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Introverts, extroverts, and languages | ||
Tags: Introvert and Extrovert | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| janalisa Triglot Senior Member France janafadness.com/blog Joined 6895 days ago 284 posts - 466 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Japanese Studies: Russian, Norwegian | Message 9 of 25 14 September 2011 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't see why we have to conclude that this applies to all introverts. The way I understand it, it's a tendency of introverts-- this doesn't necessarily mean it applies to all introverts. I don't think any kind of "generic" personality description is going to apply word for word to every individual who gets that result on the test. People are too complex and too variable, so when it comes to personalities nothing is set in stone. Labels like "introvert" and "extrovert" can be useful for understanding ourselves, but it's also important that we don't allow ourselves to be limited by them.
You're right, it does need to be backed up more. I kind of threw this thread together to get a discussion started, but I intend to do more research on the subject and will be sure to share any new information I find with you. This book I quoted does seem to be quite well researched, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5698 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 10 of 25 15 September 2011 at 2:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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Great OP, really thought-provoking. Here's my two cents: I am definitely an introvert. I am more introverted than almost all of the so-called introverts I've met. However, I am not shy and am quite confident. The difference about me, I've finally realized, is that I'm very goal-oriented. When speaking with someone in my native language, English, I like to stick to the topic/purpose/reason for our conversation, and if I have nothing productive or helpful to say, I don't say anything. I don't make "small talk" in English – I can't stand it.
And yet, when speaking my target languages, I'm happy to blather along like an idiot, making incredibly obvious observations ("Wow, there are always a lot of taxis in this street! Look, right now there are three of them!"), asking questions about things I'm not even slightly interested in ("So what does your daughter do? Oh, how long has she been a teacher? Does she like it?"), and talking to complete strangers for no reason at all (e.g. numerous pointless conversations with taxi drivers about nothing in particular). And I have so much fun doing that! It's not that I instantly become an extrovert in my foreign languages – I also love to just sit with friends who are speaking that language, zone out and let the sounds wash over me – but I find it far more productive (there we go with the goal-oriented thing again!) to talk to people about anything and everything as long as I'm doing it in a language I'm learning. Therefore even wasted time isn't actually wasted, because I'm learning something. I even go so far as to keep more admirably in touch with my foreign friends, because the mere act of keeping in touch with them benefits me by dint of being language practice, while keeping in touch with English-speaking friends doesn't teach me anything. Yes, I am a cruel and self-serving person. No, I don't mind it at all. :) 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ygangerg Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5323 days ago 100 posts - 140 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French Studies: German | Message 11 of 25 15 September 2011 at 4:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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Jinx hit the nail on the head, for my experience. I'm introverted, and yet I love making superfluous small talk in a target language.
I love this post and the topic in general. I'm an advocate of understanding in this area. Many people (whom I believe to be extraverts) think that the introvert/extravert distinction is an artificial one, and that someone can decide to be more of one or the other. Well, someone can decide to act more social or solitary, but in the end I see the personality as a very real and very internal affair for the individual. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| janalisa Triglot Senior Member France janafadness.com/blog Joined 6895 days ago 284 posts - 466 votes Speaks: English*, French, Japanese Studies: Russian, Norwegian | Message 12 of 25 15 September 2011 at 7:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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Jinx, I can totally identify with what you're saying too. I am also very goal-oriented, and when it comes to getting language practice I'm not afraid to go up to random people and start talking to them-- that is, unless I'm not comfortable with the language yet and am nervous about using it. But even then I'll do it anyway! But if I'm trying to focus on something like studying, I don't want to interact with anyone and really hate being interrupted. (Actually, a strong aversion to being interrupted seems to be another common trait of introverts.) Once my concentration is broken it's hard to get it back.
Ygangerg, you're definitely right that there's far too much misunderstanding out there about this topic. In a lot of cultures that favor talkative, outgoing people as the ideal, introverts grow up thinking there's something wrong with them. Because of the social pressure, a lot of these people may want very badly to change and become more extroverted. But it's their natural inborn disposition, and they can't change. I was one of these people who grew up thinking I had a problem because I wasn't talkative or lively enough. People were always asking me, "Why are you so quiet? Why don't you talk more? Why don't you smile more? Aren't you having fun? Don't you like us?" It was so bad that I grew to believe I just wasn't any good at relating to people. So I began to withdraw from them because I was afraid they would judge me for being too quiet and reserved. This grew into a severe social phobia that took me years to overcome. The thing is, though, that I wasn't naturally shy at all. I was in school plays, sang solos on stage in choir and in church, and gave really good speeches and presentations. I was just afraid of interacting with individual people because of the way they judged me. Then later I moved to Japan, where introverted personalities like mine are more accepted. It was through my experience there that I finally learned to accept myself for who I am and realized there is nothing wrong with being an introvert. Sorry this has kind of drifted off the topic of language learning, but I wanted to share this as an example of the sort of harm caused by peoples' misconceptions of introversion. I think this might also be a big part of the reason some people think introverts somehow can't learn languages as well as extroverts. The word "introvert" seems to have negative connotations for a lot of people, who seem to assume introverts have some sort of problem and should "try to become extroverts". Well, introverts don't have a problem, they don't need to become extroverts, and in fact they *can't* become extroverts. Edited by janalisa on 15 September 2011 at 7:36am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| learnvietnamese Diglot Groupie Singapore yourvietnamese.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4954 days ago 98 posts - 132 votes Speaks: Vietnamese*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 13 of 25 15 September 2011 at 8:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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This topic is very helpful and the link back to Splog's post is excellent!
There are certainly a lot of implications regarding the personality type. If introverts prefer "internal" to "social" interactions, teachers really need a more thorough approach catering for this group. And this, I figure, applies to learning not only languages but any other subject. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5698 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 14 of 25 15 September 2011 at 11:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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Amen, janalisa! It's terrible how often "introvert" becomes a bad word. I think I may have mentioned before in this forum (possibly in the other thread someone linked to) that, in my experience, introverts tend to understand extroverts better than extroverts understand introverts, which in turn only contributes to further general misunderstanding of "our type". I suppose it's like being any other minority: you're surrounded by the majority, so you get to know them pretty well, but they don't encounter you that often, so they start getting weird ideas about you.
Plus, in my experience, a lot of people are just uncomfortable with silence, because they can't tell what you're feeling when you don't say anything. I used to want to set everyone at ease, so I would force myself to be more extroverted just so the extroverts could feel comfortable. Now I feel better about being an "example of my kind", so I stick my guns and do my introvert thing. "The others" just need to learn to deal with us. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5674 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 15 of 25 15 September 2011 at 12:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
That book looks great. I had never heard of it before, but have now been tempted by you into buying it. In terms of being an introvert ... I think it is something I choose to be. Sure, I find lots of social occasions draining, but primarily because I think they are wasting my time. Since free time is such a limited resource, I get twitchy when I feel it slipping away. So, it isn't just that I find hanging around with strangers energy-sapping, but that I find myself thinking "that was a waste of several hours I could have better spent learning a new piece of music on my guitar, or listening to some German podcasts". In other words, I like the feeling of being in control of how my time is utilised. In fact, at the start of each day, I map out 20 half hour periods, each devoted to something specific. Then follow my day as closely as possible to that plan. Some of those periods even contain sub-plans. It probably makes me come across as a bit of a time-freak, but it means I get a lot done each day. Now, a non-productive social gathering would eat up a big chunk of time that I could have used to fulfill a good many goals. This doesn't mean that I avoid social gatherings - far from it - but I always find myself evaluating whether or not they are worth the time. I suppose, then, that I could decide to become an extrovert, in the sense of becoming far more social, and even might learn to find it energising. However, that would come at a price, in that the lost time means I would have lots of other goals left undone. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4914 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 16 of 25 15 September 2011 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Just to add a complicating factor, individuals' tendencies towards extroversion and introversion are affected by other brain factors such as autism. Part of the definition of autism is having difficulty understanding social situations and social clues such as facial expression and body language. A person with autism may be an extrovert by preference, but still struggle to interact properly. A bit like a kid who loves nothing but sport, but is a rubbish athelete. Or like myself, a lover of playing music but with a terrible ear for it. I mention autism because my son is autistic. However, he prefers to play with other children than on his own. It often ends in tears, but he still prefers it. He is also doing better in French than in most other subjects in his primary school, contrary to expectations. Some of the experts in the field say that actually most of us are on the "autism spectrum", meaning most of us have some of the dozens (or hundreds) of traits that make up autism. We learn to work with our own particular difficulties. It only becomes a diagnosable problem when we have so many of these traits that it prevents us from living as we want, or more likely, as other people want us to live. Thinking about autism in relation to language learning, I think my son will be better at memorizing vocabulary, learning grammar rules, reading and writing. He will struggle, as he does in English, to come up with the right words in novel situations, but will work with a lot of memorized phrases to get by. There are people on the autism spectrum who are true language geeks, but they would generally struggle with speaking fluently (good example here of fluency vs knowledge of the language). One of the things which is done to help autistic children is to encourage them to break out of their ruts. If they always play with trains and trains alone, a car could be introduced into the game. Applying this concept to the rest of us, when we are learning a language, most of us have learning preferences. However, it can be helpful to force ourselves, in small ways at first, to also learn by methods we don't like as much. As has been said above, introverts need to use extrovert methods from time to time, and extroverts need to use introvert methods as well. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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