Guest Post: Can robots be language coaches?

I wrote a guest post over on the Learner Coaching ELT blog:

I read From English Teacher to Learner Coach only recently. I received a glowing recommendation from a fellow language coach, Lýdia Machová, and the more I read, the more enthusiastic I became. The methods described in the book mesh pretty well with those I developed through my own studies of various languages. This was an approach suited not only to those learning English, but rather something that could (and should!) be adopted by the thousands of native English-speakers who struggle to learn a second language each year.

Indeed, the general message of the book – one I interpreted as ‘we don’t have to wait to be taught; we can learn for ourselves’ – is something that I believe has important implications for how we go about education in the coming decades. (I was especially pleased to learn a new word – heutagogy – for this somewhat hard-to-define practice of self-education). Seth Godin has written about the demise of the system of factory education and others are tackling this from various angles.

Read more...

Language Learner's Journal: Independent Study

[This is a continuation of Taylor's blog series where she details some of the week-in-week-out lessons that she learns through her Arabic studies and coaching work together with me. For other posts in the series, click here.]

For some Arabic students (myself, certainly), when we first start to learn about the diglossia in Arabic, we feel somewhat cheated, like, "I signed up to learn a language, and now you're telling me that I need to learn some second, shadow language if I'm actually to use it?" It's like the rug is pulled out from beneath our feet, like we'd be studying Shakespeare and are frustrated to find that real people actually speak Singlish. Colleagues who work in journalism/research repeatedly encouraged me to study dialect, which led me to leave my last fusha course for an ammiya one at Sijal. 

Happily, it doesn't feel nearly so intimidating as I once imagined when I turned on some ammiya YouTube videos and despaired that a year in MSA classes seemed to do me no good. Indeed, the listening comprehension and vocabulary I learned at Qasid feels like a swiss army knife I now use to pick a new lock. Also, another useful tool from my MSA classes – an extreme comfort with not understanding many of the words I'm hearing but still staying engaged and hanging on for the ones I do.

On a related note, Alex has encouraged me to keep up independent reading even as I'm in a course that largely focuses on speaking and listening. That's another skill that I appreciate from my time at Qasid – the willingness to dive into a text, even when many of the words are ones I don't recognize, and look for the keys that will give me some clue about it. I'm a pen-and-paper learner, so I've been printing out media articles and reading them through twice, no dictionary, then underlining words I don't know and making my best guess at what they mean. 

For example, this week I read one in the Huffington Post about scientists questioning whether we need to drink eight cups of water a day. The piece mentioned drinking a sufficient amount of water so that "البول" is "واضح اللون أو خفيف الصفرة." I didn't know that first word, but I was delighted to know exactly what it was as soon as I read the rest of the sentence. I'm convinced that process of discovery is a powerful learning tool, more so than having translations readily at hand to answer our doubts as soon as we have them. 

Also, having a bit more free time, I've been able to take advantage of events going on around me to get extra-classroom contact with the language. I sat in on a Sunday morning lecture from an Al Jazeera filmmaker who produced an extraordinary documentary, "The Boy Who Started the Syrian War." His discussion afterwards was well above my level, and I only got the outlines of what he was saying, which is still far more than I would have gotten just three months ago when I came to Amman. It was still, of course, a very useful experience. For example, he used the word نظام always when I was expecting him to say حكومة, which led me to ask and confirm with my teacher that it seems to be used like we say "regime" in English, or, a disdainful/pejorative word for a government. 

Being someone who spends plenty of time in the kitchen (because organic vegetarian food doesn't make itself, at least not anywhere walking distance from me =) I'm a big podcast fan. Alex's on Jordanian ammiya is great listening for me at my current level – when I tried this just a few months ago, it was beyond my grasp. I also like the BBC Arabic service and DW's current events discussion panel. 

And repeating what I wrote in my last post – an upcoming post will be some reflections on accents and errors and embarrassment and the ways we as language learners judge ourselves (and others? I hope not. I indeed only judge myself when it comes to foreign language ability, which may point to, as Alex says, how much language is a confidence game). I'm on a scale between sheepish and chatterbox depending on what situation I'm in, and I've been chewing over what it is about a given situation that makes me feel either of those ways.

[To learn more about coaching with Alex, click here. To learn more about 'Master Arabic', a guide for intermediate-level Arabic students, click here.]

How to learn a language without a teacher

A key belief at the foundation of my language coaching work has always been that teachers aren't needed to learn a language. Younger people and students of mine seem to understand this far more readily than people who grew up in a culture where 'learning a language' meant taking a course or enrolling with a teacher.

I was very pleased, therefore, when I discovered that someone else had given a talk on this topic at last year's Polyglot Gathering. Lýdia Machová offers 'Language Mentoring', which is essentially the same idea as the language coaching that I do. I found the talk fascinating as a fellow practitioner, but I think there's lots of wisdom there for anyone seeking to study languages outside the classroom. Indeed, the whole point of the talk is sort of that 'outside the classroom' is in fact the place where language learning should mainly be taking place.

Some people, she explains, want to be taught a language, but what she tries to do in her work is show them how to learn. It may sound like a semantic difference to most, but it is crucially important.

Nobody can teach you a language. You have to learn it yourself. Wishing otherwise is to avoid the fact that real work has to happen when you're learning a language. This is a hard lesson for many to hear, but it is certainly something I stress to all new students I work with: you have to do the work.

Check out the rest of her talk for more on this solid approach to self-study and why working with a coach can help boost your language-learning efforts.

[For more information on working with me to learn a language, visit languagecoach.io/coaching. If you're learning Arabic, check out my new book, Master Arabic.]

Language Learner's Journal: Adjustments at the Deep End

[This is a continuation of Taylor's blog series where she details some of the week-in-week-out lessons that she learns through her Arabic studies and coaching work together with me. For other posts in the series, click here.]

I'd be lying if I said this wasn't a hard week for me. Our homework load is heavy at Qasid, and it means most days I go straight from class to work to homework. On a big picture level, I'm trying to keep my head above water by maintaining perspective that studying is a privilege and it's not every adult who has the flexibility (thanks to the nature of freelance journalism and independent contracting) to go back to school.

On a more detail-oriented level, a few strategies are making me feel more orderly about my studies. One of my recurring issues that that I often feel so deep into tedious grammar that getting homework done is less about comprehending the subject and more like squirming like sightless creepy-crawly that by trial and error finally happens upon ground level. That doesn't do me much good, so when I see that feeling coming on, I try to stop and find a resource, like my grammar book to remember some basics, like what's the actual meaning of the pronouns I'm using or what again are the meanings associated with each verb wazin. If I'm going to take an hour to write out verb charts, I can take an extra ten minutes to make sure I understand, even if it's a fleeting understanding, each line I'm writing.

Some of Alex's tips have helped me make more of the time I have in the classroom and independent study:

• Sped up my anki card-making by using the cloze template and by challenging myself to have fewer clues (i.e., not searching for pictures or a perfect simple sentence with a new word, but mostly using the Al Kitaab and Qasid's Ammiya course's sample sentences and audio). This has meant a lot -- it means I maintain a lot of my Al Kitaab and Ammiya vocabulary from my supplementary course in my day-to-day reviews. Also, I notice many of my classmates using Quizlet, and it is indeed tempting when we are short on time. Al-Kitaab vocabularly has already been uploaded many times over so I could download a premade deck, but usually it's just in translation (i.e., an Arabic-to-English flashcard with a single word on each side). Making my own Anki cards certainly takes time, but I get a lot of reading and listening done in the process.
• (A note on Al Kitaab: A high point for me is continually realizing that the textbook is well designed and routinely feeding back to me vocabulary I've already seen. I study each chapter's new vocabulary by looking through their sample sentences in the answer key / read aloud in the audio CD; even if I think I don't understand a sentence at first glance, about three-fourths of the time I am able to figure it out if I read it again or listen to their slow, deliberate pronunciations. Gabriel Wyner talks about the power of the "ah-ha!" moment in language learning, or, straining a bit without any outside help from a translator and finally being able to call up the meaning to a word to which you've been exposed. It may sound simple, but it means in practice: Don't run to a dictionary each time I don't understand a sentence. And it's been key to how I've been able to keep recognising a good bit of our new vocabulary which would otherwise be like pouring sand into a sieve, given the volume of work we do.)
• When I have trouble speaking in class, "plan spontaneity." My teacher starts each class by asking each individual student how their days have gone and what they have done; I'm using that as an opportunity to come up with any sentence slightly more interesting than, "I did homework" and try to put a new verb into practice. Also, when time permits, I glance ahead to the exercises on our syllabus for the next day so I can have an idea of what they are about as soon as we open the page to them.
• Setting a stopwatch to see how long my homework is taking me and tracking my time spend on various language learning activities each day (reading, writing, watching TV/videos...). This doesn't necessarily speed me up, but it does, if I'm pooped out by the end of the day, give me a sense of how I spent my time after class and work. As Alex predicted, I'm spending the vast majority of my time on reading and writing exercises, which is fine at this stage, though I want to change that in the future.
• I paid extra attention to the ten verb forms and the patterns used to derive other parts of speech (like the masdr, the ism fael, and the ism mafaul). My initial instinct had been that it was nice to appreciate these patterns but that it would certainly be a mental overhaul to try to systematically memorize them. Alex called the wazin the base of the Arabic language, and even if I don't have them memorized, I am seeing that recognizing some common patterns and being able to derive meaning from them is useful (like, "this is the masdr, it looks similar to a conjugated verb but it's a 'verbal noun' and is often coming where I expect a conjugated verb.")
• Plan language exchanges with topics and questions beforehand. I meet with a friend from my weekly running group for English-Ammiya exchanges, and we chat throughout the week on Facebook about what we'd like to talk about. It means everything to have a compass to guide us through what the other may be saying.

[If you're interested in coaching for your own language study, click here to find out more information.]

Language Learner's Journal: Introducing Taylor

[This is a guest blog, written by freelance journalist and (Arabic) language student, Taylor Barnes. I'm working with Taylor to get her up and running as quickly and effectively as possible, and I suggested she might want to write about her learning progress along the way. She'll be posting here every week or two.]

Rio de Janeiro is an unusual place for an American journalist to begin studying Arabic, but at least it made my beginning steps in this challenging language deeply associated with laughter and leisure. Brazilians of all ages have a habit I admire of seemingly always being in a continuing education cursinho, be it studying German twice a week or enrolling in online courses from the Justice Ministry about drug policy. (I did this once along with a colleague in the Brazilian media, though I can't say I finished it.)

I lived and worked in Brazil for six years. There, I watched in myself what it meant to become fluent in a new language as an adult – I could take phone calls from strangers, have a store sign come into my visual field and not be able to not read it, hear kids prattling and usually make sense of it. When I began to contemplate a move to a new region, I was delighted to find a very affordable new Arabic course offered at Rio's Lebanese Consulate. My Brazilian teacher there was enthusiastic about developing a communicative approach to teaching the language, so we studied songs, watched kids' TV programs, and wrote plays about animals and princesses while we glossed over things like case endings and conjugations for pronouns like antumaa and huna. We called ourselves the habibinhos, a word so adorable in Portuguese that it makes us sound like we're in diapers. After an enormously challenging day of doing addition and subtraction with Arabic numerals, one habibinho said that we may never learn this language, but at least we were delaying our onset of Alzheimer's.

When the stars aligned for me to move and be able to bump up my Arabic studies, I chose the Qasid Institute here in Amman for its intensity, immersion classes, and communicative approach to teaching. It's kicking my butt. Two weeks in, my head is not yet above water.

We have class for three hours a day and at least as many hours of homework, and I work a part-time job to pay for my studies. On top of that, I'm starting an Ammiya supplement at Qasid twice a week. While my classmates often have university studies of Arabic under their belt and are comfortable speaking about the Syrian war or identifying whether a verb in mansub or marfua, I'm struggling to speak about anything beyond my daily life (family, friends, food and animals!).

I thought a lot about my motivations before I left my comfortable and lovely life in Rio to chase a goal that may lead me down a rabbit hole. I've spoken with many friends and colleagues who studied Arabic at some point, and I hear repeated stories of dissatisfaction. It's important for me to define clear goals and make meaningful progress toward what fluency means for me – I've decided that means communicating with a variety of people in a new language and reading the kind of texts we see in daily life, like a newspaper article or a Facebook post.

This time in Amman is unlike any other in which I've been a student: I chose to leave better pay, professional reputation, and satisfying work in order to work toward a new goal. It makes the move more compelling since I feel a strong sense of ownership, but it also raises the stakes. If I took my time, money, and left my friends and family, this is no longer just a leisurely hobby.

Rather than just study Arabic, I've dedicated significant time to studying how to learn a challenging language. In my independent study, I use many methods that will be familiar to followers of Alex's blog and podcast, like Anki spaced repetition flashcards and learning new words in context or in stories. I also use many of the tools laid out in Gabriel Wyner's Fluent Forever, like using Google image searches to try to discover the meaning of unknown words without translation and finding native speaker pronunciations through sites like Forvo. I am also a very big fan of TalkInArabic.com's videos and transcripts for Ammiya/colloquial practice.

I'll be working with Alex as a coach over my upcoming months as I study at Qasid and meet weekly with a conversation partner I've picked up here in Amman. You'll see my blogs on a weekly or biweekly basis, and I hope you see some forward movement in them. Expect upcoming posts to be shorter and more technical.

Even if I said this is no longer just a leisurely pursuit, I also don't want to lose that quality that I said I admire in Brazilians – taking small sips of a new subject just because it's interesting and novel, without having a deadline or an endgame. At our orientation at Qasid, one of our administrators said that Arabic learning is a marathon, not a sprint. I'm an athlete, and that comparison felt spot-on.

And in that spirit, I'm ending my introduction here with a selfie I took at the Rio Summer Olympics with my favourite athlete, American marathoner Meb Keflezighi. It wasn't an easy selfie to get: I was exhausted from work during the games (thank to Ryan Lochte), but gathered enough awakedness to get up early on the final Sunday of the event to watch the men's marathon. I used my press pass to sneak into the cool-down area after the finish line in Rio's samba stadium and approached the legend himself to ask for the picture. It was worth it. 

How to best work with a language coach

I work to help language students make more effective and efficient progress. Sometimes I work with those who want to learn other skills like coding, or perhaps a more specific productivity issue or project that requires top performance.

But how can you make sure you get the most value out of working with me or another professional coach?

Show Up

Come with questions and a purpose. Coaching works best when student and coach each show up with things to contribute to the discussion. Two important prerequisites on the part of the student are some sense of their goals as well as a set of questions. (If there weren't any questions, there wouldn't be any need for a coach). The more explicit and engaged these questions and purpose can be, the better the coaching will be.

Keep Notes

Ideally you'll keep a notebook where you can gather more specific insights, questions and reactions to the work you're doing. If you don't note them down while you're doing the work, you'll probably forget and miss out on the opportunity to get feedback or suggestions on the particular problem that affected you.

More Feedback, More Communication

As a coach, it's most difficult to help someone when you don't hear much about what they're doing or how they're feeling about it. There probably isn't an upper limit on how much feedback to give. More is better, just so long as it doesn't take you away from your actual language study. This can take the form of a daily email once you've completed your study session for the day, or writing notes in our shared tracking spreadsheet.

Reflect

Reflection brings perspective. By taking a step back from your coaching and your language studies, you might be able to figure out some broader patterns relating to how you study. Reflection can take any form. I like to write out a problem or a situation using pen/paper, thinking through how I feel things are going. Think of it as a solo version of the coaching sessions themselves which have reflection built-in.

Follow-up During The Week

I welcome email queries during the week. Very few take me up on the offer, though it's an excellent time to get quick answers to any particular question or issue that comes up. If the weekly check-in is the only time we hear from each other, course corrections are much harder to make.

Do The Work

If you're working with someone, you're going to get the most benefit if you follow through with whatever you both agree you'll get done in a particular week. Doing the work will bring up new challenges and questions, and these can feed into the ongoing coaching. In order to decide whether a given path is or isn't working for you, you have to give it a serious try in the first place.

Finally, on a more prosaic note, showing up on time and giving adequate notice if you need to reschedule are always practices I really appreciate in someone I'm working with. I often travel from different parts of the town to make sure I'm ready for a call.

Out of all of this, communication is the key.

[Read more about getting language/skills coaching with me here. The page includes testimonials from current and former students.]