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Competition. Good or bad for motivation ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Kszegosz Diglot Newbie Poland Joined 4636 days ago 17 posts - 20 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French | Message 1 of 6 27 September 2014 at 12:57pm | IP Logged |
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I have a language partner. She's half American half Polish, and she wants to learn Polish. We speak mostly in English, because she can't speak Polish right now. I help her mostly through reading aloud text in Polish, recording it, and correcting her mistakes. She has just started reading Harry Potter in Polish. I think she has B1 or somethink like that in Polish, and I'm B1 in French as well. What are you guys thinking about competition, who read it first? I'm concern mostly about motivation. It might encourage both of us to do more, but it might take fun from learning and reading. By reading I mean, marking most words (not necessarily all),adding them to Anki, and learning them through Anki. I was thinking about few French readers first, and real book a bit later, but it might be fun to do it big. Do you have some experience with that kind of competition? I'm not sure if she will like it, but I want to ask you guys first. Thanks in advance for advices.
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| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 2 of 6 27 September 2014 at 1:45pm | IP Logged |
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What about you try reading the same amount per week (a chapter?)? and meet for coffee to discuss the book. Then you can both motivate each other to get through the reading.
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 6 27 September 2014 at 2:00pm | IP Logged |
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It depends in the people involved. The idea of competition is that when you're falling behind, you work extra hard to catch up.
In order for motivational competition to work, the people taking part in it must believe they can achieve their goal, and they must believe they are just as good as the person who is getting ahead of them. This kind of directed, focused motivation can be trained, it's important when people are training for people training for individual sports competitions. I guess some people can learn languages that way. But it's not necessary. (Otherwise I wouldn't be writing to you in English right now.) If her comprehension of Polish is around B1 but she can't speak I would think she is unlikely to benefit from the extra pressure competition puts on you. Especially if she happens to be a heritage learner and compares herself with native speakers who grew up using the target language rather than with other learners. And if from the two of you, the only one speaking a second language at basic fluency or higher is you. Personally, I would try to find some games based on cooperation and making things funnier if what you're doing now is too boring. But ... ask her directly, rather than strangers on the internet :P Edited by Bao on 27 September 2014 at 2:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 4 of 6 28 September 2014 at 1:17am | IP Logged |
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I think competition can be a good thing, but I like patrickwilken's suggestion better. Reading a chapter each week is easily attainable, and it gives you something new to discuss when you meet up. It would be interesting for you to see if she had difficulty with the same sections in Polish as you did in French, and so on.
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| Kszegosz Diglot Newbie Poland Joined 4636 days ago 17 posts - 20 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French | Message 5 of 6 28 September 2014 at 9:26am | IP Logged |
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Thanks! Wonderfull advices. Especially that about chapters. Going through book in the same pace with chapter as a goal, not a hole book, will be better than competition. I have never met that helpfull community on the internet as you guys.
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| Light Newbie Canada Joined 4424 days ago 30 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 6 06 October 2014 at 10:31am | IP Logged |
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Different strokes for different folks. I personally don't like being held accountable to get stuff done, so the addition of competition from an external source isn't the thing for me. I'm motivated for just a little longer than the amount of time I'm having fun. Fun is more about being entertained than motivated, but there's always that motivation there to sustain for just a little longer, if I can just finish the next four lessons so to speak.
I think competition can be a good thing. Even though I don't like being accountable for the amount of work I do, I guess what really counts is whether or not you do get at least some of the work done. Competition has the power to create a spark of interest in the material you work with. You know how sometimes you're just not all that into the material. I think if you are being competitive it can force you to just dive into it as fast as possible, and forget about whether you think it's dull or not. But hopefully you can find material you enjoy as well as be competitive if that's for you. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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