, I have met many good friends, and generated endless motivation to learn, from attending various conferences and I can highly recommend the experience.

Three examples of include the Polyglot Conference, the Polyglot Gathering, and the Montreal Language Festival.

Tip: Try searching for ‘language conference + city + year’ and see what comes up. Be prepared to dig around a little.

Activity _unit9.3.1 Activity 1 Identifying what support you need to stay motivated

Allow about 15 minutes

Do you feel you have enough support to help you stay motivated in your language learning? Is there anything that’s missing? Try to identify one thing that would help increase your commitment to the language, and explain it below.

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Activity _unit9.3.2 Activity 2 Search for communities

Allow about 30 minutes

Of the online resources listed above, which would be most beneficial right now? Spend up to 30 minutes or so searching for communities online or in your local area that might interest you.

Discussion

Your answer will of course depend on your language needs, your interests, and whether you prefer a face-to-face experience or one online. You might find that it is worth trying out several options first before you decide which one is right for you.

3 Creating a virtual immersion through your smartphone

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Do you own a smartphone? An OfCom report from 2015 declared that the UK is ‘a smartphone society’ and 66 per cent of adults owned one. This is not a statistic that refers to the UK alone: in the USA, smartphone ownership is estimated at 68 per cent and a similar picture appears in many other developed countries.

Figure _unit9.4.1 Figure 1 Using your phone to learn a language.

Long description

Smartphones are an excellent tool to immerse yourself in a language when you’re not living in an area where your target language is spoken. There are a number of tools that come with most smartphones that can aid the language learning process. These include:

language settings (these can be changed so that menus and options,voice-controlled personal assistants like Siri and OK Google and apps you have installed, will be in the target language)
web browsers, which offer access to language learning web resources
multilingual text input (dictionary, grammar and auto-correct features can be set to the target language)
speech-to-text tools, which can act as tools for testing pronunciation and to check spelling
communication tools such as email/messaging/telephone/video conferencing, which can provide opportunities for synchronous or asynchronous communication among learners, teacher-student, or with native speakers
the photo/video camera, which provide possibilities for creating content that can be the basis of or illustrate communicative exchanges
satellite navigators (if the language setting has been changed, directions will be provided in the target language).

In addition, app stores such as iTunes and Google Play carry a myriad of apps that can be installed in your smartphone. In Week 3 we presented a classification of language-learning resources that divided them into those that are designed for language learning, those that are designed primarily for native speakers and dictionaries/translators. Here we use the same classification to suggest some apps that you may find useful.

3.1 Apps designed for language learning

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

The most popular apps for language learning are DuoLingo and Busuu. Others include LingQ, Mango, Speakeasy and Babbel to name but some. These apps provide activities to develop several skills as well as vocabulary and grammar. They offer opportunities to spend a few minutes every day reinforcing what you may have learnt elsewhere or indeed teach you new vocabulary and grammar, with plenty of opportunities to practise and memorise what you’ve learned.

Other language-learning apps focus on separate skills. If you search within your app store, you will find apps that provide grammar exercises, reading comprehension activities, help with writing (particularly useful for languages that have a different type of script to your first language) or pronunciation, for example.

Flashcard apps such as Anki, Duolingo Tinycards and Quizzlet provide an excellent way to help you memorise vocabulary. If you search the card sets that other users have uploaded you will probably find sets for the language you’re learning, often organised by level or topic. Remember that, as Tita explained in Week 6, you can also make your own cards, and that this will help you not only focus on the vocabulary that you find useful, but also making the cards will help you encode the vocabulary into your long-term memory.

3.2 Apps designed primarily for native speakers which language learners can find useful

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

News apps from the areas where your target language is spoken offer texts, audio and video resources to practise. In addition, they will help you develop your knowledge of the politics, history, and culture of those areas.

Podcast apps will offer you the possibility of listening to (mostly) audio resources on all sorts of topics, and the YouTube and Vimeo apps will provide an enormous variety of video content. Similarly, apps that provide reading material, such as Kindle, will offer access to reading material from literature classics to modern pieces. You can also buy or rent music and films, often with subtitles in the target language at least.

There are also apps available that offer virtual visits to places such as museums. You can explore their collections, view art pieces and read about them. Other useful apps for the language learner include, maps and geography (Geomaster) and geolocated information (Aurasma, Wikitude). Games can also be played in the target language (traditional games such as Scrabble or Hangman, or more current ones like Clash of Clans).

3.3 Dictionary and translation apps

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Dictionary apps can often be integrated into other apps, such as e-book readers, so that words can be looked up directly within the app. Some dictionary and phrasebook apps also include pronunciation examples. These apps are also very useful on their own for looking up words when you need them. WordReference is a very useful app that will provide translations for words in many languages. Other apps (iTranslate, Google Translate) offer translation tools.

Activity _unit9.4.1 Activity 3 Find and install some apps on your smartphone

Allow about 45 minutes

Go to the app store within your smartphone and look for one app in each of the categories listed above. The descriptions in the app store and reviews from other users will help you decide which ones would be suitable for your level. Download a free app for language learning, one for native speakers, and a dictionary or translation app. Spend 10 minutes trying each of the apps and think about how you may be able to use them, where and when. The fact that many of these apps provide content that can be consumed in a few minutes make them very useful for short bursts of language practise during breaks from other activity or when travelling in public transport, for instance.

Box _unit9.4.1 Laura says:

I think it is also worth checking if one of the apps or games you already use is can be changed into your target language.

Figure _unit9.4.2 Figure 2 Immerse yourself!

Long description

Although apps can provide an excellent opportunity to immerse yourself in the language, they can also be a distraction. Think carefully about how much time you want to spend on the types of activity they offer and make sure that they aren’t stopping you from dedicating your time to other language learning activities that might be more useful to you at that particular stage in your language learning. Also, apps in your own language may prevent you from immersing yourself in the language when you visit an area where your target language is spoken. Many English students, for example, use apps that provide access to TV content in their own language while they’re abroad, or read the news from home. While they’re doing that, they aren’t watching TV in the language they’re learning.

4 Establishing an effective language learning routine

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

We noted earlier on in the course that language-learning ‘know-how’ is only part of the battle. A small part, in fact. Knowing and doing are not the same thing and in my experience working with thousands of language learners around the world, there is one factor above all else that determines success in learning a language: the ability to learn consistently over time.

Activity _unit9.5.1 Activity 4 Reflecting on past achievements

Allow about 15 minutes

Think about a time in your life when you achieved something impressive. For example, finishing a big project at work, gaining a diploma or a degree or passing an important exam. How did you arrange your routine to make that happen? Do you learn your new language with the same attitude or determination?

The aim of this section is very simple: to impress on you the importance of working at your new language every day and to keep it up over time.

This much is straightforward and the importance of this does not need much explaining. The reality, however, is that our lives are complex, busy and our priorities change over time. It is a rare case that someone can work at their language for months (or years) on end without interruption, breaks or otherwise.

When we talk about routine in language learning, then, we need to anticipate such disruptions.

Here’s a typical scenario:

John starts learning French.
He is excited and devises a grand plan for how he will learn.
He is determined to work hard at it and become fluent in French.
His plan gets off to a good start, but becomes unsustainable amid a busy work and family life.
John ‘falls off the horse’ and stops studying for a couple of weeks.
The prospect of returning to his overly-ambitious study plan is scary for John.
Instead, he waits until ‘things calm down at work’.
Months pass and John has done little or no study.

Progress in a foreign language does not come from fits and starts. It comes from systematically working at it over time. Therefore, understanding how you can learn a language in a sustainable way and avoid the crash and burn scenario described above, is, I have come to understand, the single biggest consideration for independent language learners.

I will now take you through a series of exercises that will help you determine how you will most likely be successful in your language learning. The main aim is to discover how language learning can fit around your lifestyle, not how we can bend your lifestyle to create time for language learning.

Because the secret to success is consistency and sustainability, the more realistic you can be about your available time, the more likely you will be able to keep it up over the long-term.

Activity _unit9.5.2 Activity 5 Creating a study schedule

Allow about an hour

Take a blank piece of paper and divide it into seven columns – one for each day of the week. Considering your family, work, and other commitments, mark on the paper all parts of the week where you could potentially create uninterrupted time for language study. (Don’t forget to sleep!)

For example:

Weekdays: 7–8 am.
Tuesdays and Thursdays: 8.30–10 pm.
Weekends: 9–10 am., 3–5 pm.

Next, think about your dead time. This is time where you can’t usefully do anything that requires focus. For example: commuting, walking to work, shopping, waiting for your children while they are at cubs, gym club or ballet class. Make a note on the paper of all dead time that occurs on a regular basis during your week.

Once you have identified all the points in your week where you have a good opportunity to learn, the next step is to put together a study schedule.

Here is how I suggest you decide on a routine:

Identify a daily time for focused language study (30–60 minutes). During this period, you need to bring your full attention to the task of studying. Therefore, you need a quiet space where you can concentrate. This should be something you aim to do daily, although you can take the weekend off.
Decide which points in your day are ‘dead time’ (15–30 minutes). Devote a least one daily period of ‘dead time’ to spend with your target language, such as your morning commute. Treat this time as an opportunity for exposure to the language, rather than focused study. You might listen to podcasts, or review the dialogues from your textbook, for example.
Schedule opportunities to speak (30–60 minutes). Unless you live in a foreign language environment, you probably do not get many opportunities to speak your target language. Therefore, you should schedule this into your week to ensure it happens. Whether you take lessons online, or have coffee with a language partner, it is helpful to have at least 2–3 speaking sessions per week in order to make progress.

Activity _unit9.5.3 Activity 6 Comparing Olly’s study routine to yours

Allow about 30 minutes

Watch this video which outlines my study routine in detail. Compare this routine to yours. Can you see any opportunities to improve your plan? Is there anything you hadn’t considered?

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Transcript

OLLY RICHARDS

In this video, what I'm going to do is walk you through my own personal language-learning routines so that you can see what I do to learn languages. Not because I want you to copy what I do. In fact, I'm going to specifically ask you not to copy what I do. But so that we can look at the different elements that make up the routine, because within there somewhere are going to be, hopefully, some opportunities or inspiration that you can take to improve or refine your own language-learning routine.

So what I like to do is wake up early in the morning. It doesn't matter what time. But I tend to wake up early before the rest of the world is awake so that I can spend 45 minutes to an hour working on my languages. Now, this is what I call my core study time. This is quite focused study. I'm not watching TV or listening whilst I'm in the kitchen or anything like that. I'm sat down at my desk actually studying.

Next, when I leave the house, I usually have a 20- to 30-minute commute. Sometimes I take the train. Sometimes I walk. And I use that time to listen to audio in the language that I'm learning.

Now, often at lunchtime, when I take a break, what I will do is have a language lesson over Skype. So in my case, I'm learning Cantonese right now. I'll take a lesson with my teacher in Hong Kong for about 30 minutes to 45 minutes. So I'll be speaking the language during that time.

Now, in the afternoon or in the evening I'll be going back home. So I'll have a bit more time there to do my listening. And then in the evening, I like to do two things. First of all, I like to spend a little bit of time, even if it's just 10, 15 minutes, to review the stuff that I've done throughout the day-- not study anything new, but just review it.

And then lastly, in the evening, what I try to do-- I don't always do it. But much of the time, rather than watching TV or listening to podcasts, or whatever it may be, in English, I'll actually do that activity in the language that I'm learning. So I'm getting a bit of exposure there.

OK, so that's the routine. Let me just walk through it one more time quickly. So in the morning-- first thing in the morning-- I'm studying in an intensive way for about 45 minutes to an hour. I then listen to audio in my breaks during the day, when I'm commuting or walking. At lunch time, two or three times a week, I'll have a 30- to 45-minute Skype lesson. In the evening, I'll do a quick review of what I've done during that day. And then later on, I'll watch TV or something like that in the language that I'm learning.

Now, what I'd like to do now is go through each of those to tell you the reason behind what I do and why it's effective. Remember, you should not be listening to this thinking, I have to do everything in the same order. You could flip the day on its head and that's absolutely fine. What we're interested in here is, what are the different elements to this day? Because they're what I've found most effective, and also what I've observed in other friends of mine who learn languages very well, what I've observed that they do and that is effective.

So the reason that I study first thing in the morning-- for about 45 minutes to an hour-- is because I find that if nothing else happens for the rest of the day, that's the only thing that I do, then the day is already a success. There are all kinds of things we can do when we're learning a language. We can watch TV, listen to podcasts, go on YouTube. But really, if you want to make progress, you have to have some time that is focused. You've got to have some time when you're pushing yourself, when you're studying at the best of your ability without being distracted.

And so for me, you need to find this daily time. It doesn't have to be every day-- four or five days a week at least. But this daily time, where you can really give your best to the language and spend 45 minutes to an hour really focusing on whatever that may be for you-- whether it's going through your textbook, memorising grammar or vocabulary-- whatever that means for you, you've got that dedicated time. So I do that early in the morning because I like to get it out of the way. I don't get distracted. And the day is already won by that point.

Now, almost everybody has this dead time, as it's called, during their commute, whether you walk to work or cycle. And this is a brilliant time to exploit for language learning. Now, I usually do audio in that time, because often I'm walking. But you might be on the train. In which case, you might like to-- I don't know, read a book, or watch videos, or something like that. The point is that you're not just staring out the window and just daydreaming. You're actually using that dead time to spend with the language that you're learning. And this increases the amount of exposure you've got to the language overall.

Now, many people actually try to study on their commute. I don't generally recommend this, because you can be very distracted. And you can probably, in most cases, not focus in-depth enough to get a lot out of it. So I like to use that commuting time to just get more exposure to the language.

Now, at lunchtime I have a short lesson. Again, you don't have to do this at lunchtime. But what I find is that when I'm learning a language, I need to have at least two or three sessions a week when I'm speaking to a native speaker or a teacher. I like to do it on Skype, because it's just really convenient. I can schedule a time with my teacher in Hong Kong, who's eight hours ahead of me. And it fits perfectly into my schedule. You can do it after work or at the weekend. But I like to aim for at least two to three sessions a week, because that regularity and frequency of speaking is what helps me improve my speaking skills.

Now, at the end of the day-- I mentioned this review time. Now, why is this important? It's important because if every day all you're doing is studying new information, but you're not going back to review things that you've already learned, you're missing a huge opportunity. You might learn new things by studying new things. But the way that you really consolidate and remember that information is by actually reviewing it and going back to look at it a second time. So what I find is that just by taking 10, 15 minutes at the end of the day to look back over what I've studied, that really helps to strengthen the information, consolidate it in my mind. And I'm much more likely to remember it afterwards.

Now, at the end of the day-- this is what I actually call downtime. So this is time where I am not really doing anything. I'm too tired to study. But you can actually still use this for language learning. And so what I recommend you do in this time is things that you actually enjoy. If you like reading books in your mother tongue, well, try reading books in the language that you're learning. If you like watching TV do that, but do it in the language that you're learning.

Again, by taking advantage of your dead time and your downtime throughout the day, what you're doing is not only building a relationship-- a positive relationship with the language by consuming interesting material, but you're just increasing the overall exposure. And by doing this, you can easily add an extra hour per day of time just spent listening to and enjoying the language. And over time, that is what really adds up. Over the course of a month or a year, you can spend hundreds of extra hours with the language.

So this is my routine. Again, I don't want you to go out there and copy it. But I'd like you to just think through the different elements to it. Think about what parts of what I talk about you maybe are not doing in your own routine. And maybe you could take one or two parts of that, experiment with it, and see whether that helps you in your learning.

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Earlier, I emphasised the importance of creating a study routine that is realistic, so you can keep it up over the long-term. With that said, once you have identified a learning routine that you will follow, it is important that you commit to it. This means scheduling study time throughout your week. I like to go as far as writing it in my calendar each week, so that I have an appointment with myself.

Of course, not everyone will be able to – or want to start learning at 5 am. This routine suits me, because I am an early riser, and 5 am is a quiet time before my daughter wakes up. What I want you to take away from my experience is that the responsibility for turning up and studying your language each week will ultimately rest with you. Providing you have made realistic choices, though, you will have created a good routine that will fits nicely around your lifestyle, and will lead to success in your language learning.

Box _unit9.5.1 Laura says:

As a shift-worker who is frequently on call and whose schedule can get rather disrupted by emergencies at work, I have never been able to have the sort of structured routine Olly recommends. I have to be more flexible in my approach, but I still make a point of studying regularly. For instance, I am not always able to study at the time of day when I am most ‘fresh’ or alert, because that is when I have to be at work, so I sometimes have to study in the evening rather than the morning. I usually do my best work at the weekend, so that is when I aim to work on the most difficult parts (for me) and therefore I allow myself to work on the easier parts when the only time I have free in the week is in the evenings.

Activity _unit9.5.4 Activity 7 Schedule your study plan into your diary or calendar

Allow about 10 minutes

Grab your diary, and write in your new language study schedule for the next week. The point here is not to be perfect – your schedule will undoubtedly change over time. However, by making an informed plan for learning, and committing to it, you vastly increase your chances of following through.

5 Staying motivated over the long-term

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Earlier in this session, you heard about my experiences learning two different languages, and how my surroundings impacted on my results. Your surroundings, or learning environment, are just one of many factors that impact on your motivation. Without motivation to learn, you stand very little chance of succeeding. On the other hand, if you maintain your motivation, you can learn quickly.

As this course draws to a close, I would like to offer some thoughts on staying motivated in your language learning. Having passed through every motivational peak and trough imaginable, I have learnt a few tricks along the way, which will hopefully prove useful to you. This section might be useful for you to bookmark and return to in the future, perhaps at a time when motivation becomes a concern.

Tip 1 Ensure you have support from others and design a study routine

When it comes to the grander task of staying motivated, you will find that these two factors carry much of the weight. With others around you who share a passion for languages, you will be inspired. With a solid study routine, you will discover that progress begets progress. Before you look elsewhere for you motivational ‘fix’, ensure you have the basics in place.

Tip 2 Base your learning on things you enjoy

As a beginner, you do not have a lot of choice when it comes to study material; you will be confined mostly to textbooks. However, as you become more proficient, you will start to be able to understand material intended for native speakers – books, blogs, films, podcasts, etc. – which gives you a lot more choice over what to study with. When choosing study material, try to pick things that are enjoyable for you, as this will prove more motivating than educational material. A good question to ask yourself is: ‘What do I read/listen to in my mother tongue?’ Then try to find something similar in your target language.

Tip 3 Get out of your comfort zone

As learning a new language does take time, you will inevitably find yourself settling into certain routines; attending class, reading textbooks, practising with your language partner. As we have already noted, routines are essential to help you learn. However, you also need new stimuli to keep learning and take your skills up a level. When you feel like you are stuck on a plateau, do something to yank yourself out of your comfort zone. Speak with someone new, travel to the country, try reading a whole book. In general, what I call ‘grand gestures’ help to open up new avenues for improving your language skills.

Tip 4 Set audacious language goals

Another way to push yourself, and defy your own expectations, is to set goals in your language learning that might, at first, appear too ambitious. However, you never know what you are capable of until you try, and it is often in the trying that you discover new possibilities. Audacious language goals should align with your personal or professional interests. Here are some ideas that have occurred to me in the past: give a speech at a friend’s wedding; write an article for a blog; study an online course to learn a new skill; start a YouTube channel and upload weekly videos. Of course, all in your target language!

Tip 5 Do not learn in a vacuum

The purpose of learning a new language is not to study it, but to actually use it. Nevertheless, it is common for language learners to never truly shake off the identity of being a student. Consequently, they might keep learning and learning, until such time as they are ‘fluent’ or ‘ready’ – a feeling that may never come. If you have been learning your target language for a while, and are very much still in study mode, consider whether it is time for you make the language a more complete part of your life. Rather than study your target language in a vacuum, use it for real purposes. Make friends, read the news, do online searches, listen to music, read books… in other words, lead your daily life using the language. It may be difficult at first, but there is no surer way to stay motivated and give your new language deeper meaning.

Activity _unit9.6.1 Activity 8 Reflect on how you can implement the tips

Allow about 30 minutes

Which of these five tips could you integrate into your learning moving forward? How will you go about it? Write a short paragraph where you try to be as concrete as possible.

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Discussion

Your answer will of course be personal, but think of your language learning goals and the resources, activities and communities you have come across in this course. And remember that in order to be a successful language learner, you might have to try doing things that are beyond your comfort zone!

6 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Congratulations on getting to the end of the course successfully.

Now it’s time to complete the Week 8 badged quiz. It is similar to the badged quiz that you took after Week 4, with 15 questions in total.

Week 8 compulsory badge quiz

Open the quiz in a new tab or window (by holding ctrl [or cmd on a Mac] when you click the link) and come back here when you are done.

7 Summary of Week 8

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Well done – you have reached the end of the final week!

You should now be able to:

think about how to get support from others
find out how to create a virtual immersion in your language
learn how to establish an effective language learning routine
learn how to stay motivated in the long term.

8 End-of-course summary

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Over the last eight weeks you have covered a range of topics. You should now feel able to:

understand your motivations for learning a language, the barriers you may face and the strategies to overcome those barriers
set yourself SMART language-learning goals and review them regularly
understand what is involved in learning a language
use strategies for developing your listening, speaking, reading and writing skills
understand how to learn vocabulary
evaluate language-learning resources
create a ‘virtual language immersion’
create a language-learning routine that works for you
learn to keep your motivation in the long term.

As you come to the end of this course, we hope you have enjoyed it and learned some strategies to make your language learning more effective, relevant and fun. Probably the most important piece of advice the three of us would give you is that the most important thing about learning a language is to have a routine and to be consistent over time.

As we said at the start of the course, language learning is a marathon, not a sprint. Show up every day, use the strategies and resources we have introduced you to, seek other learners to practice with and support you on your journey, and you will succeed!

Further resources on OpenLearn

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

If you’ve enjoyed this course, you can find more free resources and courses on OpenLearn.

There are a wealth of free language courses. Also, why not brush up your study skills?

Where next?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Why not find out more about studying and gaining qualifications at The Open University? Visit the OU prospectus for more information. You might be particularly interested in our undergraduate degrees in Languages.

References

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

Week 1

Hadfield, J. and Dörnyei, Z. (2013) Motivating Learning, Routledge, London and New York.

Language Policy Unit, Council of Europe (2002) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching and Assessment [Online], Strasbourg. Available at https://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/source/framework_en.pdf (Accessed 7 June 2018).

LeVan, A.J. (2009) ‘Seeing is believing: the power of visualisation’, Psychology Today [Online]. Available at https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/flourish/200912/seeing-is-believing-the-power-visualization (Accessed 7 June 2018).

MindTools (n.d.) ‘Personal goal setting: planning to live your life your way’, MindTools [Online]. Available at https://www.mindtools.com/page6.html (Accessed 7 June 2018).

Week 2

DeKeyser, R.M. (ed.) (2007) Practice in a Second Language: Perspectives from Applied Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology, New York, Cambridge University Press.

Little, D. and Ushioda, E. (1998) ‘Designing, implementing and evaluating a project in tandem language learning via e-mail’, ReCALL, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 95–101.

Schmidt, R. (1990) ‘The role of consciousness in second language learning’, Applied Linguistics, vol. 11, pp. 129–58.

Week 3

Rosell-Aguilar, F. (2017) ‘State of the app: a taxonomy and framework for evaluating language learning mobile applications’, CALICO Journal, vol. 34, no. 2.

Week 6

Goulden, R., Nation, P. and Read, J. (1990) ‘How large can a receptive vocabulary be?’, Applied Linguistics, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 341–63.

Lewis, B. (2016) Language Hacking: A Conversation Course for Beginners – German, Teach Yourself, London, Hodder and Stoughton.

Nation, P. (2006) ‘How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening?’, Canadian Modern Language Review, vol. 63, no. 1, pp. 59–82.

Qian, D. (1999) ‘Assessing the roles of depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension’, Canadian Modern Language Review, vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 282–308.

Schmitt, N. and Schmitt, D. (2014) ‘A reassessment of frequency and vocabulary size in L2 vocabulary teaching’, Language Teaching, vol 47, no. 4, pp. 484–503.

Schraw, G. and McCrudden, M. T. (2009) ‘Information processing theory’ in Anderman, E.M. and Anderman, L.H. (eds) Psychology of Classroom Learning: An Encyclopedia, Detroit, Macmillan Reference USA, pp. 493–7.

Wyner, G. (2014) Fluent Forever: How to Learn any Language Fast and Never Forget it, Harmony, New York.

Zechmeister, E. B., Chronis, A. M., Cull, W. L., D’Anna, C. A. and Healy, N. A. (1995) ‘Growth of a functionally important lexicon’, Journal of Literacy Research, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 201–12.

Acknowledgements

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 08:07:55 GMT

This free course was written by Tita Beaven, Fernando Rosell-Aguilar and Olly Richards.

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:

Intoduction Images

Course image: © The Open University and its licensors: including: busuu https://www.busuu.com/; Twitter https://about.twitter.com/; Duolingo https://www.duolingo.com/; iTalki https://www.italki.com/. Created by Bryan Mathers http://bryanmmathers.com

Images of authors: courtesy of Tita Beaven, Olly Richards and Fernando Rosell-Aguilar.

Week 1

Text

9. Extract from Murdoch, A., ‘How to set SMART goals for language learning’ at http://www.5minutelanguage.com/ how-to-set-smart-goals-for-language-learning/. Images: first: public domain; second: © Steven Depolo in Flickr https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by/ 2.0/.

Images

Figure 5: adapted from: Hadfield, J. Dornyei, Z.(2013) Motivating Learning, Routledge, imprint of Taylor & Francis Ltd.

Audio-visual

Activity 1 audio: Visualising the future: © The Open University. Narration adapted from Hadfield, J. Dornyei, Z. (2013) pp. 35–7, Motivating Learning, Routledge, imprint of Taylor & Francis Ltd.

Tables

Table 2: from COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK OF REFERENCE FOR LANGUAGES: LEARNING, TEACHING, ASSESSMENT (p. 24, Table 1: Common Reference Levels: global scale), Language Policy Unit, Strasbourg www.coe.int/lang-CEFR.

Week 2

Text

Activity 3: Extract from ‘Short Guide to Japan Etiquette’ https://www.etiquettescholar.com/ dining_etiquette/ table-etiquette/ pacific_dinner_etiquette/ japanese.html, etiquette Scholar

Images

Week 4

Images

Figure 4: all Creative Commons Zero https://creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/ zero/ 1.0/ top, left to right: Startup Stock Photos, Caio https://www.pexels.com; Startup Stock Photos. Second left to right: Pixabay; rawpixel.com; Marc Mueller; rawpixel.com. Third left to right: iPrice Group; Pixabay; Pixabay; Tirachard Kumtanom. Bottom left to right: Pixabay; https://www.pexels.com; rawpixel; Kaboompics/Karolina.

Week 5

Images

Week 6

Tables

Table 1: adapted from: Schmitt, N. and Schmitt, D. (2014) ‘A reassessment of frequency and vocabulary size in L2 vocabulary teaching’, (adapted from Nation, 2006, p. 64) Language Teaching, vol 47, no. 4, pp. 484–503.

Images

Audio-visual

6.5 Video: Osmosis /open.osmosis.org https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-sa/ 4.0/ deed.en

Week 7

Images

Figure 2: photograph of book cover Le Schtroumpfeur De Bijoux : https://pixabay.com/ en/ reading-comic-album-book-1394124/

Week 8

Images

Figure 1: © The Open University and its licensors: including busuu https://www.busuu.com/; Twitter https://about.twitter.com/; Duolingo https://www.duolingo.com/; iTalki https://www.italki.com/. Created by Bryan Mathers http://bryanmmathers.com.

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