WEBVTT 00:00:05.342 --> 00:00:09.300 The polyglot gathering is brought to you by Italki. 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:11.751 Become fluent in any language. 00:00:11.790 --> 00:00:13.714 Today, I'm going to be talking 00:00:13.714 --> 00:00:15.971 to you about a slightly different topic 00:00:16.228 --> 00:00:18.051 which is something to do with teaching 00:00:18.051 --> 00:00:19.471 something to do with learning 00:00:19.471 --> 00:00:21.542 definitely something to do with languages. 00:00:22.114 --> 00:00:26.114 And I would like to start by thanking you all, 00:00:26.485 --> 00:00:31.171 dear polyglots, because you helped me get over 00:00:31.171 --> 00:00:35.057 a huge feeling of frustration that I had had for many years. 00:00:35.457 --> 00:00:36.428 I'm serious now. 00:00:37.400 --> 00:00:40.971 You know, I've taught English in many different settings. 00:00:41.285 --> 00:00:46.528 I started well since I was a little bit better than my classmates 00:00:46.528 --> 00:00:47.928 I started teaching them, 00:00:48.342 --> 00:00:51.085 then I taught in primary, secondary schools and 00:00:51.085 --> 00:00:54.485 language schools, companies, and now 00:00:54.485 --> 00:00:57.742 I teach at the University and I always 00:00:57.742 --> 00:01:00.428 felt really frustrated. Do you know why? 00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:06.371 Because I always knew how I learn languages effectively and how it works 00:01:06.371 --> 00:01:08.457 and that it can actually be 00:01:08.457 --> 00:01:11.191 pretty fast, that it can work very well, but 00:01:11.191 --> 00:01:13.457 I could never transfer that "know-how" on 00:01:13.457 --> 00:01:15.714 to my students, I could never see the 00:01:15.714 --> 00:01:17.857 progress with my students whatever I did 00:01:17.857 --> 00:01:20.571 However, I tried. However many lessons 00:01:20.571 --> 00:01:22.342 I had with them. 00:01:22.514 --> 00:01:24.600 I felt really really frustrated with that. 00:01:24.600 --> 00:01:26.742 It's like: "Okay how can I make them 00:01:26.742 --> 00:01:29.128 get what the language learning is about"? 00:01:29.428 --> 00:01:32.600 You basically helped me to figure it out, 00:01:32.828 --> 00:01:35.771 because, this is from last year some of you 00:01:35.771 --> 00:01:38.822 might recognize yourselves in the picture. 00:01:38.935 --> 00:01:41.285 This is where I came with for the first time 00:01:41.285 --> 00:01:43.485 into the Polyglot gathering and I was 00:01:43.485 --> 00:01:45.571 completely new to the polyglot community. 00:01:45.571 --> 00:01:46.914 I didn't know anyone. 00:01:46.954 --> 00:01:49.400 I actually remember sitting in one of these rows 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:52.228 talking to someone, one of the guys 00:01:52.228 --> 00:01:54.114 and he said: "Have you heard? 00:01:54.114 --> 00:01:56.085 Luca Lampariello is not going to come. 00:01:56.314 --> 00:01:59.820 He had to cancel." And I was like, Luca who? 00:01:59.828 --> 00:02:03.587 What? You haven't heard about Luca Lampariello? 00:02:03.742 --> 00:02:06.347 But you have heard about Richard Simcott, right? 00:02:06.542 --> 00:02:11.864 Well, sorry Richard, I hadn't up to the last year's Gathering. 00:02:11.864 --> 00:02:14.436 I didn't follow any blogs or anything else. 00:02:14.436 --> 00:02:17.806 I was just learning languages by myself, in my own ways. 00:02:17.971 --> 00:02:20.142 And then, it was really really 00:02:20.142 --> 00:02:21.714 inspiring to meet all of you, 00:02:21.714 --> 00:02:23.857 to talk to 300 polyglots 00:02:23.857 --> 00:02:25.681 who learn languages in different ways 00:02:25.685 --> 00:02:28.857 and to figure out how you learn languages. 00:02:29.400 --> 00:02:31.738 And I found out, that there are so many methods 00:02:31.738 --> 00:02:33.847 and they seem to be all working! 00:02:34.142 --> 00:02:37.848 So for example, Benny speaks from day one. 00:02:37.857 --> 00:02:41.622 But Steve Kaufman says: "I better 00:02:41.622 --> 00:02:45.471 first build up my vocabulary, I read a lot and listen a lot 00:02:45.471 --> 00:02:47.090 and then I start speaking." 00:02:47.090 --> 00:02:49.497 Two different methods but they seem to be working. 00:02:49.497 --> 00:02:52.478 Not just for them, but for many people that are following them. 00:02:52.478 --> 00:02:53.637 That's just one example. 00:02:53.742 --> 00:02:56.971 Maria de Vera at the first Polyglot Gathering 00:02:56.971 --> 00:02:59.150 said: "I am a grammar nerd." 00:02:59.171 --> 00:03:01.857 I start learning a language by taking a grammar book 00:03:01.857 --> 00:03:03.485 just going through it all 00:03:03.485 --> 00:03:06.062 just to know what the grammar is about. 00:03:06.142 --> 00:03:09.971 And Emanuele Marini basically starts with a dictionary. 00:03:10.342 --> 00:03:13.257 He starts using the language using a dictionary 00:03:13.257 --> 00:03:15.422 so if he doesn't know a word, he looks it up, 00:03:15.422 --> 00:03:16.570 uses it in conversation. 00:03:16.770 --> 00:03:18.857 So that's a different approach again. 00:03:19.314 --> 00:03:21.800 Another example is Gabriel Wyner 00:03:22.057 --> 00:03:24.800 who really is a big fan of flashcards. 00:03:24.800 --> 00:03:29.485 Maybe you heard about him. And Luca Lampariello, whom I now 00:03:29.485 --> 00:03:33.542 do know, says he couldn't care less about flashcards. 00:03:33.542 --> 00:03:38.285 So I realized by meeting you and by following 00:03:38.285 --> 00:03:40.971 all your blogs and videos after the conference 00:03:41.314 --> 00:03:45.168 that there are just so many ways how we can learn a language. 00:03:45.342 --> 00:03:49.342 And it's not limited to one particular method, 00:03:49.828 --> 00:03:51.542 and that got me thinking. 00:03:51.828 --> 00:03:55.771 I started thinking, what is the difference between how the polyglots 00:03:55.771 --> 00:03:59.800 learn languages and how people learn languages 00:03:59.942 --> 00:04:02.772 out there outside of the polyglot community? 00:04:02.772 --> 00:04:04.505 I'm talking mostly about people who 00:04:04.505 --> 00:04:07.180 take language courses and go to schools, etc... 00:04:07.180 --> 00:04:10.000 What is the difference there? 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:12.714 After studying all these polyglots and reading about them, 00:04:12.771 --> 00:04:16.857 talking to them, I think the secret is 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:20.600 that polyglotes do learn languages 00:04:20.857 --> 00:04:23.457 and they are not taught languages. 00:04:24.200 --> 00:04:27.314 I think this is really the main difference. 00:04:27.514 --> 00:04:31.587 It's about the responsibility that you take for your own learning. 00:04:31.891 --> 00:04:34.800 Because we just don't go to a course. 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:37.288 I never met anyone here who would say: 00:04:37.288 --> 00:04:38.862 "You know what? I happen to speak 00:04:38.862 --> 00:04:40.800 five languages, because I had an amazing 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:42.371 teacher he taught me all that" 00:04:42.885 --> 00:04:45.342 We all have a lot of methods that we use, 00:04:45.371 --> 00:04:49.032 but it means a lot of work that we put in ourselves. 00:04:49.057 --> 00:04:51.485 To put it in more detail, 00:04:51.485 --> 00:04:56.057 for me personally learning a language is based 00:04:56.057 --> 00:04:58.657 on four main pillars and this is something 00:04:58.657 --> 00:05:00.628 that I realized after the gathering, 00:05:00.628 --> 00:05:04.428 and after looking at many different polyglots 00:05:04.428 --> 00:05:06.142 and how they learn languages. 00:05:06.542 --> 00:05:08.114 I think first of all, 00:05:08.114 --> 00:05:11.397 whatever we do must be fun. 00:05:11.800 --> 00:05:14.017 Do you agree that learning languages is fun? 00:05:14.057 --> 00:05:16.371 Absolutely! We just love it! 00:05:16.371 --> 00:05:18.457 You know, five minutes a day you take out 00:05:18.457 --> 00:05:19.485 your AnkiDroid 00:05:19.485 --> 00:05:21.140 and you go through the vocabulary 00:05:21.140 --> 00:05:22.575 or you take a grammar book and 00:05:22.575 --> 00:05:24.110 you do some exercises, right? 00:05:24.110 --> 00:05:27.400 Well it can be fun, but it also means that you use materials 00:05:27.400 --> 00:05:30.804 that are interesting to you, so you don't just take a book 00:05:30.804 --> 00:05:33.901 that someone told you, this is the best book ever for learning. 00:05:33.901 --> 00:05:36.690 French or whatever. You pick a book that you like, right? 00:05:36.690 --> 00:05:38.400 It has to be a book that smells good 00:05:38.400 --> 00:05:40.400 that you like holding in your hands 00:05:40.400 --> 00:05:42.542 that has a nice picture, etc... 00:05:42.542 --> 00:05:45.000 So, we need to have a positive attitude 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:47.428 towards learning languages and I think 00:05:47.428 --> 00:05:52.494 this is so important, because it all happens a lot in language courses 00:05:52.494 --> 00:05:56.714 and in language schools for example, that there's just one book and 00:05:56.714 --> 00:05:59.527 people work with just that one book. 00:05:59.857 --> 00:06:02.800 But, you know, sometimes I'm not interested in 00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:05.645 reading about the history of Thanksgiving, for example. 00:06:05.657 --> 00:06:08.085 And yet, we're spending two lessons with that 00:06:08.085 --> 00:06:10.085 talking about it over and over again 00:06:10.085 --> 00:06:12.085 I'm just not interested, okay? 00:06:12.085 --> 00:06:14.085 I would rather watch an episode of Friends 00:06:14.080 --> 00:06:16.857 where I see how Thanksgiving works in the U.S. 00:06:16.857 --> 00:06:19.057 in practice, and that's my way of learning 00:06:19.057 --> 00:06:21.197 that's how I prefer to learn, right? 00:06:21.197 --> 00:06:23.714 So, I think that it's extremely important 00:06:23.714 --> 00:06:26.828 that we do stuff that we like, that we enjoy, 00:06:26.828 --> 00:06:28.285 that we kind of... 00:06:28.285 --> 00:06:31.342 pick up our own methods how to learn 00:06:31.342 --> 00:06:32.771 and our own materials. 00:06:32.771 --> 00:06:36.644 Do you agree? Is that important? Definitely. 00:06:36.657 --> 00:06:39.085 Now the second thing, and I think this is 00:06:39.085 --> 00:06:41.542 probably the greatest difference between polyglots 00:06:41.542 --> 00:06:44.342 and unsuccessful language learners 00:06:44.342 --> 00:06:46.897 who are struggling with the language for a long time. 00:06:46.897 --> 00:06:49.057 That is quantity. 00:06:49.057 --> 00:06:51.971 It's the huge amount of hours that we put into 00:06:51.971 --> 00:06:54.228 our language learning and this is something 00:06:54.228 --> 00:06:56.857 you know, that people suppose that 00:06:56.857 --> 00:06:58.242 if you speak a few languages 00:06:58.242 --> 00:07:00.457 "Oh you're so talented you know. 00:07:00.457 --> 00:07:01.767 It's just so easy for you, 00:07:01.767 --> 00:07:04.200 you just learn another language just like that". 00:07:04.200 --> 00:07:07.114 I hate to hear that, because there's a lot 00:07:07.114 --> 00:07:08.742 of hours that I put into every one 00:07:08.742 --> 00:07:11.485 of my languages and it's fun hours, 00:07:11.485 --> 00:07:13.285 because I pick the materials and the 00:07:13.285 --> 00:07:16.371 methods myself, but it still is a lot of hours 00:07:16.371 --> 00:07:18.371 that we need to put into that learning, 00:07:18.371 --> 00:07:20.217 and we need to do it actively. 00:07:20.217 --> 00:07:22.102 This is the responsibility that we have 00:07:22.102 --> 00:07:23.098 for our learning. 00:07:23.098 --> 00:07:26.018 So I think, this is another huge difference. 00:07:26.228 --> 00:07:29.494 The third thing that I heard with many many polyglots 00:07:29.494 --> 00:07:31.524 is that you need to do something 00:07:31.524 --> 00:07:33.694 not just a lot of it, but also to do 00:07:33.694 --> 00:07:35.865 a little bit every day, right? 00:07:35.865 --> 00:07:37.785 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there. 00:07:37.785 --> 00:07:39.342 It's much more effective 00:07:39.342 --> 00:07:41.628 than learning for three or four hours 00:07:41.628 --> 00:07:43.742 on a Sunday for example, right? 00:07:43.885 --> 00:07:47.894 So, it's really really important to do it on a frequent basis. 00:07:48.215 --> 00:07:53.010 And finally, I think learning a language is really much easier 00:07:53.010 --> 00:07:55.428 If you have a system, if you have a plan 00:07:55.428 --> 00:07:57.514 how to start doing it, how to end, 00:07:57.514 --> 00:07:59.164 what do you want to achieve? 00:07:59.164 --> 00:08:01.049 How to set your goals? Etc... 00:08:01.770 --> 00:08:06.041 So this is basically my language learning philosophy 00:08:06.041 --> 00:08:09.041 that I figured out after the Polyglot gathering 00:08:09.041 --> 00:08:12.212 and as I told you, my great frustration 00:08:12.212 --> 00:08:15.161 was: How to put this in practise? 00:08:15.491 --> 00:08:18.597 How to make other people learn languages like that? 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:22.314 And that's why 00:08:22.314 --> 00:08:24.971 I came up with an idea and I think 00:08:25.257 --> 00:08:27.800 it's best illustrated with this picture. 00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:29.014 An island. 00:08:29.014 --> 00:08:32.294 and it's actually a metaphor, that Alex also used yesterday 00:08:32.294 --> 00:08:34.247 which is interesting. 00:08:34.247 --> 00:08:37.107 When you don't speak a language, you're basically 00:08:37.107 --> 00:08:40.352 on the island, on an isolated island right? 00:08:40.352 --> 00:08:42.437 And you have very limited possibilities, 00:08:42.437 --> 00:08:44.446 you cannot communicate with so many people, 00:08:44.446 --> 00:08:46.371 so you're kind of stuck there. 00:08:46.371 --> 00:08:49.485 Now when you want to get out to the beautiful ocean 00:08:49.480 --> 00:08:55.600 which is full of possibilities, you need to get across the waves. 00:08:55.885 --> 00:08:58.605 But as you can see the waves are just around the island, 00:08:58.605 --> 00:09:00.950 They're not everywhere on the ocean, right? 00:09:00.950 --> 00:09:03.876 So what you need to do if you want to learn a language well? 00:09:03.876 --> 00:09:05.979 is to take your boat 00:09:05.979 --> 00:09:09.887 from the island and row your way through the waves. 00:09:10.314 --> 00:09:13.400 And I think this is something that people don't 00:09:13.400 --> 00:09:17.942 normally do very well, because they row a little bit, you know 00:09:17.942 --> 00:09:20.400 like have a lesson on Monday in a language school 00:09:20.714 --> 00:09:22.550 and then row a little bit on the right 00:09:22.550 --> 00:09:24.600 have a lesson on Wednesday and then 00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:27.057 they just wait. They don't learn every day 00:09:27.057 --> 00:09:29.112 they don't put in all the work that we do 00:09:29.257 --> 00:09:32.571 and so, the waves carry them back to the island a little bit. 00:09:32.571 --> 00:09:34.857 So they kind of move forward, but then 00:09:34.857 --> 00:09:37.771 they're dragged back towards the island. 00:09:38.057 --> 00:09:42.542 The thing is they never get across these last waves 00:09:42.542 --> 00:09:45.275 which are the biggest ones, the biggest struggles 00:09:45.275 --> 00:09:50.388 and I think personally, that's the B-2 level for me. 00:09:50.388 --> 00:09:53.188 I don't know about you, but when I managed to achieve 00:09:53.188 --> 00:09:54.816 a B2 level in a language 00:09:54.816 --> 00:09:56.572 when I don't have to think about it, 00:09:56.572 --> 00:09:59.616 I use it naturally and that's why I don't have to worry 00:09:59.616 --> 00:10:01.412 about the language learning so much. 00:10:01.412 --> 00:10:04.812 I just enjoy the beautiful ocean swimming in there 00:10:04.828 --> 00:10:08.341 and using the language in all possible situations. 00:10:08.341 --> 00:10:12.024 But I don't have to row so much every day. 00:10:12.024 --> 00:10:15.589 I think in order to get there I need to row quite a lot 00:10:15.589 --> 00:10:18.624 to get across the big waves. 00:10:18.750 --> 00:10:21.775 So this is just an explanation of how I see language learning 00:10:21.775 --> 00:10:24.573 and I'm telling you this, because I want to tell you now 00:10:24.573 --> 00:10:27.850 about a few experiments that I've done with my students 00:10:27.850 --> 00:10:31.087 where I was testing this idea in practise. 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:33.685 I wanted to see, if I tell people about this 00:10:33.685 --> 00:10:36.828 and if I make them realize that 00:10:36.828 --> 00:10:39.104 if they want to speak a language, 00:10:39.104 --> 00:10:40.971 if they want to know the language well, 00:10:40.971 --> 00:10:45.004 they need to start learning it and not just wait to be taught. 00:10:45.004 --> 00:10:50.051 I wanted to see what happens and the results were actually quite amazing. 00:10:50.051 --> 00:10:53.495 So this is something, that I decided to call Language Mentoring. 00:10:53.495 --> 00:10:57.320 I decided not to teach any lessons ever in my life again, 00:10:57.320 --> 00:11:01.737 because I am not sure, if it's really possible 00:11:01.737 --> 00:11:03.342 to teach someone a language. 00:11:03.342 --> 00:11:05.971 That's again something that Kirsten mentioned yesterday 00:11:05.971 --> 00:11:07.971 and we heard it in some other talks too. 00:11:07.971 --> 00:11:11.104 Is there such thing as teaching someone a language? 00:11:11.104 --> 00:11:12.946 Well I call it "Language Mentoring" 00:11:12.946 --> 00:11:15.532 and I'm going to explain to you what's the difference 00:11:15.532 --> 00:11:17.435 and how I go about doing it. 00:11:17.435 --> 00:11:22.215 So I did my first experiment at the Comenius University in Bratislava 00:11:22.215 --> 00:11:26.786 where I'm currently finishing my PhD, and as such I teach some classes. 00:11:26.786 --> 00:11:29.386 I normally teach interpreting classes, but sometimes 00:11:29.386 --> 00:11:32.821 they ask me to teach something like "the introduction to English studies" 00:11:32.821 --> 00:11:36.484 I had 100 students in four groups, 00:11:36.484 --> 00:11:39.411 and I was supposed to do two things with them in one semester. 00:11:39.411 --> 00:11:44.498 I was supposed to improve their presentation skills, so how to present 00:11:44.498 --> 00:11:48.571 in the public and to improve their practical English skills. 00:11:48.571 --> 00:11:51.628 There are students on a B-2, maybe C-1 level 00:11:51.628 --> 00:11:55.575 but mostly B-2 and they need to practice their English quite a lot 00:11:55.575 --> 00:11:58.983 and you know how difficult it is on the more advanced levels 00:11:58.983 --> 00:12:03.338 to actually practice in a systematic way, 00:12:03.338 --> 00:12:04.958 so I said: "okay, let's do it!" 00:12:04.958 --> 00:12:09.238 But I only had 45 minutes a week. 00:12:09.238 --> 00:12:14.638 Can you imagine a class of 25 students 45 minutes a week and you're supposed to 00:12:14.638 --> 00:12:19.572 make them learn or practice their presentation skills and also 00:12:19.572 --> 00:12:20.802 improve their English? 00:12:20.802 --> 00:12:22.332 How do you do that? 00:12:22.332 --> 00:12:25.637 And that's how. That's what I did. 00:12:25.637 --> 00:12:28.861 I tried the language mentoring in practice. 00:12:28.861 --> 00:12:30.691 So basically I told them: 00:12:30.691 --> 00:12:32.971 "Okay guys, I'm gonna tell you one thing. 00:12:32.971 --> 00:12:36.970 This university is not going to teach you English at all. 00:12:36.970 --> 00:12:40.120 You're not going to improve just by studying here. 00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:42.427 They studied to be translators and interpreters. 00:12:42.427 --> 00:12:45.330 And I'm telling you that now, so that you save some time. 00:12:45.330 --> 00:12:48.559 So let's take the learning into our own hands 00:12:48.559 --> 00:12:50.290 and let's learn together actively. 00:12:50.290 --> 00:12:53.140 I want you to do something every day, 00:12:53.142 --> 00:12:54.285 That's the frequency. 00:12:54.285 --> 00:12:56.701 I want you to do a lot of it and it doesn't matter 00:12:56.701 --> 00:13:00.580 if it's watching series or reading books or working on your vocabulary or grammar 00:13:00.580 --> 00:13:01.844 or whatever you like. 00:13:01.844 --> 00:13:04.942 We also have a system about it, so we had a plan, 00:13:04.942 --> 00:13:07.299 we had an accountability sheet, etc... 00:13:07.299 --> 00:13:10.057 so we put some framework around it, 00:13:10.057 --> 00:13:13.664 so that is not just, okay I'm learning here, I'm learning there. 00:13:13.664 --> 00:13:17.668 So this was the project, the experiment 00:13:17.668 --> 00:13:19.371 and some of the students came up with 00:13:19.371 --> 00:13:23.425 amazing ideas how to note it down, how to monitor the progress. 00:13:23.425 --> 00:13:27.000 For example one of the students created a calendar like this 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:30.028 and every day she put in the information what she did 00:13:30.028 --> 00:13:34.900 like she watched some TED Talks, and BBC learning and YouTube videos, etc... 00:13:34.900 --> 00:13:37.244 and she put in the time and then she counted it 00:13:37.244 --> 00:13:40.914 how much time it was, which was quite an interesting way. 00:13:40.914 --> 00:13:44.818 She had it in front of her table, so that she always sees it every day. 00:13:44.818 --> 00:13:46.764 Now I'm gonna tell you 00:13:46.764 --> 00:13:49.592 I'm gonna show you what they actually weren't doing. 00:13:49.592 --> 00:13:52.768 Because I asked them at the end in a questionnaire all 100 of them 00:13:52.768 --> 00:13:55.946 and it was interesting to see that when you tell them: 00:13:55.946 --> 00:13:59.342 "Ok guys, you need to learn by yourselves, this is what happens." 00:13:59.342 --> 00:14:02.028 They started listening to podcasts quite a lot 00:14:02.028 --> 00:14:05.885 93% of all the students, they started watching TV series, 00:14:05.885 --> 00:14:09.091 but not just you know TV series with Slovak subtitles 00:14:09.091 --> 00:14:13.057 as they would normally, but English subtitles or no subtitles at all. 00:14:13.057 --> 00:14:15.171 Which I think is much more effective. 00:14:15.171 --> 00:14:17.621 They started using AnkiDroid for the vocabulary 00:14:17.621 --> 00:14:18.742 from other lessons, 00:14:18.742 --> 00:14:20.657 they read books and articles online 00:14:20.657 --> 00:14:22.942 or watched some other YouTube videos 00:14:22.942 --> 00:14:25.771 or other videos and they did grammar exercises. 00:14:25.771 --> 00:14:28.211 15% of them, isn't that amazing? 00:14:28.211 --> 00:14:32.177 I was quite happy with that result 00:14:32.177 --> 00:14:34.285 because I told them you can pick yourselves. 00:14:34.285 --> 00:14:37.988 We left it up to them, because I said it needs to be something you want. 00:14:37.988 --> 00:14:42.351 You know what you need to improve so, make sure that you do it in a way 00:14:42.351 --> 00:14:46.424 which is interesting to you and so this is what they did. 00:14:46.424 --> 00:14:49.210 and I asked them at the end: "How did you like it? 00:14:49.210 --> 00:14:51.400 "How was the learning program for you?" 00:14:51.400 --> 00:14:55.474 Not the let's be taught, but let's learn. 00:14:55.474 --> 00:14:58.521 And I was so glad to see, that just seven percent of them said: 00:14:58.521 --> 00:15:00.942 "Oh well, not really my cup of tea, 00:15:00.942 --> 00:15:04.657 but the rest of them, you know, said it was great 00:15:04.657 --> 00:15:06.000 or it was quite interesting. 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:08.714 So they were really enthusiastic about learning English. 00:15:08.714 --> 00:15:13.542 Finally! I asked them: "Has your English improved?" 00:15:13.542 --> 00:15:17.941 Because I didn't have any objective ways how to test it. 00:15:17.941 --> 00:15:20.978 I didn't test them at the beginning and at the end, I did it 00:15:20.978 --> 00:15:23.781 with my second experiment which I'm gonna to tell you about. 00:15:23.781 --> 00:15:27.200 But these guys just said by themselves like: 00:15:27.200 --> 00:15:29.130 Do you think your English has improved? 00:15:29.130 --> 00:15:31.931 And we are talking about two months here, okay? 00:15:31.931 --> 00:15:34.188 Not a very long period, just two months 00:15:34.188 --> 00:15:38.892 October, November and look at how many of them said: "yes" 00:15:38.892 --> 00:15:42.900 at least a little or even quite a lot in just two months. 00:15:42.900 --> 00:15:45.671 And again, this was a lesson of 45 minutes 00:15:45.671 --> 00:15:50.414 where I didn't spend any time actually teaching them. 00:15:50.414 --> 00:15:54.133 We just presented with, we just did presentations in the lesson, 00:15:54.133 --> 00:15:57.947 but no learning was actually done in the lesson itself. 00:15:57.947 --> 00:16:00.817 It was all about them spending time outside of the lessons 00:16:00.817 --> 00:16:03.191 with English in a way which they like. 00:16:03.202 --> 00:16:06.264 I asked them if they would like to continue in such a program 00:16:06.264 --> 00:16:07.294 in another subject, 00:16:07.294 --> 00:16:09.901 because, you know, the introduction to English studies 00:16:09.901 --> 00:16:12.485 actually had nothing to do with learning English 00:16:12.485 --> 00:16:16.000 or it was not the primary goal and almost all of them said 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:18.781 "Yes, absolutely, let's do it, it was good." 00:16:18.781 --> 00:16:20.490 So they were happy about it, 00:16:21.142 --> 00:16:22.315 they were satisfied. 00:16:22.342 --> 00:16:23.857 Now when you look at the time, 00:16:23.857 --> 00:16:27.457 how much time they spent, Veronika was the most active student 00:16:27.457 --> 00:16:31.314 and in two months she put in 81 hours of language learning 00:16:31.771 --> 00:16:34.628 and I can tell you these guys are extremely busy. 00:16:34.628 --> 00:16:38.257 I studied the program myself, they study two languages at the same time 00:16:38.257 --> 00:16:41.335 plus they have some subjects about translation and interpreting. 00:16:41.335 --> 00:16:46.652 They often have as many as 12 or 13 subjects every week, okay? 00:16:46.652 --> 00:16:49.912 And they need to prepare for all of them, so they're extremely busy. 00:16:49.912 --> 00:16:54.685 So when I saw that she could put in 81 hours of language learning, 00:16:54.685 --> 00:16:56.014 just because she wanted to, 00:16:56.014 --> 00:16:59.168 she wanted to improve, I was really really happy to see that. 00:16:59.171 --> 00:17:05.488 The other students were like 36-34 and on average it was 23 hours. 00:17:05.488 --> 00:17:09.631 When you actually compare it to what they would have 00:17:09.631 --> 00:17:11.591 if I was teaching them in the lesson, 00:17:11.591 --> 00:17:15.481 we would have spent six hours in two months all together, 00:17:15.481 --> 00:17:18.200 because it was just 8 times 45 minutes 00:17:18.570 --> 00:17:22.198 and now they've real learning time which they spent by themselves, 00:17:22.198 --> 00:17:25.958 not because they were taught, but because they were learning by themselves 00:17:25.958 --> 00:17:27.838 was 23 hours. 00:17:27.838 --> 00:17:33.795 So when you compare that, it's almost 400% of increase in learning time. 00:17:33.795 --> 00:17:36.795 Isn't that amazing? And it's much more effective 00:17:36.795 --> 00:17:41.439 and I think whatever I would do with 25 students in a class 00:17:41.439 --> 00:17:44.438 I could never find something that interests all of them, 00:17:44.438 --> 00:17:48.038 so whatever they were doing is something that they picked themselves 00:17:48.038 --> 00:17:50.452 and I think it was much more effective for them. 00:17:50.452 --> 00:17:52.642 Some of them worked on the grammar, the 15 %, 00:17:52.642 --> 00:17:54.971 some of them worked on other areas, 00:17:54.971 --> 00:17:57.914 that they needed and everybody was enjoying it. 00:17:57.914 --> 00:18:00.800 You know that fun, it was a really nice atmosphere. 00:18:00.800 --> 00:18:05.515 We spent seriously just 5 minutes every week talking about the learning, 00:18:05.515 --> 00:18:09.068 I asked them if anyone had any problems, it was kind of motivational 00:18:09.068 --> 00:18:11.838 and it just worked amazingly. 00:18:11.838 --> 00:18:15.200 They often came to me and said "Wow, this was so good, 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:17.612 let's do it in other semesters too." 00:18:17.612 --> 00:18:19.845 And it's just one simple idea you tell them 00:18:19.845 --> 00:18:24.411 "Guys don't wait to be taught, start learning yourselves." 00:18:24.411 --> 00:18:28.185 So then I asked them, how the program has helped them 00:18:28.185 --> 00:18:30.648 and I was really happy to see their answers, because 00:18:30.648 --> 00:18:34.930 you know these are students who just learned English at school, 00:18:34.930 --> 00:18:38.725 they don't have any experience learning by themselves and now they said like: 00:18:38.725 --> 00:18:42.609 "Wow, I have never worked on my English as intensively as during this semester, 00:18:42.609 --> 00:18:43.470 thank you!" 00:18:43.470 --> 00:18:47.137 or then the last one: "I never liked listening exercises at school too much, 00:18:47.137 --> 00:18:48.929 but now I enjoy listening to English, 00:18:48.929 --> 00:18:51.425 maybe because I did it voluntarily in my free time. 00:18:51.425 --> 00:18:52.941 Maybe, yes, 00:18:52.941 --> 00:18:54.861 What a good idea. 00:18:54.861 --> 00:18:56.101 Really nice discovery. 00:18:56.101 --> 00:18:58.037 And it was beautiful that they discovered 00:18:58.037 --> 00:19:00.714 kinda for themselves, I told them like you need to learn 00:19:00.714 --> 00:19:03.085 and these are all the methods that you can use 00:19:03.085 --> 00:19:07.341 for learning a language, it was beautiful to see how they actually agreed with it. 00:19:07.341 --> 00:19:09.452 Like: "Yes, yes, this is much more fun, 00:19:09.452 --> 00:19:13.195 much more effective, I see results. Let's do it again." 00:19:13.890 --> 00:19:16.177 So, then I did my second experiment. 00:19:16.257 --> 00:19:19.742 I moved it a little bit higher even, it was again with a hundred students 00:19:19.742 --> 00:19:22.771 but different ones, different classes 00:19:23.057 --> 00:19:26.194 and the program was called "Semester with Language Mentoring". 00:19:26.285 --> 00:19:30.635 And we just finished it last week, so I'm still processing the results of that. 00:19:30.914 --> 00:19:35.428 And the amazing thing is that I work with a group of a hundred students 00:19:35.428 --> 00:19:38.992 with 13 different languages, not just English. 00:19:38.992 --> 00:19:42.372 And it's because that in our university you can study as many 00:19:42.372 --> 00:19:46.116 as probably 20 different languages to be a translator and interpreter 00:19:46.116 --> 00:19:48.054 and they are in different combinations. 00:19:48.054 --> 00:19:52.542 So we have students who study French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, 00:19:52.542 --> 00:19:57.571 Finnish, Croatian, you name it and students with 13 different languages 00:19:57.571 --> 00:20:01.142 came to that class. It was actually not a class 00:20:01.142 --> 00:20:02.365 because I just told them: 00:20:02.365 --> 00:20:07.514 "Let's do it as our free time activity, you're not going to get any ECTS points 00:20:07.514 --> 00:20:10.628 any credits for that." In fact they are, but I didn't tell them, 00:20:10.628 --> 00:20:13.432 because I wanted them to have a genuine motivation. 00:20:13.432 --> 00:20:17.534 It's a surprise, I'm going to tell them next week. 00:20:18.800 --> 00:20:22.400 Just those that persevered until the end. They didn't know that. 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:24.551 I told them learn, because you want to learn, 00:20:24.551 --> 00:20:26.228 you want to improve your languages 00:20:26.228 --> 00:20:28.080 and not because someone asks you to 00:20:28.080 --> 00:20:30.931 or because you're going to get credits for that, right? 00:20:30.931 --> 00:20:34.000 So basically what I did at the beginning is 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:36.270 I gave them a lecture where I explained to them 00:20:36.270 --> 00:20:38.257 what I just told you 00:20:38.257 --> 00:20:40.114 about my language learning philosophy. 00:20:40.514 --> 00:20:45.530 And I actually started by using all the languages that I speak 00:20:45.530 --> 00:20:47.844 so that they they see that it's possible, 00:20:47.844 --> 00:20:51.302 that they can learn languages too and they were really inspired by that. 00:20:51.302 --> 00:20:54.272 It was like: "Oh, wow this is cool! I want to learn that too! 00:20:54.272 --> 00:20:57.582 So, I told them: "Okay, now listen, you need to put in a lot of hours 00:20:57.582 --> 00:20:59.617 there is no shortcut in language learning, 00:20:59.617 --> 00:21:01.485 deal with it, okay?" And I told them: 00:21:01.485 --> 00:21:03.158 "You know, now I know 300 polyglots 00:21:03.158 --> 00:21:07.272 and they say the same, so they trusted me they took my word for it 00:21:07.885 --> 00:21:10.888 So,I explained to them what language learning is really about. 00:21:10.888 --> 00:21:13.950 And I told them: "Okay, let's create a plan 00:21:13.950 --> 00:21:16.187 and let's learn according to that plan" 00:21:16.187 --> 00:21:18.477 So, everybody created their individual plan 00:21:18.477 --> 00:21:21.145 and now we had regular weekly meetings 00:21:21.342 --> 00:21:23.314 where I put them into groups according to 00:21:23.314 --> 00:21:25.285 the language that they were learning 00:21:25.285 --> 00:21:28.971 and so this would be a Spanish group and the French and German, etc... 00:21:29.428 --> 00:21:32.288 And I told them to pick just one language to do this with, 00:21:32.342 --> 00:21:35.208 even though they study all of them two languages, 00:21:35.208 --> 00:21:37.000 because I think it's more effective 00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:39.588 if you concentrate on one language at a certain time. 00:21:39.588 --> 00:21:43.777 So, we were meeting in three groups 00:21:43.777 --> 00:21:46.127 once a week and we were discussing the learning. 00:21:46.257 --> 00:21:49.510 And the amazing thing was that I was learning together with them. 00:21:49.510 --> 00:21:52.440 I was working on my Russian and we were all letting 00:21:52.440 --> 00:21:54.400 each other know how we're doing, and so 00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:56.600 They could all see what I did on my Russian, 00:21:56.600 --> 00:21:59.000 so it was very motivating for me also. 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:01.742 Not to give up and not to be lazy, 00:22:01.742 --> 00:22:04.400 but to continue, because I was the example for them. 00:22:05.171 --> 00:22:07.542 So, that's how we met and we discussed 00:22:07.542 --> 00:22:11.057 all the learning problems and there was 00:22:11.057 --> 00:22:12.657 no learning done in the meetings 00:22:12.657 --> 00:22:15.914 it was all about learning outside of the lessons. 00:22:16.171 --> 00:22:17.914 And again it worked amazingly! 00:22:17.914 --> 00:22:21.857 They spent a lot of time for example watching TV series, 00:22:21.857 --> 00:22:26.807 reading books, reading newspapers, magazines, etc... 00:22:26.807 --> 00:22:29.680 ...working with their Anki vocabulary, 00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:31.428 writing the Goldlist method, etc... 00:22:31.428 --> 00:22:33.340 I told them about all possible methods 00:22:33.340 --> 00:22:35.204 and they picked whatever they liked. 00:22:35.204 --> 00:22:38.000 I think that's really amazing to see how people 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:39.942 can get excited about language learning 00:22:39.942 --> 00:22:42.657 when they realize that it's up to them 00:22:42.657 --> 00:22:47.228 and it's in no one's hands. And it was nice, 00:22:47.228 --> 00:22:50.732 because I could tell they believed that I knew what I was saying, 00:22:50.732 --> 00:22:53.171 because I studied the same program four years ago, 00:22:53.171 --> 00:22:55.057 I finished at the same University 00:22:55.057 --> 00:22:56.448 studying English and German 00:22:56.448 --> 00:22:59.742 and I told them, "Do you have the feeling like 00:22:59.742 --> 00:23:01.591 you're in your third or fourth year 00:23:01.591 --> 00:23:03.990 and you're studying, let's say, English and German 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:06.258 but you're in fact kind of ashamed 00:23:06.258 --> 00:23:08.358 to tell people that you're studying German, 00:23:08.358 --> 00:23:10.434 because your German is not fluent enough?" 00:23:10.434 --> 00:23:12.485 And they were like "Yes!". I had that too, 00:23:12.485 --> 00:23:15.331 and and I said "It's perfectly okay, 00:23:15.331 --> 00:23:17.511 it's because you're not doing anything about 00:23:17.511 --> 00:23:19.171 your language and this university is not 00:23:19.171 --> 00:23:21.914 going to make you a perfect German 00:23:21.914 --> 00:23:24.981 or English speaker. You need to put in the work yourselves." 00:23:25.057 --> 00:23:28.237 I think they understood that and now they're approaching 00:23:28.237 --> 00:23:30.608 language learning in a completely new way 00:23:30.608 --> 00:23:32.411 and they're writing emails like this: 00:23:32.411 --> 00:23:34.814 "This is so amazing, I'm doing it for my other 00:23:34.814 --> 00:23:38.094 languages too and I have a plan to work in the summer on my Spanish, 00:23:38.094 --> 00:23:41.462 which I want to take as a third language" So, they got really motivated 00:23:41.462 --> 00:23:42.947 about language learning. 00:23:43.285 --> 00:23:47.984 I did the group of this methodology, this language learning experiment 00:23:47.984 --> 00:23:49.080 also in small groups. 00:23:49.080 --> 00:23:51.688 These are five my friends 00:23:51.688 --> 00:23:57.402 who are learning English and Spanish on an A2-B1 level. 00:23:57.402 --> 00:24:00.945 And again, we met every week at my place, 00:24:00.945 --> 00:24:02.889 and and we had a nice talk about that. 00:24:02.889 --> 00:24:04.868 And I just wanted to see how that works 00:24:04.868 --> 00:24:06.822 and it seemed to be working really well, 00:24:06.822 --> 00:24:09.171 because they really are achieving great results. 00:24:09.171 --> 00:24:11.296 Or another group of people who are actually 00:24:11.296 --> 00:24:14.382 starting to learn a language so, I am kind of testing the idea 00:24:14.382 --> 00:24:17.171 on different groups of people 00:24:17.171 --> 00:24:21.993 and now I started to organize seminars even for the public 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:24.257 where I tell people it's all about the learning 00:24:24.257 --> 00:24:26.371 it's not about being taught and it's mostly 00:24:26.600 --> 00:24:30.200 you know, these people that go to the courses are people 00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:35.130 who would normally just take a lesson in a language school but that's all 00:24:35.130 --> 00:24:37.748 it takes for them to learn a language. 00:24:37.748 --> 00:24:41.171 You know actually, when I was here at the Polyglot Gathering, 00:24:41.170 --> 00:24:44.140 I bought Judith's book "Fluent Chinese" 00:24:44.140 --> 00:24:46.938 I think it's called and I probably put a lot of interest 00:24:46.938 --> 00:24:49.084 even though I'm not interested in Chinese 00:24:49.084 --> 00:24:53.534 and I really enjoy the book and then my friend from Serbia 00:24:53.571 --> 00:24:57.090 wrote to me and he said: "Lydia, I'm going to teach English in China". 00:24:57.090 --> 00:24:59.101 I said: "Yeah, that's cool, good for you. 00:24:59.101 --> 00:25:01.060 and he says: "And you know what's amazing? 00:25:01.060 --> 00:25:04.852 they're going to give me a private teacher so I'm even going to speak Chinese". 00:25:05.142 --> 00:25:08.400 And by the way how he said it he looked to me 00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:11.285 like he thinks: Okay, "tick" that's done. 00:25:11.428 --> 00:25:14.628 You know, Chinese is another benefit of the work for free. 00:25:14.628 --> 00:25:18.142 You know, that's okay, so I just sent him the book right away 00:25:18.142 --> 00:25:20.958 I was like "Read this. You better work on your Chinese 00:25:20.958 --> 00:25:23.842 as Judith says, because she knows what she's talking about." 00:25:24.200 --> 00:25:29.628 And you know I think this really is something that people believe in general. 00:25:29.885 --> 00:25:34.658 Like all you need is a good teacher and he will do the work for you. 00:25:34.658 --> 00:25:38.820 You know and then these people go and look for the best teacher who can give them 00:25:38.857 --> 00:25:44.171 the the best know-how or the best language knowledge 00:25:44.171 --> 00:25:47.400 or something, but I don't really think it exists. 00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:51.028 I'm thinking teachers were always to make the students learn 00:25:51.028 --> 00:25:54.114 and I think the teachers are very important 00:25:54.114 --> 00:25:56.999 but the teacher should always stress 00:25:57.085 --> 00:25:59.990 how important is that students work on their languages 00:25:59.990 --> 00:26:02.690 by themselves outside of the lessons. 00:26:02.831 --> 00:26:06.911 So these are the seminars that I'm organizing right now, testing the idea. 00:26:06.911 --> 00:26:12.707 I'm gonna see what it brings me. I took it as my private mission to tell 00:26:12.707 --> 00:26:15.142 all the world that this is what polyglots do. 00:26:15.142 --> 00:26:17.270 You know, they actually learn the language, 00:26:17.270 --> 00:26:21.458 they don't wait to just be taught. 00:26:21.485 --> 00:26:25.038 And as I said this is all based on the four things 00:26:25.038 --> 00:26:27.087 which I think are the most important thing 00:26:27.087 --> 00:26:30.611 in language learning and it'll be really interesting to hear your opinion 00:26:30.611 --> 00:26:34.058 whether you agree with it, whether maybe you would like to add something 00:26:34.058 --> 00:26:37.122 and now we actually have some time for the discussion 00:26:37.122 --> 00:26:40.942 so that would be that would be all Are there any questions? 00:26:50.942 --> 00:26:52.155 If you agree, 00:26:52.155 --> 00:26:56.085 I will ask my question sir then give it to you after 00:26:58.020 --> 00:27:04.485 Lydia I think it is not a teaching, but a learning revolution 00:27:04.485 --> 00:27:08.404 you are pointing out is really wonderful. 00:27:08.404 --> 00:27:14.327 And one thing, with the first group you showed to us 00:27:14.327 --> 00:27:18.485 there were three percent of people who 00:27:18.485 --> 00:27:22.542 we're not amused with this, 00:27:22.542 --> 00:27:25.628 I go to complain to the direction 00:27:25.628 --> 00:27:33.874 I mean you are not a director of your school, are you? 00:27:33.874 --> 00:27:38.207 So, how the direction reacted to that? 00:27:38.207 --> 00:27:41.371 Yes, this is one thing, I'm very glad you ask 00:27:41.371 --> 00:27:43.751 thanks for the question. And this is something that 00:27:43.751 --> 00:27:46.200 I was thinking a lot about how to actually do it, 00:27:46.200 --> 00:27:51.252 because it's a formal education, you know I need to actually assess them now. 00:27:51.252 --> 00:27:53.668 How do you assess learning in their free time? 00:27:53.668 --> 00:27:56.857 I asked them how much time, we actually had a chart 00:27:56.857 --> 00:28:00.521 and they filled in how much time they spent but if I had told them you know, 00:28:00.521 --> 00:28:03.657 those of you who will spend more than, I don't know, 20 hours 00:28:03.657 --> 00:28:07.485 altogether will get an A, then I wouldn't believe what they say, 00:28:07.485 --> 00:28:09.438 because they would just put in anything 00:28:09.438 --> 00:28:13.400 So I told them, look guys, officially I'm going to asses you 00:28:13.400 --> 00:28:16.640 just based on the presentations and we did a few more activities, 00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:18.338 like vocabulary tests, etc... 00:28:18.338 --> 00:28:22.281 but the most important thing in this subject is the learning part. 00:28:22.281 --> 00:28:25.228 it's the most important one, but I cannot assess it formally. 00:28:25.228 --> 00:28:27.700 So, let's just agree that we are going to do it. 00:28:27.700 --> 00:28:30.028 if you really don't want to, you don't have to. 00:28:30.028 --> 00:28:34.098 There is no way for me how to find that out 00:28:34.098 --> 00:28:35.594 and it's totally up to you. 00:28:35.594 --> 00:28:39.672 But I'm telling you, this is your once in a lifetime opportunity, you better use it, 00:28:39.672 --> 00:28:42.902 because no other teachers are probably going to tell you to do that, 00:28:42.902 --> 00:28:44.155 so let's do it together, 00:28:44.155 --> 00:28:46.517 so, I tried to motivate them in a positive way. 00:28:46.517 --> 00:28:49.605 And if they didn't, you know, if they didn't like it or something 00:28:49.605 --> 00:28:54.162 if they didn't put in all the hours it's like okay, that's your problem. 00:28:54.162 --> 00:28:57.228 When they were doing it, they came back to you for questions 00:28:57.228 --> 00:28:58.870 on particular points? 00:28:59.257 --> 00:29:03.810 Yes, during the last moments five minutes at the end, yes to discuss 00:29:03.810 --> 00:29:06.201 whatever they want to discuss about the learning. 00:29:06.201 --> 00:29:07.691 Thank you. You are welcome. 00:29:11.942 --> 00:29:15.885 Thanks, you use the term "Gold list", 00:29:16.371 --> 00:29:22.057 Can you briefly explain what that is for those who don't know? 00:29:22.057 --> 00:29:24.911 Oh no, I think I may not be the best person to explain that. 00:29:24.911 --> 00:29:27.627 David James, the author of the method is here among us... 00:29:27.627 --> 00:29:33.868 And the "Gold list" is a basically method of rewriting vocabulary lists 00:29:33.868 --> 00:29:37.957 at least two weeks after writing the first list, so you go 00:29:37.957 --> 00:29:42.763 you basically distill the vocabulary and you rewrite 70% of the words 00:29:42.763 --> 00:29:46.557 that were most difficult for you every two weeks or more. 00:29:46.557 --> 00:29:48.783 And it's learning into your long-term memory 00:29:48.783 --> 00:29:54.140 without actually wanting to learn, without forcing your brain to learn. 00:29:54.142 --> 00:29:56.815 I think you could talk to David James about the method. 00:29:56.815 --> 00:29:59.830 I think it's a really interesting one, I'm using it myself. 00:30:00.057 --> 00:30:03.771 How about senses learning tools 00:30:03.771 --> 00:30:06.714 that can teach a student in order to continue his studies 00:30:06.714 --> 00:30:10.057 to see one level after he finished his 00:30:10.057 --> 00:30:12.057 intermediate and beginner? 00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:18.485 I will not now talk about all the methods 00:30:18.485 --> 00:30:21.000 I basically gave my students a two-hour lecture 00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:25.228 about the possible methods I think it takes a lot of contact with the language 00:30:25.428 --> 00:30:28.485 and it depends on you know what level. 00:30:28.485 --> 00:30:31.228 If you'll be frosting about the upper 00:30:31.228 --> 00:30:34.142 intermediate advance then I suppose that 00:30:34.142 --> 00:30:36.142 people should work with native materials 00:30:36.140 --> 00:30:38.800 and work with the vocabulary a lot and just listen, 00:30:38.800 --> 00:30:40.171 listen a lot and read. 00:30:40.171 --> 00:30:41.942 Because this is something that our students 00:30:41.942 --> 00:30:44.857 just don't do enough of listening to start one thing 00:30:44.850 --> 00:30:47.514 that at least in Slovakia is really underestimated. 00:30:47.514 --> 00:30:51.742 Can we give the microphone to exactly that person 00:30:51.742 --> 00:30:53.085 I thought you were the person. 00:30:53.085 --> 00:30:56.142 I don't think James is here. 00:31:00.542 --> 00:31:01.685 What a question? 00:31:01.914 --> 00:31:04.942 I fully believe in what you're doing, 00:31:05.114 --> 00:31:08.428 but how do you make it that we go out of our comfort zone? 00:31:08.857 --> 00:31:12.457 Because I mean personally, I like reading or writing 00:31:12.457 --> 00:31:14.428 this is where I'm going to do all the time 00:31:14.428 --> 00:31:18.857 when I kind of don't go to the oral part because it's my tougher part 00:31:18.857 --> 00:31:21.342 and I say okay I prefer taking a book that looking at a video, 00:31:21.771 --> 00:31:25.114 so how do you push your student to go out of the comfort zone. 00:31:25.114 --> 00:31:26.342 Very good question thank you 00:31:26.685 --> 00:31:28.714 and the first thing I did with them 00:31:28.714 --> 00:31:31.914 is for them to realize what are their three priorities 00:31:31.914 --> 00:31:33.285 that they need to concentrate on 00:31:33.628 --> 00:31:36.285 and I made them write it down before I continued. 00:31:36.285 --> 00:31:38.771 So I said okay now think about it what do you need 00:31:38.771 --> 00:31:40.400 to work on most? 00:31:40.742 --> 00:31:43.771 For 93% of them speaking is number one 00:31:44.057 --> 00:31:45.400 and vocabulary is number two 00:31:45.942 --> 00:31:48.228 and then you know listening, writing, 00:31:48.228 --> 00:31:49.428 whatever it is, whatever they chose 00:31:49.657 --> 00:31:51.628 and I said okay, let's spend these two months 00:31:51.628 --> 00:31:56.314 concentrating on your priorities and if you put in speaking 00:31:56.800 --> 00:31:58.600 now I want you to actually write down 00:31:58.600 --> 00:32:00.885 exactly how you're going to improve your speaking 00:32:01.114 --> 00:32:02.971 and I gave them a range of possibilities 00:32:02.971 --> 00:32:05.571 even including things like talking to yourself. 00:32:05.571 --> 00:32:08.600 Self-talk which is an amazing way for introverts for example, 00:32:08.600 --> 00:32:09.771 I think it's a good method, 00:32:09.771 --> 00:32:11.914 so I told them various possible ways like 00:32:11.914 --> 00:32:13.400 you can go to language cafes 00:32:13.714 --> 00:32:15.914 you know you can use several websites 00:32:15.914 --> 00:32:18.028 actually meet foreigners in Bratislava, 00:32:18.314 --> 00:32:20.400 you can use italkie for online teachers, 00:32:20.628 --> 00:32:21.971 you have a tandem we have Erasmus students 00:32:21.971 --> 00:32:25.114 in Bratislava, so there's best possibilities 00:32:25.114 --> 00:32:26.685 and I told them now pick one and 00:32:26.685 --> 00:32:28.342 write down what you're going to do 00:32:28.714 --> 00:32:30.885 and then we did a challenge and I told them 00:32:30.885 --> 00:32:33.914 okay guys some of you said your priority is speaking 00:32:34.171 --> 00:32:35.885 but I see in the chart that you still 00:32:35.885 --> 00:32:37.400 haven't been to any language cafe 00:32:37.400 --> 00:32:38.342 you haven't talked to anyone, 00:32:38.342 --> 00:32:40.342 so how are you going to improve your speaking 00:32:40.542 --> 00:32:42.714 and then I always tell them 00:32:43.028 --> 00:32:46.485 it's very comfortable to do the things that we like 00:32:46.485 --> 00:32:48.714 like you're reading and listening 00:32:48.714 --> 00:32:50.771 where we are not also outside of our comfort zone 00:32:51.028 --> 00:32:53.685 but you're speaking will never improve without speaking. 00:32:53.685 --> 00:32:58.114 So I said okay before next week I mean this week 00:32:58.285 --> 00:33:00.571 everybody needs to do something about 00:33:00.571 --> 00:33:02.600 the priority that they haven't still done 00:33:02.600 --> 00:33:05.257 anything about and you're going to report to me 00:33:05.628 --> 00:33:07.542 next week and then I would ask them in front of the other people 00:33:07.828 --> 00:33:09.571 so, what about your language cafe did you go? 00:33:09.571 --> 00:33:12.771 and they're like yeah you know um 00:33:12.771 --> 00:33:14.771 I already have an italkie session 00:33:14.914 --> 00:33:15.942 booked for tomorrow. 00:33:15.942 --> 00:33:16.657 It's like okay good, 00:33:16.657 --> 00:33:18.657 So this basically motivation like that 00:33:19.457 --> 00:33:21.200 I have for the mic back here 00:33:21.200 --> 00:33:24.257 send it up front after one more person. 00:33:24.257 --> 00:33:27.114 Here I normally don't plug things 00:33:27.114 --> 00:33:29.685 but I recently took a course from sensible Chinese 00:33:29.685 --> 00:33:33.400 for learning Chinese characters and I was extremely impressed 00:33:33.400 --> 00:33:36.028 by the systematic approach that it's. 00:33:36.028 --> 00:33:39.057 It wasn't specifically to teach me Chinese characters themselves 00:33:39.057 --> 00:33:42.028 but how to go about doing that in a very regular 00:33:42.028 --> 00:33:45.600 easy-to-understand way if anyone's interested good 00:33:49.400 --> 00:33:51.571 Hi thank you so much for that presentation 00:33:51.971 --> 00:33:54.485 you sort of answered my question 00:33:54.485 --> 00:33:56.028 but I just want to know if there's anything else 00:33:56.028 --> 00:33:59.200 so to ask it directly you had the puzzle pieces 00:33:59.200 --> 00:34:01.714 there and one of them was system so you 00:34:01.714 --> 00:34:03.771 discovered about you know, they make the goals 00:34:03.771 --> 00:34:05.600 and then they work on their priorities and all of that 00:34:05.600 --> 00:34:08.428 was there anything else as part of that system 00:34:08.428 --> 00:34:09.628 that you haven't already mentioned? 00:34:09.828 --> 00:34:14.313 Yes it's also the accountability sheet or count account 00:34:14.456 --> 00:34:18.257 making sure that they are held accountable for their learning 00:34:18.571 --> 00:34:20.742 which is something that I took 00:34:20.742 --> 00:34:23.400 inspiration from the add1challenge you know the Google spreadsheet 00:34:23.400 --> 00:34:26.027 where people write what date. 00:34:26.027 --> 00:34:28.714 I think it's a really good way of making sure 00:34:28.714 --> 00:34:30.485 that it's public everybody sees it 00:34:30.485 --> 00:34:32.828 It's not just something they would report to me by email 00:34:32.828 --> 00:34:35.456 that would be a lot too much work anyway to process 00:34:35.456 --> 00:34:37.942 that so this is how I did it 00:34:37.942 --> 00:34:42.456 we basically also make sure the accountability was there 00:34:42.456 --> 00:34:44.571 I think that's an important part of the system. 00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:50.170 Well first of all well done 00:34:50.170 --> 00:34:53.828 guess what I agree, I said half of the things 00:34:53.828 --> 00:34:55.400 that you said yesterday in your presentation 00:34:55.400 --> 00:34:57.885 right yeah but better amazing work.. 00:34:57.885 --> 00:34:58.942 really really great. 00:34:58.942 --> 00:35:02.514 One thing I was wondering is your group are all busy 00:35:02.514 --> 00:35:04.942 taking and interpreting and translating degree 00:35:05.285 --> 00:35:06.914 they're all foreign language students 00:35:06.914 --> 00:35:10.914 you've got like a big self-selecting group of language nerds 00:35:10.914 --> 00:35:14.057 to a certain extent maybe not as nerdy as nerdfest. 00:35:17.228 --> 00:35:20.400 However you did then say that you know you were 00:35:20.400 --> 00:35:21.857 working on it with your friends you've worked on it 00:35:21.857 --> 00:35:23.371 with sort of even zero beginners 00:35:23.371 --> 00:35:24.600 I think that's really interesting 00:35:24.600 --> 00:35:25.857 because I'm looking at it's good 00:35:25.857 --> 00:35:27.857 I'll do this in my town this is great 00:35:27.914 --> 00:35:31.514 but I would never find you know like people 00:35:31.514 --> 00:35:34.028 who are self selected language people 00:35:34.028 --> 00:35:35.828 so I wonder if did you notice any differences? 00:35:36.885 --> 00:35:41.114 Yes, surprisingly the students who study languages are not 00:35:41.114 --> 00:35:43.885 such language enthusiasts you would probably expect 00:35:43.885 --> 00:35:46.085 right and they often choose that 00:35:46.085 --> 00:35:48.971 because they didn't get to medicine or whatever 00:35:51.371 --> 00:35:55.000 But in Slovakia we have five universities 00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:57.000 that prepare translators and interpreters 00:35:57.000 --> 00:35:59.000 we have like 20 languages in there 00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:00.428 so it's just you know you're studying 00:36:00.428 --> 00:36:03.885 polish why well they open polish in m year 00:36:03.885 --> 00:36:06.800 so you have students and students there 00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:10.428 you know um however, I do work only with people 00:36:10.428 --> 00:36:13.771 who do have a little bit of internal intrinsic motivation 00:36:14.200 --> 00:36:16.514 I don't need to persuade anyone like if someone 00:36:16.514 --> 00:36:21.657 wants to be taught and they are willing to pay a lot of money to be taught 00:36:21.857 --> 00:36:23.742 I let them figure it out for themselves 00:36:23.742 --> 00:36:25.514 because it's like I tell them about this 00:36:25.771 --> 00:36:27.600 and it doesn't resonate with them 00:36:27.600 --> 00:36:29.914 then too bad you know I decided to just work 00:36:29.914 --> 00:36:31.400 with people who want to work because 00:36:31.485 --> 00:36:34.085 I don't promise any miraculous methods 00:36:34.085 --> 00:36:34.885 you know this is like 00:36:34.885 --> 00:36:37.000 hey guys I'm going to help you learn a language 00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:38.057 but you need to do the work 00:36:38.457 --> 00:36:39.657 I'm just going to be the guide 00:36:39.657 --> 00:36:41.371 I'm not going to give you the perfect method 00:36:41.371 --> 00:36:43.114 which will teach you English in two weeks 00:36:43.114 --> 00:36:47.428 So I guess this is this is the natural selection. 00:36:47.628 --> 00:36:49.885 I tell people about it some people say like 00:36:49.885 --> 00:36:51.885 well sounds like a lot of work 00:36:52.057 --> 00:36:54.142 I'd better go to my to my language course 00:36:54.142 --> 00:37:01.771 if others like the idea and we work together in the voluntary group. 00:37:01.771 --> 00:37:05.571 Did you have anyone drop out like yes this went quiet on you? 00:37:05.571 --> 00:37:07.371 Yes actually counted it yesterday 00:37:07.371 --> 00:37:13.942 I think 76 people ended the course and were regularly going and doing this. 00:37:14.114 --> 00:37:17.285 This is the things some of them broken you know like yeah you know... 00:37:17.285 --> 00:37:21.571 I'm really busy this semester and one day I will do the amazing things that 00:37:21.571 --> 00:37:25.657 you told us about and that's what for example Brian Tracy calls the one day. 00:37:25.771 --> 00:37:28.485 You know people never get out of that. Thanks, 00:37:34.571 --> 00:37:36.571 So I am a classical guitarist 00:37:36.885 --> 00:37:39.285 and I completely agree with every single 00:37:39.285 --> 00:37:41.857 point and when I'm hearing a lot from people here 00:37:42.400 --> 00:37:46.971 is that people want to play an instrument but not practice 00:37:46.971 --> 00:37:49.885 people want to speak something but not speak 00:37:50.285 --> 00:37:58.314 and so that's so as a musician to language learner everything you said 00:37:58.314 --> 00:38:03.285 is 100% true so if you have that comfort zone problem 00:38:03.428 --> 00:38:05.457 to one day I'll whatever you want to call it 00:38:05.457 --> 00:38:08.571 maybe both if you're an introvert can't do this because 00:38:08.571 --> 00:38:10.285 you're setting up your own boundaries 00:38:10.628 --> 00:38:12.200 and that is why you cannot advance 00:38:12.200 --> 00:38:13.857 she cannot help you no matter how good 00:38:13.857 --> 00:38:15.342 of a teacher she is if you are 00:38:15.342 --> 00:38:17.942 not willing to step out so you get it. 00:38:18.428 --> 00:38:21.800 I use this metaphor quite a lot 00:38:21.914 --> 00:38:23.257 in my in my lectures on my students 00:38:23.257 --> 00:38:25.657 I use the guitar and I show them a picture 00:38:25.657 --> 00:38:27.800 of the guitar and I said if you like 00:38:27.800 --> 00:38:29.571 to play the guitar.. how do you think you 00:38:29.571 --> 00:38:30.542 will achieve that? 00:38:31.942 --> 00:38:32.914 Do you think you could 00:38:32.914 --> 00:38:35.228 watch some YouTube videos and practice 00:38:35.228 --> 00:38:37.771 with on the imaginary guitar and then 00:38:37.771 --> 00:38:40.428 once you know how to do it you take a 00:38:40.428 --> 00:38:43.200 guitar and go and do a concert that's that word?. 00:38:43.628 --> 00:38:45.228 I go like no, of course not... 00:38:45.228 --> 00:38:46.542 You need to pick this along with the guitar 00:38:46.542 --> 00:38:49.314 it's like okay what about speaking you 00:38:49.314 --> 00:38:50.142 know you want to practice speaking and 00:38:50.142 --> 00:38:52.142 you're accepting and somehow 00:38:52.142 --> 00:38:53.028 by just reading something and listening to 00:38:53.028 --> 00:38:55.085 something you suddenly start speaking in 00:38:55.085 --> 00:38:57.342 a fluent way doesn't work 00:38:57.657 --> 00:39:00.000 and it helps a lot when I tell them 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:02.000 if you know I've gone through this 00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:04.000 process several times right now 00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:05.428 I'm learning Russian and 00:39:05.428 --> 00:39:09.200 I'm somewhere still in the wave zone you know still 00:39:09.200 --> 00:39:10.628 struggling and still putting a lot of work 00:39:11.028 --> 00:39:14.857 But you know even though I it's my eighth language right now 00:39:15.114 --> 00:39:18.142 I still felt really frustrated at 00:39:18.142 --> 00:39:21.400 the beginning it's like it is a painful process deal with it 00:39:21.400 --> 00:39:23.342 okay you want to say something 00:39:23.342 --> 00:39:25.457 you're talking to someone you could express it 00:39:25.457 --> 00:39:26.485 in fact on the language ease 00:39:26.742 --> 00:39:28.571 what you want to do it in Russian it's like 00:39:28.771 --> 00:39:32.371 how do I say that you know it's really a painful process 00:39:32.371 --> 00:39:34.457 but I tell them just keep growing 00:39:34.457 --> 00:39:36.028 and it's going to pay off right 00:39:36.028 --> 00:39:38.228 Going on with that it's like you want 00:39:38.228 --> 00:39:39.600 to have a concert but you only want 00:39:39.600 --> 00:39:40.828 to play the first piece in your program 00:39:40.971 --> 00:39:42.314 you want to play a concert but 00:39:42.314 --> 00:39:43.457 you're only going to practice scales 00:39:43.457 --> 00:39:44.314 when you have other pieces 00:39:44.314 --> 00:39:46.485 if you play scales cause I mean you can play arpeggios 00:39:46.485 --> 00:39:47.514 if you play arpeggios 00:39:47.514 --> 00:39:48.942 I mean you can play scales etc 00:39:48.942 --> 00:39:51.057 so listen to her, excellent work. 00:40:00.885 --> 00:40:07.228 ah I would have interest in your Google sheets that you set up 00:40:07.228 --> 00:40:10.228 and I don't know it's like because I did that too 00:40:10.228 --> 00:40:14.657 do they have to do it every day 00:40:14.650 --> 00:40:17.171 or every week and what what do they enter 00:40:17.171 --> 00:40:20.057 because it can be too much it can be too less, 00:40:20.057 --> 00:40:21.428 I don't know your balance 00:40:22.057 --> 00:40:24.371 I'm experimenting with this again 00:40:24.371 --> 00:40:25.742 I'm trying to work out the best way 00:40:25.828 --> 00:40:28.200 with the first group we did it with colors 00:40:28.314 --> 00:40:30.800 so we had a we had a sheet which was the 00:40:30.800 --> 00:40:37.571 rows were this run from s 60 and the columns were individual students 00:40:37.657 --> 00:40:40.771 in several sheets and they were basically 00:40:40.771 --> 00:40:44.085 supposed to color the given cell for the day green 00:40:44.085 --> 00:40:47.428 if they did well, yellow if it was like half the time 00:40:47.428 --> 00:40:49.428 they were starting to they were planning 00:40:49.428 --> 00:40:51.457 red if they failed that day. 00:40:51.657 --> 00:40:56.057 and it was style of violet if it was a day off. 00:40:56.200 --> 00:40:57.942 because I told them you don't need to study every single day 00:40:58.342 --> 00:41:01.114 and so then you looked at the chart and you saw 00:41:01.114 --> 00:41:04.000 exactly like a there's quite a lot of red cells in here 00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:07.114 you know what's going on and then you could discuss it 00:41:07.114 --> 00:41:09.085 with that student so that was my color method 00:41:09.085 --> 00:41:12.571 and I even rewarded them like if you if you put it twice as much work 00:41:12.571 --> 00:41:14.800 because you know students get really motivated at the beginning 00:41:15.057 --> 00:41:16.514 and they start learning a lot 00:41:16.514 --> 00:41:19.542 so I told them if it's a really active day 00:41:19.542 --> 00:41:22.257 then make it a green cell and put in a smiley face 00:41:22.571 --> 00:41:25.142 you know and then you can see like I have so many smiles 00:41:25.142 --> 00:41:27.000 this week you know, they were very proud 00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:30.057 to show the others, so that's my first method, right now 00:41:30.457 --> 00:41:33.571 for making them actually write into the cells what exactly they're doing 00:41:33.771 --> 00:41:35.371 how much time they're spending. 00:41:35.371 --> 00:41:36.285 we're counting the minutes 00:41:36.285 --> 00:41:38.971 and they're giving notes like what exact day 00:41:38.971 --> 00:41:41.628 they were doing like 15 minutes of that 20 minutes of that 00:41:41.914 --> 00:41:43.600 and then we count it together that's how 00:41:43.600 --> 00:41:46.257 I could find out how much time did she spend doing 00:41:46.485 --> 00:41:48.485 so it's even with numbers or with colors. 00:41:48.714 --> 00:41:51.942 Actually I lectured two English teachers 00:41:51.942 --> 00:41:53.942 in Slovakia about this and some of the 00:41:53.942 --> 00:41:56.057 teachers were to be like I'm actually coming to try 00:41:56.057 --> 00:41:58.600 these with my students and one of the teachers 00:41:58.600 --> 00:42:01.285 worked with kids which are more like 10 years old 00:42:01.628 --> 00:42:03.142 and she says it works perfectly 00:42:03.142 --> 00:42:05.028 you know the kids are watching YouTube videos 00:42:05.028 --> 00:42:06.714 and they're learning English 00:42:06.714 --> 00:42:08.285 and it works well and she works 00:42:08.285 --> 00:42:09.914 with the colors because they want 00:42:09.914 --> 00:42:11.914 to have the green cells you know 00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:14.314 and they even have a chart 00:42:14.314 --> 00:42:17.285 in the classroom or color the things themselves 00:42:17.285 --> 00:42:19.228 so seems to be working even for children. 00:42:22.857 --> 00:42:25.285 Hi thank you very much back to my seat 00:42:25.285 --> 00:42:27.828 thank you very much for your presentation. 00:42:27.828 --> 00:42:32.000 My name is Johanna I created a kind of teach yourself method 00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:35.742 language learning method some of my clients get private sessions with me 00:42:36.114 --> 00:42:39.314 I'm thinking of one in particular he's a very busy businessman 00:42:39.628 --> 00:42:43.028 I'm supposed to teach him or he's supposed to learn English 00:42:43.342 --> 00:42:47.571 and I try to explain kind of the same thing you're saying 00:42:47.571 --> 00:42:50.142 I give him a lot of resources with video he could watch 00:42:51.257 --> 00:42:54.200 but I never tried the accountability option 00:42:54.457 --> 00:42:56.914 what would you recommend for one-on-one sessions? 00:42:56.914 --> 00:43:00.542 Because he has nobody else to to prove to 00:43:00.542 --> 00:43:02.628 he cannot do a Google sheet with anybody else, 00:43:02.628 --> 00:43:03.685 so what could you recommend? 00:43:03.885 --> 00:43:05.685 Okay there's another thing that I tried 00:43:05.685 --> 00:43:09.828 a mentor like that a friend of mine 00:43:10.142 --> 00:43:14.028 with whom I said okay people are really 00:43:14.080 --> 00:43:15.685 motivated by money you know people 00:43:15.685 --> 00:43:18.000 want to have money and when they lose money 00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:18.657 they feel bad about it. 00:43:18.657 --> 00:43:20.800 So I think that's a good motivation too 00:43:21.085 --> 00:43:23.685 so I told her okay you give me 50 euros 00:43:24.057 --> 00:43:26.400 and you learning German, so I'm going to test you 00:43:26.400 --> 00:43:30.428 in one month in 50 most frequent irregular verbs in German 00:43:30.542 --> 00:43:33.600 If you fail the test, I'm keeping the money 00:43:35.085 --> 00:43:38.000 I didn't see them but with my friends the two groups that I showed you 00:43:38.257 --> 00:43:40.600 they gave me 100 euros and I told them 00:43:40.600 --> 00:43:42.485 you need to stick it out till the under three months 00:43:42.914 --> 00:43:45.714 otherwise I'm going to have a really good weekend 00:43:47.857 --> 00:43:50.857 and so this or something like that seemed to work 00:43:50.857 --> 00:43:52.314 for them too you know they don't want to 00:43:52.314 --> 00:43:54.857 people are really really afraid to lose money 00:43:54.857 --> 00:43:58.428 So I didn't want to take any money from them 00:43:58.428 --> 00:43:59.428 because they're my friends 00:43:59.428 --> 00:44:01.800 I was just testing the idea in this way 00:44:01.800 --> 00:44:05.200 they were like you know I want to actually earn money by learning 00:44:05.657 --> 00:44:07.800 look at that you know what an amazing approach 00:44:07.800 --> 00:44:09.828 like if I learn a little bit more 00:44:09.828 --> 00:44:12.200 I get a 100 euros the psychology of that 00:44:12.200 --> 00:44:13.857 it seems to be working pretty well 00:44:13.857 --> 00:44:15.857 if you haven't tried that. 00:44:18.457 --> 00:44:21.228 Thank you so much that's really inspiring 00:44:21.228 --> 00:44:23.085 because I would love to do some 00:44:23.080 --> 00:44:24.342 of the thinking of mentoring methods 00:44:24.428 --> 00:44:26.342 that you do and I was wondering 00:44:26.600 --> 00:44:28.742 how you found different group sizes from 00:44:28.742 --> 00:44:32.085 1 on 1 to 100 what have been the differences 00:44:32.085 --> 00:44:34.200 pluses and minuses benefits of each one 00:44:34.200 --> 00:44:35.885 and is there a size you would say 00:44:36.314 --> 00:44:37.771 you would recommend not going past 00:44:39.314 --> 00:44:41.714 I think this can be done with as many people as possible 00:44:41.714 --> 00:44:44.628 and it also doesn't depend on the languages you know. 00:44:44.628 --> 00:44:46.428 I help people improve their finish 00:44:46.800 --> 00:44:48.314 I don't speak a word in Finnish 00:44:48.342 --> 00:44:52.685 so it doesn't matter what languages there are even what level 00:44:52.685 --> 00:44:55.057 I think it could be done with people on different levels as far 00:44:55.057 --> 00:44:58.228 as everybody's learning on their own level 00:44:58.657 --> 00:45:01.142 and there are some pluses and minuses 00:45:01.600 --> 00:45:03.542 like I would say with this group of 100 students 00:45:03.542 --> 00:45:06.800 it was extremely motivating that they met in person 00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:08.771 that they actually weren't there together 00:45:09.142 --> 00:45:11.771 and even when I did the lecture you know I'd propose 00:45:11.771 --> 00:45:13.114 this all around the university 00:45:13.114 --> 00:45:15.971 I said we're starting a new learning revolution here at the Faculty 00:45:15.971 --> 00:45:18.885 make sure you kind of learn how pointless learn languages 00:45:18.885 --> 00:45:21.542 and I had a whole roomful of people you know 00:45:21.542 --> 00:45:24.171 and they were like it was amazing to see that this room 00:45:24.171 --> 00:45:26.371 is actually full in one of the lectures you know 00:45:26.685 --> 00:45:28.257 and that there are so many other people 00:45:28.257 --> 00:45:30.685 who want to learn that was very inspiring for them 00:45:30.685 --> 00:45:33.000 to see that their classmates are also doing it 00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:35.742 and then I also put them into Facebook groups 00:45:35.742 --> 00:45:39.714 where they could share resources for their individual languages 00:45:39.714 --> 00:45:42.571 so we had a Russian group English German etc 00:45:42.971 --> 00:45:49.857 and I kind of motivated them and I boosted the activity in the groups at the beginning 00:45:50.085 --> 00:45:51.857 I even had assistants who actually 00:45:51.857 --> 00:45:56.428 helped me with that and you know that they were motivated by other classmates 00:45:56.428 --> 00:46:02.200 mentioning you know what they were doing for example with a will but 00:46:02.200 --> 00:46:04.485 this thing the goal based method 00:46:04.742 --> 00:46:07.771 I told them it's important to have a notebook 00:46:07.771 --> 00:46:11.485 that you love you know you need to take a really beautiful notebook 00:46:11.800 --> 00:46:14.200 and so one of one of the students in the Italian group 00:46:14.400 --> 00:46:16.771 actually posted a picture of her notebook 00:46:16.771 --> 00:46:19.342 as she said has anyone got a prettier 00:46:21.514 --> 00:46:23.685 they were motivating themselves it's amazing 00:46:23.685 --> 00:46:26.228 you just need to basically kindle the spark 00:46:26.228 --> 00:46:28.485 and it seems to be working by itself 00:46:28.485 --> 00:46:31.028 so I would say that's the greatest benefit of working with a group 00:46:31.171 --> 00:46:36.685 and working with one on one it can be more adapted to the needs of the person 00:46:36.885 --> 00:46:42.571 so for example I mentor a few people where I discuss their language learning 00:46:42.657 --> 00:46:44.400 in the language so it is considered English 00:46:44.400 --> 00:46:46.828 for example which for them is an additional practice 00:46:47.257 --> 00:46:49.771 which they like I couldn't do it with the group 00:46:49.771 --> 00:46:51.771 of a lot of students with different languages. 00:46:55.314 --> 00:46:57.342 This is exactly what 00:46:57.342 --> 00:47:00.714 I do in the finals 00:47:00.971 --> 00:47:06.142 I said I'm a lazy polyglot and this is exactly, thank you 00:47:06.228 --> 00:47:12.914 what I do I used all my time that I couldn't normally 00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:17.800 use when I was at university queuing for the university restaurant 00:47:18.171 --> 00:47:23.228 on eating with friends or washing dishes whatever 00:47:23.485 --> 00:47:29.342 and I always have either YouTube or some friends to practice languages 00:47:30.028 --> 00:47:32.200 with I think this is the secret, isn't it? 00:47:32.314 --> 00:47:34.057 isn't it like people? people think like: oh you spent 00:47:34.057 --> 00:47:35.257 two hours a day or three hours a day learning 00:47:35.457 --> 00:47:37.000 and I was like no really no. 00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:39.000 I mean I don't have that extra time 00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:44.342 I'm quite easy so I just use I make sure I use the time when I need to. 00:47:44.828 --> 00:47:47.000 Exactly those things, okay guys so just one more thing 00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:48.285 if you if you want to find out more 00:47:48.485 --> 00:47:50.714 I know the website right now in Slovakia 00:47:52.257 --> 00:47:53.857 you'll probably not understand 00:47:54.057 --> 00:47:56.200 You also have languagementoring.com 00:47:56.200 --> 00:47:58.314 which I'm just starting right now so there is not much 00:47:58.571 --> 00:48:02.771 but you can contact me there if you have any other questions or ideas. 00:48:03.028 --> 00:48:05.485 Thank you very much.