This might be of interest. It deals with the attitude required for success in language learning and language improvement. You can hear a podcast of this here.
If you can achieve an attitude of "flow" you are optimizing your chances to learn and improve. The way to achieve the conditions for Csikszentmihalyi's "flow" is to make sure that the learning tasks suit the skills and interests of each learner. In this way the learner enjoys studying for its own sake, and has a sense of timelessness and separateness from the world around him or her.
I think there is something a bit Taoist about "flow" theory. I know it works for language learning.
“I want to learn to speak English better. I do not like to hear myself pronounce English. I have trouble writing English. I cannot remember my new English vocabulary. I need to improve my English grammar. I have trouble expressing my ideas in English. When I am with native speakers I do not understand much of what they say.”
These are some of the comments that often I hear from our new learners at The Linguist. I had these feelings when I started studying languages. So what is to be done?
My answer is simple. Make the language your friend. In particular, make the words your friends. Let the words be the focus of your learning. Learn to like the words of English. Put all your effort into words, how they sound, how they come together with other words, and all the different meanings they can have. Be patient as you get to know these words. They will be your friends for a long time. Make sure you take the time to meet them often in your listening and reading.
Do not judge or criticize yourself. Do not push yourself. When you feel like listening, listen. Choose content that you like. It may be old familiar content or new content. It may be easy content or difficult content. Make sure you like it enough to listen. Listen many times if you feel like it. Listen only once if you feel like it. Then choose something else. Just follow your interests.
Listen as much as possible to content read by someone whose voice and intonation you like. Imitate the voice and the intonation. Stop the recorder from time to time and replay short sections and imitate the tone and accent. The more you like the content and the voice, the easier it will be to imitate.
Read when you feel like reading. Look at the words and phrases. Notice them. Focus on the ones you have trouble using. Save them. Learn to admire how these letters come together to convey so much meaning. Enjoy the powerful feeling of making sense out of the words of a strange language. Sense the joy of exploring another culture. Try to feel that you are a part of that culture.
When you feel really energetic, try to review lists of words and phrases that you have come across in your listening and reading. You should do this, not in the hope that you will remember them, but because know it will help you to get to know them, gradually. When you get tired of reviewing words, you just go back to listening and reading. Or you can take a rest.
Do not let anything frustrate you. The happier you are, the more positive you feel about the language, the more easily you will be able to imitate the sounds of the language. The less stress you feel, the more easily you will figure out the meaning directly, without translating into your language. The more time you spend listening and reading, the sooner you will be able to express yourself in English in all situations. And your pronunciation will improve. Language learning really is that simple.
I know that this is true because I have done this for nine languages. I am doing it know in order to learn Russian.
_________________ Steve
Language learning success depends on the attitude of the learner and the time spent with the language. All the rest is unimportant.
More on Csikszentmihalyi's Flow Theory
Flow Theory matches so closely what we have been trying to do at The Linguist that I wanted to add this summary of it from Wikipedia.
I believe that the new discoveries about our natural ability to imitate and infer meaning using the "mirror neurons" in our brains may also end up being related to the effectiveness of a state of "flow" for learning. In other words I have a hunch that our "mirror neurons" are more likely to fire when we are in a state of flow. Anyway, here is Wikipedia.
Flow also called "Optimal experience" is a concept developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
"the holistic experience that people feel when they act with total involvement" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975: 36)
“… flow – the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” (Csikzentmihalyi, 1991)
"A sense of that one’s skills are adequate to cope with the challenges at hand in a goal directed, rule bound action system that provides clear clues as to how one is performing. Concentration is so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant or to worry about problems. Self-consciousness disappears, and the sense of time becomes distorted. An activity that produces such experiences is so gratifying that people are willing to do it for its own sake, with little concern for what they will get out of it, even when it is difficult or dangerous." (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991:71)
Csikszentmihalyi (1975) originally identified four flow components:
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