Newsletter, May 2010

 

Learning, now, what could come more naturally?

Do our children make any special efforts to learn their mother tongue? Certainly not! It comes naturally to them, through copying, repetition, trial and error and, slowly but surely, all the pieces of the jigsaw fall into place.

Did you ever take a 3-year old on your lap, grammar book in hand, and explained to him how he should use the past tense or why he should use “yes, it is” or “no, it isn’t” rather than “yes” or “no” when answering a tag question? No, of course, you didn’t. Yet, instinctively, by copying you, children learn these structures.

As they get older and go to school, they learn to read, write and are taught all the grammatical rules that underpin the language, but by that time, they have long learned the art of talking from their parents. Of course, they will become even more eloquent as the school years go by.

And is that any different in adults? Yes you would say, because adults need to analyze, to be able to understand everything properly, to know everything perfectly. But these filters and beliefs are in fact counter-productive, they slow down the pace at which we learn and stem from a fear that we won’t be able to master something we find rather difficult . A legitimate attitude, you could say.

Unfortunately, when it comes to learning another language, this controlling behaviour doesn’t work. Most of us possibly spent 700 to 800 hours learning a second language in school, all too often, with very mixed results at the end of our school careers. Why is that? Well, quite simply, because the natural learning process was not catered for. Could you even count the number of word lists you were given to learn only to forget them again as soon as you had sat your test? Surely, you can’t honestly believe that the little German kids wouldn’t be able to talk if they hadn’t learned their declension tables first?

Highly analytical adults will require loads of reference points, which is exactly what the trainer will give them, simply to reassure them. But to become proficient in another language, we need to acquire some automatisms first, which means letting go a little and taking the odd risk.

Adults will therefore learn far more quickly when they can practise the target language intuitively and spontaneously early on in the learning process as this allows them to acquire new structures or a new vocabulary. The more emotionally involved a person is, the faster he will learn.

Once the automatisms have been acquired, it’s time to move on to the analytical stage, where course participants are given the opportunity to analyze the rules and how they are applied and to reconstruct structures. In other words, the trainer doesn’t simply write the whole rule out on the blackboard, but course participants are given a chance to “rediscover” the rule, together with the trainer.

After that, the time will be ripe to move on to the summary stage where course participants can spontaneously apply what they have learned (role-plays).
There is no doubt that adults who operate in a highly structured manner will have to conquer their fear of making mistakes while talking, while people who love to talk will have to approach the structuring stage in a rather more systematic fashion as they haven’t attained the required proficiency levels yet. But learning often goes accompanied with moving out of our comfort zone!

And the icing on the cake is of course: the joy of learning!
The Call International pedagogy has been a resounding success for 23 years now and has is roots in neuroscience, for one.

 

2. What’s new at Call International?

Our website has undergone a complete revamp. Why not take a look for yourself at www.callinter.com? It now also features our “Brain Library” which tells you everything about the way our brain works and the ways we learn. Access couldn’t be easier, simply click on the link “Language Brain Library” on the left-hand side at the bottom of our home page.

 

 

 

Fancy learning another language. Becoming more proficient?

Call International has 4 centres waiting to welcome you:

  • Brussels
  • Waterloo
  • Tournai
  • Lille

Special offer:

Avail of a 25-euro reduction when you register for a group immersion course between 26 April and 14 May (course to be followed before 31 August 2010) and pay only 375 euro instead of 400 euro (400 euro instead of 425 euro in Waterloo, sandwiches included). This special offer cannot be used in combination with any other reductions.

 

 

By the way:

Whatever language you’re trying to make your own, adopt the “Call Learning Attitude”: be curious about the language and the culture, try to read books and listen to music in that language, watch some programmes on television or over the Internet, tune your ears to the sound of the target language, or read the information on your cereal box in the morning, you will learn all the faster for it.

 

Translations, training for trainers, …

Call International also provides:

Calendar of intercompany communication-skills training courses

 

 

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