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Language Learning and Grit | ||
Tags: Personality | Motivation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6150 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 34 21 November 2014 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Grit is a term used in motivation psychology term defined as “a measure of an individual’s ability to persist in obtaining a specific goal over an extended time period”. It is closely linked to perseverance which is the ability to pursue a task despite obstacles, resistance and distractions. There’s an interesting paper from Duckworth that describes attempts to measure and assess grit,
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Duckworth%20and%20 Quinn.pdf I think this maybe one of the most important characteristics for successful language learning. What are your thoughts ? How can somebody improve their grit ? 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 34 21 November 2014 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
I was amused by the highlighted bit:
I guess some people are literally "too dumb to know when to quit"! (But it's a weak inverse correlation, so smart people can be gritty, too.) Edited by emk on 21 November 2014 at 1:12pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 34 21 November 2014 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Grit sounds like a very interesting psychological concept.
I have pretty good stats on the amount of language learning I have done month-by-month over the last 2.5 years, and I can see that I usually have a crisis in late-winter where I want to give up and then a burst of activity in summer. Two things things have been important to keep me going: Keeping a regular record of smaller goals, which helps me have some sense of purpose; and a longer goal (like the Super Challenge) which I would feel bad about quitting. The Marshmellow test, which measures delayed gratification in young children, has been shown to be a strong predictor for future success. An amusing TED talk on the MT: http://www.ted.com/talks/joachim_de_posada_says_don_t_eat_th e_marshmallow_yet 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 34 21 November 2014 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
I haven't read the paper, but "orthogonal" refers to the fact that its independent of intelligence. Testing for orthogonality is a standard test to show that you have a true independent variable. If there is a correlation (weak or strong) it's a sign that whatever you are measuring is not really an independent factor - which is what psychologists are usually looking for. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 5 of 34 21 November 2014 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
Maybe for some people. I guess it depends on why/how you're learning. In the general case, I'd say if you need grit, you're not going to be a successful language learner. If your language learning is characterized by words like "grit", "persevere" or "obstacles", chances are you're not going to get much longer than just enough to get by. I submit that passion is much more valuable than grit, and that goes for science, art, sports and language learning. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 6 of 34 21 November 2014 at 7:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
I do believe that grit/perseverance are very important qualities to have, most particularly for beginners. It is so easy to just "give up" whenever one reaches a "rough spot" in the language or when "life" gets in the way of a learning routine. During my time here on the forum, I have seen a lot of beginners come and go. Some start off as a ball afire and flame out. Some make great progress and, inexplicably, just disappear. Some get distracted by the beguiling excitement of learning other languages and never manage to learn even one- even the ones that have distracted them. Some are on a never-ending quest to find the perfect course or to do all of the courses. They may still be here, but their language (or languages) doesn't seem to move from study to speaks (talking about raw beginners distracted by wanderlust- not experienced multi-learners). If one defines success in language learning by moving beyond the study stage and into proficiency, then what seems to me to separate the race "finishers" from the "also-rans" is perseverance or "grit" and passion. I very much agree with Ari that "passion" is extremely important, at least for me. I can't learn a language without it. Perhaps perseverance and/or grit may be a byproduct of passion. To the beginners out there, we experienced learners sometimes forget what it was like when we were just starting out, like you are doing. I can tell you that you will face moments in your language-learning when you will hit roadblocks, potholes and apparent dead-ends. For native English-speakers, that can be the subjunctive in the romance languages, a gender system, a case system, pronunciation, listening, speaking. Those who succeed are, in my experience and observation, the ones who persevere, who when faced with a roadblock try to find a way around it. Obstacles may hit you when you may feel you have reached an adequate level and get slammed back to earth by contact with the language outside of "course-world". At this stage some people may just "give up". Fortune goes to those who persevere, those who stay in the game and redouble their efforts to overcome the obstacle. Instead of getting so discouraged that they give up, these folks keep going until they succeed. Being consistent (especially for beginners) in language-learning is very important, but sometimes life just gets in the way. Those who succeed tend to be persistent until they can be consistent. By this I mean, say if you normally study for an hour a day but for some reason you can't for now. If instead of ending all contact with a language, you can manage to listen to a few minutes of audio or read a few paragraphs, listen to a song, do something. You may feel that you have done "nothing" but what you are doing is keeping your momentum from sliding backwards. Passion seems to inspire grit and that grit (or persistence/perseverance) will get you past the obstacle. Raw beginners' passion may be nascent, not fully developed yet. Persistence, "grit", perseverance, toughness or whatever you want to call it keeps them in the game. The longer they're in the game, the more their passion has a chance to grow and these qualities, seem to me, to form a virtuous circle. So, is grit an isolated, independent, characteristic, or, is it a determinant of passion? I don't know, but without either of them a beginner will have a mighty tough row to hoe. I don't believe this can be accurately measured, and I'm OK with that. I don't need to know what percentage I must have. I just need to know it's there when I may need it. Edited by iguanamon on 21 November 2014 at 10:01pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3824 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 7 of 34 21 November 2014 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm going with iguanamon with this one (sorry, Ari!) Grit to me means to continue with a task even when it's not fun. I have never come across an activity where I was always passionate about doing it.
Here is my favorite Ted Talk on the subject: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_ lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit%3Flanguage%3Den&sa=U&e i=e4lvVNObHq-IsQSpw4CgCw&ved=0CBUQFjAA&sig2=ROtIyk3z-NUNf4dC cZl1PA&usg=AFQjCNFPJvVQaQ2rYaswbUEZfzyuEcrBtw Hope it works (for some reason this PC doesn't like to copy addresses from the address bar) It is the talk by Angela Lee Duckworth. Edit: Wait, is that the same person that wrote the paper? The PC doesn't like PDF's either. Edited by Xenops on 21 November 2014 at 8:04pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4443 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 8 of 34 21 November 2014 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting article.
Personally I think learning a language and playing music goes through a similar process. Like the Suzuki music program that assumes every child can learn to play an instrument. The next step would be adopting a good approach and a lot of hard work. In the book "Battle Hymns of the Tiger Mother" by the Chinese-American author Amy Chua she got a Mandarin-speaking nanny to teach her 2 daughters to speak Chinese. She pushed her older daughter Sophie to play piano (no practice, no dinner policy) and Sophie eventually had her Carnegie Hall debut. On the other hand, you can be persistent but you also need "measurable" results. Like you start off in primary school and then high school and college. Some people can be learning a language for 10 years without getting to a comfortable conversation level or being able to write simple paragraphs with grammatically correct sentences. If you are not getting very far, at some point you may want to change your approach or quit because language learning simply becomes a weekly routine to go to class. I play music with a community band. We would perform in senior homes several times a year. We are given music at the beginning of the year and performance dates. We are supposed to learn the pieces and be ready to perform at the scheduled dates. I also got into playing a piano keyboard. Many years ago took a few lessons unsuccessfully but after putting in a lot of hard work without a teacher, I can sight-read up to a Gr. 3 piano level. There is the aspect of "talent" or "giftedness" which cannot be measured "scientifically". I met 2 people who were brought up in an English-speaking environment although the father is Austrian-descent and the mother is Dutch. They studied German, Latin & French in high school and later joined a Catholic seminary in Europe and became fluent in several other languages including Italian and Spanish. While they were studying in Canada, the 2 would never stay late before an exam. They did not watch TV late into the night and always managed to get to bed by 8:30 and volunteered as altar boys at a local Catholic Church before school started in the morning. Besides getting high marks in school, the 2 tutored other students. The 2 boys used to claim they listened well in class. Otherwise, many devout Catholics including his family would say they had a "gift" from God. Divine blessings can't be quantified scientifically. Edited by shk00design on 21 November 2014 at 8:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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