Which are the 10 most common reasons that I think are impeding most adults when learning a new language. If we look a little deeper, we can probably find even 20 or more reasons. I will write separate posts about each one of these reasons with more explanation: why I think that; about research ; and what could be done eventually to improve. One of the main reasons I started writing this blog is because, learning languages have been and still is an important part of my life. Norwegian, English, and Spanish are the languages which I’m using now in my daily life, and I’ve learned them when I was already adult.
I have always been interested in how our brains do work, and lately, my favorite topics are neuroscience, memory, cognition…etc. That got me thinking about why adults struggle with learning a foreign language, and I realize that there are specific reasons for this. When I think about my own experience and what I have learned from reading books and research, I think that my knowledge can be useful for adults who want to learn a foreign language.
Language learning is a very complex process that requires both time and effort if you want to reach a level where you feel comfortable using this language. If Norwegian, English, or Spanish is your native language, you will notice that maybe I don’t express myself in the way you will do that, but I think that if you want to learn a new language you should look at the language learning as a lifelong process. There will always be a place for improvement.
1. Unrealistic plans and expectations for how long time and effort you need to achieve a certain level.
Everyone has seen or heard something like that” Learn a language in seven days” (I have the book also). In reality, in seven days, you can learn a few basic sentences and maybe (if you work hard), learn how to order food. Some others advertise “Get fluent in one, two or three months”. This one is far, far from possible as well, and that’s not only my opinion. Many learners make impossible plans, and that leads to disappointment and frustration and eventually quit the learning. A good learning plan is crucial for the outcome of the learning, and there are many reasons for that.
2. Adults are trying to learn a language using the same tools and learning programs that are made for children and young adolescents and hire teachers who have education in teaching children.
After the age of about 20-25 years, our brains are functioning in a very different way than children’s brains. There is a lot of research, and many studies are done which show that adults benefit from different methods of learning. Nowadays, scientists are able literally to see what happens in the brain when working. There are many large studies that show how our brains change with the age. The results of these neuroimaging studies show that adults compensate by recruiting different and/or additional parts of the brain. Because of the changes which occur in our brains when we grow up, there are both advantages and disadvantages for adults when learning languages, and it’s quite important to use the right set of tools when learning. There is a lot I can write on this topic.
3. Many adults rely completely on some program, app, or teacher to teach them the language.
As an adult, you should have the responsibility for learning the language, not expecting someone to put the language in your head. It’s your responsibility to integrate the learning in your life. You are the person who can find out when you are in the zone and how to stay there.
Right intensify is essential to keep you learning.
You should learn enough that you feel that you are improving, because this feeling makes you to keep going, and at the same time you should take care that it’s not too much, and it fits your life without making you stressed. Wrong intensify will get you dropped out of the learning soon or later. When you have the responsibility, you have nobody to blame that you have no progress, and it is easier for you to find out more ways of learning that are more suitable for you and your life. There is no way that your teacher knows you so well that he or she can decide which are your strong or weak sides when learning, how much you can learn a day or for a week…etc.
You should be actively engaged in the learning process.
Maybe if you have a good tutor, he or she can help you somewhat with making a plan and eventually making adjustments, but you are who knows yourself best. Learning a language is a complex process, and it’s not easy if you are studying without help (I know that from experience), but you should be the main person responsible for this and your tutor should help you when and with what you need.
4. Usually, language learners are taught that they should try to have a balance between input, which is understanding (reading and listening) and output, which is producing speech and writing.
That’s maybe good advice for children and young adolescents, but not for adults. Children usually use less vocabulary, shorter and less grammatically complicated sentences, and therefore, the balance is working well for them. I have this topic very close to my heart. Because I’ve been struggling with this that many times. I see many friends having problems with that, and I know that it’s very common for all adults.
Many adult language learners are abandoning learning because they are not able to use the language after a pretty long time of learning.
When you try to learn something that requires motor skills, you may need to exercise exactly over the skills you need, but when you try to learn a language, better work smart than hard. You should put more time and effort into what you are good with instead of throwing away time fighting with what you are bad in. This may sound meaningless, but I have good reason to say that. I will write separate posts about this topic to explain what I mean.
5. When we decide to learn a foreign language, adults usually seek a native teacher, and we think that this should be the best choice.
Recently, I was reading a scientific paper named “Understanding the brain: the birth of a learning science,” and in the chapter “Brain, cognition and learning in adulthood,” there was a section with “ Practitioner’s response” to the conclusions of the paper. A professor who’s been teaching students that eventually will become TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language) teachers wrote that:
“One highly successful – and to me indispensable- component to ensure that student teachers understand many different aspects of teaching communicatively is the introduction of an unfamiliar foreign language (UFL) into a TESOL program where no student teacher speaks that language. The student teacher is put in the shoes of the beginner learner who acquires a foreign language that is totally new and unfamiliar, for instance Serbo-Croat, Arabic, Spanish or Hebrew. The student teacher invariably develops through such experiential learning, a high degree of empathy with the learner, and an understanding of what is required of the language teacher. More specifically, the student teacher realizes how strenuous and intimidating it is from the learner’s perspective to embark on a new foreign language; how rewarding and exciting it is to accomplish positive results even at beginner level; how important it is for the teacher to be clear and inventive with visuals, body language, mime and facial expression; how vital is the teacher’s patience…. My professional observations of a UFL in widely different settings and locations (Mexico, Canada, Indonesia) show that the insights gained by student teachers from being put in the situation of beginning foreign language learners are invaluable. It is particularly valid for aspiring teachers who want to teach English and whose mother tongue is also English, so who have no personal experience with acquiring English in the formal classroom setting.”
The authors of the book “Becoming fluent” Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz say:
“Unfortunately, one of the most common beliefs when it comes to learning a language is that it can only be learned from a native speaker. And it is true that learning from a native speaker allows you to hear proper pronunciation and phrasing in a naturalistic way. But learning from a native speaker alone is like being guided up Mt. Everest by someone who was born at the top of the mountain and is shouting directions down from above. The sounds may be pronounced correctly, but that won’t help you find firm footing among the loose boulders and treacherous crevasses. What you need is a language Sherpa if you will: a nonnative speaker who struggled with the language and who conquered it. This may seem counterintuitive, and it is not to suggest that learning from a native speaker is useless—far from it. However, there is much to be said for learning a language as an adult from someone who knows the terrain.”
If I am to choose a teacher for my 11 years old daughter, I will definitely go for native teacher with formal pedagogy education. Children have the natural ability to copy teacher’s pronunciation and speech patterns, which decline with the age. Teachers with formal pedagogy education learn strategy in teaching children, and that is very useful.
If I am to choose a teacher for me, I will go for a tutor who has learned my target language when he or she was already an adult. When we grow up, we lose the ability to copy pronunciation, and we adults learn more efficiently when using a process called “ top down process.” Shortly, that means we are better in learning when using strategy. For me, as an adult, in order to improve faster, it is more important to use the strategy and tools someone used when he or she was studying exactly this language.
6. Usually, adults do not receive any guidance on how to improve retention of the learned information.
Teachers are not familiar with the importance of space repetition for adults, and it is not incorporated in the teaching time. On the picture is the graph of the forgetting curve made by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus. It represents how, with the time, we forget learned information. We forget most of the information during the first hour after learning and through the first day after learning. The following days, we “lose” less information. This is very useful when we make a learning plan. Space repetition is very useful when studying vocabulary. When and how to reinforce what you have learned can significantly shorten learning time and increase retention.
7. Many adults use in a wrong way assigned time for learning.
If you go to a course what you do there? Learn grammar, translate from a textbook, and you get words that you should learn and exercises which you can do at home. Actually, this should be in reverse. You can read the grammar at home (because you are an adult, and you can read), translate the text and find the words you don’t know because you have google. The problems with grammar always come when you try to use it and there is a specific part of it you need the teacher to explain. If you don’t get it clear, it remains as a hollow in your grammar.
If you do the reading and the translating at home, you can use the time with teacher for exactly what you need: explanation of what is difficult for you to understand and in addition, you will have enough time to get the speaking practice which is crucial for foreign language learning, and you can’t do at home alone. Shortly: do the easy stuff at home and use your time with the teacher wisely.
If you are going to a language course once or twice a week, you can’t expect improvement without doing anything else.
A language has many different components, and you need to be familiar with all of them in order to use it.
If the learning process goes too slow, you are going to forget what you have learned 2-3 months ago and you need all the time to go back and relearn what you forget in the way of learning.
For me, the best way of learning is to make it everyday habit.
Learning every day for a short time and once a week using longer time to summarize how is going, make the plan for next week and eventually work with a tutor who can help you with something that’s difficult for you or just to help you with a guidance and speaking practice.
8. Adults are too stressed.
Nowadays, we live a life saturated with responsibility and bombarded of information, which makes us feel exhausted and without energy. Trying to incorporate foreign language studying, which requires both time and peace of mind in already overfilled life, doesn’t work well.
I am a working, single mom with 12 years old daughter, and I know pretty well how it feels to never have enough time. There are always at least 10 things that should be done right now and plenty other stuff that should be done soon.
But if you decide to take a closer look at your day, you will for sure find something that you use time for, and this activity does not provide any benefits for your life. Especially in the beginning when you decide to start with foreign language learning, you must make a concise decision to erase something non-essential from your daily life in order to make enough time for studying.
After some time in the process of learning you will find easily how to incorporate studying in your everyday life, and you can get guidance from your tutor with ideas.
9. We adults have problems with focus when studying.
There is no easy task to focus when kids are running around and we need to think how to do our best of the day, but even though that’s something we need to deal with, there is something else that most of the time impede us to be able to focus when we learn.
That’s the constant chatter in our head.
If we don’t think about something we are doing now, we are always thinking about something that happened or is going to happen. To be able to focus we need to switch off the chatter in our head. That have been my main problem last several years. Not only when learning languages, but generally in my life.
Several months ago, I was reading an article about how much potential we really have, but we don’t use it because our head is always busy with thoughts which have nothing to do with the present moment. The author was explaining that it can easily be achieved by using meditation. I love reading, but I almost always read nonfiction books, and if I read an article, listen to a podcast, or watch a video, those always should be based on science and research. Put in a nutshell always with the feet on the ground. I’ve been reading before books where the author talks about meditation, but I deliberately jumped over this part.
Even though I love reading, many times my mind starts wandering and I need to reread a page sometimes. This time I decided to try meditation, and after some days I tried to have a short meditation before reading a book. People use meditation for many different purposes and there are many different techniques, but meditation definitely works for better focus and remembering. Explained in an over simplistic way it’s something like when sometimes you need to disconnect the wi-fi for a short time in order to start working properly.
Even just 5 minutes meditation before learning vocabulary and grammar is a great tool, but they are many other tools as well for focus increase.
Lack of real human interaction.
10. Real human conversation is the best way to improve your skills in the target language.
There is something very special when you have someone in front of you that makes your brain to work in a high gear. Only using the language, you can really improve it. But how to do that? Usually, you are taught that if you are in the country where your target language is spoken you should just go out and use it. Everybody who have learned foreign language knows that jumping out of the classroom and start speaking with the native people is extremely difficult especially for adults. That’s because many adults who have been learning a language sometimes for years have problems to just go out and have a conversation.
Usually, nobody has been taught how to make the transition easier.
It’s almost impossible to wait for to use the foreign language until you have as much vocabulary as in your native language.
You must learn to talk with limited vocabulary and afterwards to acquire more vocabulary with the time.
Conversations with someone who is learning the same language and is approximately on the same level are very beneficial. Conversations with non-native tutor are very useful, because he or she is using more limited vocabulary than a native. A real-life conversation may be the best, but a video conversation is working as well. My idea is to make a forum in this blog, where everybody can ask and answer questions about Spanish and English language learning. I hope that I can also make small online groups of English and Spanish language learners.
It’s difficult doing something so complex as learning a foreign language if we never have been taught how to do it. Even IKEA toilet brush is coming with assembly and user manual, but nobody takes the time to “learn how to learn foreign language” before starting to learn. How to create a good learning plan and studying habits? How to make it function in your life? Which tools to use? Which learning strategy is best for you? How to talk with limited vocabulary? What can you do that you can feel good and satisfied with the learning, instead of stressed and depressed…etc.
I have learned how to learn a language in the difficult way by « try and error “and I know that learning a new language could be a very rewarding and enjoyable experience if we do not mess it up with wrong decisions. I still have a lot to learn in both Spanish and English, but I’m not afraid to use them because the best way to learn is to learn from our mistakes.
I hope I can help you in your language learning journey, because knowledge is useless unless used and shared.