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Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5826 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French
| Message 209 of 407 20 September 2011 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
Before I continue to analyze what factors impede or facilitate the attainment of flow, I’d like to ask you what
factors affect your flow. I’ll be particularly interested in answers that pertain directly to oral practice of a L2+
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Hi Arekkusu! I've also experienced flow in speaking Japanese, and it also takes me about an hour to warm up to
it. Since my classes are only 55 minutes long, I've taken to trying to warm myself up before class so I can
experience at least some of the benefits of flow before class ends. ;)
In my experience so far, the number one biggest help has been thinking in Japanese as much as possible before
class. Nowadays I try to switch to Japanese mentally almost as soon as I get up in the morning. The longer I've
spent priming my brain, the more rapidly I get to flow when I begin speaking. The great benefit of this is that I
don't have to interrupt my normal routine; if I need to do things in English, so be it, but they're like little islands
in a big sea of Japanese thinking. Lately I've found myself still thinking in Japanese when I speak English and
actually translating back to English before I speak!
I think what's actually happening is that after an hour or so of thinking I reach flow in thinking. Then when I
speak it takes very little time to simply adjust to flow in speaking. But this transferral of flow from one skill to
the other is very useful, because it allows me to get ready to speak before I have the opportunity to actually
speak, and the same could probably be done for writing and reading.
I've also tried extensive listening and intensive listening before class with little effect on my ability to reach flow,
but that may be because I didn't spend enough time. Reading seemed to help a little.
If you find any more environmental factors on reaching flow, rather than my not-so-helpful experience, I'd love
to hear about them.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 210 of 407 21 September 2011 at 5:32pm | IP Logged |
Interesting, Luai_lashire! I agree that self-talk is a good primer. Although I don't read much, if I can manage to reach flow while reading something some time before a meeting, I feel that it might help, but I'm not sure yet.
At this point of my reflection, I'm leaning towards the best process actually varying (at least slightly) from person to person and evolving depending on the stage your learning is at.
I believe, at this point of my linguistic evolution (!), that it's best if I'm encouraged to reformulate rather than be corrected. It's less intrusive and encourages creativity, and limits the element of punishment or correction. I also think I reach flow earlier if the person I speak with looks motivated and encourages me to speak more. This one may be obvious, ... but still.
Edited by Arekkusu on 21 September 2011 at 5:35pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5826 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French
| Message 211 of 407 21 September 2011 at 6:51pm | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
I believe, at this point of my linguistic evolution (!), that it's best if I'm encouraged to reformulate rather than be
corrected. It's less intrusive and encourages creativity, and limits the element of punishment or correction. I also
think I reach flow earlier if the person I speak with looks motivated and encourages me to speak more. This one
may be obvious, ... but still. |
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I think I agree. In the classes I'm taking, sometimes the teachers out-and-out correct us, and I find I don't like it as
much. When they encourage us to reformulate, they usually say, いいですけど、もっと上手に言ってみましょ う。And I
really like that because it says, "I understand what you mean but there's a better way to do it, try and figure it out."
Which is encouraging rather than rejecting.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 212 of 407 26 September 2011 at 4:00pm | IP Logged |
I was just reading an article about police using software to predict where crime might happen based on the time and location of past crimes, and I realized I could do the same with flow.
If I start noting every speaking opportunity and how it went or whether flow was reached, along with a set of predetermined criteria, I might be able to determine where, when and under what conditions these speaking opportunities work best!
1 person has voted this message useful
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 213 of 407 04 October 2011 at 5:44pm | IP Logged |
I've used the analogy of the roller coaster many times to explain how one's confidence -- well, mine, at least -- tends to go through periods of ups and downs over the course of the learning process, but I'm beginning to consider, perhaps naively, that just as a roller coaster cannot indefinitely go up and down and eventually rests in a more stable position, so does the feeling that we are sometimes better and sometimes not so swift, and it eventually levels out and the knowledge we've amassed leaves us with a certain degree of confidence that can't easily be overcome by external factors.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 214 of 407 05 October 2011 at 9:47pm | IP Logged |
I currently have two students, one learning English and one learning French.
As they become increasingly more independent learners, I've had to reconsider my situation as a teacher and reposition myself.
Actually, I'm no longer acting as a teacher -- I'm a "language coach".
I wonder if many of the self-learners on this forum wouldn't benefit from finding a language coach who could help guide them, identify their weaknesses, spot their most common errors, etc.
1 person has voted this message useful
| kagemusha Newbie United States Joined 4922 days ago 35 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 215 of 407 06 October 2011 at 3:38am | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
I currently have two students, one learning English and one learning
French.
As they become increasingly more independent learners, I've had to reconsider my
situation as a teacher and reposition myself.
Actually, I'm no longer acting as a teacher -- I'm a "language coach".
I wonder if many of the self-learners on this forum wouldn't benefit from finding a
language coach who could help guide them, identify their weaknesses, spot their most
common errors, etc. |
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My guess would be yes.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6468 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese
| Message 216 of 407 07 October 2011 at 8:52pm | IP Logged |
I'm at an advanced level in French and I'd love some pointers on key areas I should
improve.
1 person has voted this message useful
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