Steve's Youtube Videos - Motivation, Motivation in Language Learning

Motivation in Language Learning

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here.

Today I want to talk about a subject that comes up all the time -- motivation. I think motivation is the number one most important element (factor) in language learning success. I just finished participating in a Google Plus hangout with seven or eight other polyglots, people on the Internet who regularly post comments like I do talking about the experience of language learning.

It was hosted by David Mansaray who lives in London and I'm going to leave a link to it here in the box underneath the video and, if you are interested, please go and listen. It was done using Google Plus hangout technology and we're still kind of ironing out the best practices for this technology, things like leaving your microphone on mute when you're not speaking, but here were seven or eight, nine people who are obviously very motivated to learn languages. We were asked several questions by David about the different methods we use and what we've found useful, not useful and so forth.

There was one question about what techniques other people use do you not find useful, something to that effect, and a number of people said that they don't find it useful to do shadowing. They don't find Anki, spaced repetition or flashcards useful and yet there are people who find those things useful. I think what I took out of that was if you are motivated you will find the learning techniques that work best for you and it really doesn't matter whether you use flashcards or use Anki or use something else.

Most of the people there basically said they like to listen and read. They liked to engage with things that were meaningful and interesting to them and I think that's a very important part of motivation. I think in many cases the traditional method of teaching is quite de-motivating because it focuses on the nuts and bolts of the language trying to get you to pronounce correctly at an early stage or trying to get you to remember grammatical patterns at an early stage and because this is extremely difficult to do people get frustrated. Leaving that aside, for example, I've mentioned before that immigrants to Canada do very poorly at these government-sponsored language schools.

I would think they basically achieve nothing and that they could achieve more effectively on their own if they were motivated. I would think for a motivated person the time spent in the classroom is actually a waste of time because you're in there listening to 10, 15, 20 other people struggle with the language, whereas if you are genuinely motivated you could learn using resources on the Internet. If you're living in a place where the language is spoken, you're just surrounded by resources that can help you learn. But so few people are motivated and so I asked myself, here we have these nine keeners and then, subsequent to that, I had a discussion in Chinese with Nicholas from Sweden who is 18-years-old and who speaks flawless English, Spanish and now has been at Chinese he says for four months and he speaks like wow, extremely well; again, a very motivated person.

So why is it that some people are so motivated and other people sort of say yeah…? I spoke to a lady the other day at a Chinese restaurant.

We were speaking in Chinese and she said I've been here three years and I really want to learn, but I'm having a lot of trouble and stuff. She can hardly speak English and I didn't want to probe, but I said how much time do you actually spend with English? How much effort do you put into it? I think there are various levels of motivation.

There are those people who aren't interested at all and I knew a lot of those when I lived in Japan; for example, Europeans and North Americans who lived there and made absolutely no effort to get beyond konnichiwa in Japanese. So there's the zero motivation group. Then there are the people who say yeah, I would love to be able to speak Spanish. At a certain level they're motivated, but they either aren't sufficiently motivated to push or they become easily discouraged. This was another point that was raised by Luca, that the initial period with a language can be quite discouraging because it's so difficult.

Basically, you can't make sense of the language, you don't understand and stuff, so it is important to persevere and break through that to the next level. Now, in my own experience, I find that the initial period in some ways is quite rewarding because very quickly you know the word for dog, horse, cow. You know some things, whereas previously you knew nothing. Then comes that very long period where you have to move from some understanding of the language to actually reaching a comfortable level of fluency. So I think that intermediate to advanced stage takes a much longer period of time than getting from zero to some understanding in the language.

I think there, too, people lose their motivation. There again my advice always is to give yourself credit for being better than you think you are, but also stay with activities that are interesting and follow your interests. Now, that's assuming people have interest. If you have no interest in any aspect then probably you're not going to be so motivated. I just felt coming off that discussion with those polyglots and also with Nicholas that there's a small group of people, maybe those are the people who watch my videos, who are into learning more than one language, a very small number.

Then there are a very large number of people who, to varying degrees, would like to learn a language, but they aren't motivated enough. Now, why is that?

Is it that we have to make it easier for them to achieve some success and that they could feed off that success to become more motivated? That's the thing I always struggle with. How do you motivate people, assuming there is some degree of interest in speaking another language? Is it a matter of convincing them that they'll be so much happier if they speak that other language; in other words, making the reward more palpable to them? Again, I was talking to someone in Europe and there unemployed people receive 600 Euros a month, but if they attend a language school they get 800 Euros a month.

So they are motivated to attend the language school, but this person told me most people don't learn very much there. So the motivation drives them to attend the language school six hours a day with 20 people in a classroom. If they do that for a year, that's 2,400 Euros. Maybe you could motivate them by saying if you achieve level X in the language we will give you 2,400 Euros.

Rather than motivating them to go to school when, in fact, the schools are very often quite unsuccessful at teaching the language, maybe the motivation should be if you achieve level X we will give you 2,400 Euros. Now, you still have to find people willing to come up with the money to motivate people, but even if you don't get the money the rewards for being comfortable in a language to me are so obvious in terms of professional opportunities, in terms of cultural enrichment, in terms of being able to make friends and travel in different countries. It's like getting a bonus of 2,500 Euros or 5,000 Euros. It's worth more than 5,000 Euros. I guess the question is how do you initially make that achievement of being comfortable in another language seem genuinely attractive to people so they're just committed to it and then how do you maintain their motivation by making sure they do activities that are interesting to them and then how do you insure that they achieve some degree of success so that that will in turn encourage them to continue.

I guess part of that is to not allow them to be discouraged. Allow them to recognize that it takes a long time to learn a language. These are some of the things I often wonder about.

I think, potentially, if there are a very small percentage of people who are very motivated to learn languages, how do we make that 10 times the number? I'd be interested in hearing your comments about this whole issue of motivation and how to motivate people beyond what I call our ‘little ghetto' of polyglots into the sort of average population. How do you get more people interested in learning languages and get them to stay with the program until they achieve success? I look forward to hearing any comments.

Thank you for listening.

Motivation in Language Learning 동기||| Motivation beim Sprachenlernen Motivation in Language Learning La motivación en el aprendizaje de idiomas Motivation dans l'apprentissage des langues 言語学習における動機づけ Motywacja w nauce języków obcych Motivação na aprendizagem de línguas Мотивация в обучении иностранным языкам Dil Öğreniminde Motivasyon Мотивація у вивченні мови 语言学习的动机語言學習的動機

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here. Merhaba, ben Steve Kaufmann.

Today I want to talk about a subject that comes up all the time -- motivation. |||||||topic||||||| Сегодня я хочу поговорить о теме, которая постоянно всплывает — о мотивации. Bugün her zaman gündeme gelen bir konu hakkında konuşmak istiyorum - motivasyon. I think motivation is the number one most important element (factor) in language learning success. ||motivation|||||||factor|element|||| Я думаю, что мотивация — это самый важный элемент (фактор) номер один в успешном изучении языка. Bence motivasyon, dil öğrenme başarısında bir numaralı en önemli unsurdur (faktördür). I just finished participating in a Google Plus hangout with seven or eight other polyglots, people on the Internet who regularly post comments like I do talking about the experience of language learning. |||taking part|||Google Plus||video chat|alongside|||||language learners|||||people on the Internet|often||||I|do||||||| |||||||Mais|encontro virtual||||||poliglotas|||||||||||||||||| Я только что закончил участвовать в видеовстрече Google Plus с семью или восемью другими полиглотами, людьми в Интернете, которые регулярно оставляют комментарии, например, я рассказываю об опыте изучения языка. Az önce yedi ya da sekiz diğer poliglotla, yani internette benim gibi dil öğrenme deneyimi hakkında düzenli olarak yorum yapan insanlarla bir Google Plus hangout'una katıldım.

It was hosted by David Mansaray who lives in London and I’m going to leave a link to it here in the box underneath the video and, if you are interested, please go and listen. |||||||||||||||||||||||sous||||||||||| ||organized|||David Mansaray||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||만사레이||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||apresentado|||||||||||||||||||||debaixo||||||||||| Londra'da yaşayan David Mansaray tarafından sunuldu ve videonun altındaki kutuya bir bağlantı bırakacağım ve eğer ilgileniyorsanız lütfen gidip dinleyin. It was done using Google Plus hangout technology and we’re still kind of ironing out the best practices for this technology, things like leaving your microphone on mute when you’re not speaking, but here were seven or eight, nine people who are obviously very motivated to learn languages. |||||||||||||resolving issues||||best practices|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||||조정하는|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Google Plus hangout teknolojisi kullanılarak yapıldı ve hala bu teknoloji için en iyi uygulamaları, konuşmadığınız zamanlarda mikrofonunuzu sessizde bırakmak gibi şeyleri çözmeye çalışıyoruz, ancak burada dil öğrenmek için çok motive oldukları belli olan yedi veya sekiz, dokuz kişi vardı. We were asked several questions by David about the different methods we use and what we’ve found useful, not useful and so forth. ||||||||||||||||||not useful|||and so on|and others Дэвид задал нам несколько вопросов о различных методах, которые мы используем, и о том, что мы нашли полезным, бесполезным и так далее. David bize kullandığımız farklı yöntemler ve neleri yararlı bulup neleri yararlı bulmadığımız hakkında çeşitli sorular sordu.

There was one question about what techniques other people use do you not find useful, something to that effect, and a number of people said that they don’t find it useful to do shadowing. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||sombreamento Había una pregunta sobre qué técnicas que utilizan otras personas no te parecen útiles, algo así, y varias personas dijeron que no les resultaba útil hacer shadowing. Diğer insanların kullandığı hangi teknikleri faydalı bulmuyorsunuz gibi bir soru vardı ve bazı kişiler gölgeleme yapmayı faydalı bulmadıklarını söyledi. They don’t find Anki, spaced repetition or flashcards useful and yet there are people who find those things useful. |||Anki software|not useful|repeating information||study aids||||||||||| ||||espaçada|||os cartões de memória||||||||||| Anki'yi, aralıklı tekrarı ya da bilgi kartlarını faydalı bulmuyorlar ama yine de bunları faydalı bulan insanlar var. I think what I took out of that was if you are motivated you will find the learning techniques that work best for you and it really doesn’t matter whether you use flashcards or use Anki or use something else. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||Anki|||| Sanırım bundan çıkardığım sonuç, eğer motive olursanız sizin için en iyi öğrenme tekniklerini bulacağınız ve bilgi kartları, Anki ya da başka bir şey kullanmanızın gerçekten önemli olmadığıdır.

Most of the people there basically said they like to listen and read. Oradaki insanların çoğu temel olarak dinlemeyi ve okumayı sevdiklerini söyledi. They liked to engage with things that were meaningful and interesting to them and I think that’s a very important part of motivation. ||||||||significatifs|||||||||||||| |||interact with||||||||||||||||||| Kendileri için anlamlı ve ilginç olan şeylerle ilgilenmeyi seviyorlardı ve bence bu motivasyonun çok önemli bir parçası. I think in many cases the traditional method of teaching is quite de-motivating because it focuses on the nuts and bolts of the language trying to get you to pronounce correctly at an early stage or trying to get you to remember grammatical patterns at an early stage and because this is extremely difficult to do people get frustrated. ||||||conventional|||instruction, education, pedagogy|is|||||||||fundamentals||fundamentals|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||due to the fact that||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||os fundamentos||os fundamentos|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Bence birçok durumda geleneksel öğretim yöntemi oldukça motivasyon kırıcıdır çünkü dilin temeline odaklanarak erken bir aşamada doğru telaffuz etmenizi sağlamaya ya da erken bir aşamada gramer kalıplarını hatırlamanızı sağlamaya çalışır ve bunu yapmak son derece zor olduğu için insanlar hayal kırıklığına uğrar. Leaving that aside, for example, I’ve mentioned before that immigrants to Canada do very poorly at these government-sponsored language schools. that aside||apart|||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||후원하는|| ||||||||||||||muito mal||||patrocinadas pelo governo|| Bunu bir kenara bırakırsak, örneğin daha önce Kanada'ya gelen göçmenlerin devlet destekli dil okullarında çok kötü performans gösterdiklerinden bahsetmiştim.

I would think they basically achieve nothing and that they could achieve more effectively on their own if they were motivated. |||||atteignent||||||||||||||| Temelde hiçbir şey başaramadıklarını ve motive olsalar kendi başlarına daha etkili bir şekilde başarabileceklerini düşünürdüm. I would think for a motivated person the time spent in the classroom is actually a waste of time because you’re in there listening to 10, 15, 20 other people struggle with the language, whereas if you are genuinely motivated you could learn using resources on the Internet. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||tandis que||||||||||||| Creo que para una persona motivada el tiempo que pasa en clase es una pérdida de tiempo, porque está escuchando a otras 10, 15 o 20 personas que tienen dificultades con el idioma, mientras que si está realmente motivada puede aprender utilizando recursos de Internet. Motive olmuş bir kişi için sınıfta geçirilen zamanın aslında zaman kaybı olduğunu düşünürdüm çünkü orada 10, 15, 20 kişinin dille mücadele etmesini dinliyorsunuz, oysa gerçekten motive olmuşsanız internetteki kaynakları kullanarak öğrenebilirsiniz. If you’re living in a place where the language is spoken, you’re just surrounded by resources that can help you learn. |||||||||||||||||pueden||| Eğer dilin konuşulduğu bir yerde yaşıyorsanız, etrafınız öğrenmenize yardımcı olabilecek kaynaklarla çevrilidir. But so few people are motivated and so I asked myself, here we have these nine keeners and then, subsequent to that, I had a discussion in Chinese with Nicholas from Sweden who is 18-years-old and who speaks flawless English, Spanish and now has been at Chinese he says for four months and he speaks like wow, extremely well; again, a very motivated person. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||parfait||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||enthusiastic individuals|||after||||||||||||||||||||perfect||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||열정적인 사람들|||||||||||||||||||||||완벽한||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||entusiastas|||subsequente||||||||||||Suécia||||||||perfeito|||||||||||||||||||||||||

So why is it that some people are so motivated and other people sort of say yeah…? Peki neden bazı insanlar bu kadar motive olurken, diğerleri bir nevi "evet..." diyor? I spoke to a lady the other day at a Chinese restaurant. Geçen gün bir Çin restoranında bir bayanla konuştum.

We were speaking in Chinese and she said I’ve been here three years and I really want to learn, but I’m having a lot of trouble and stuff. ||||||she||||||||||||||||||||| Çince konuşuyorduk ve üç yıldır burada olduğumu ve gerçekten öğrenmek istediğimi ama çok sorun yaşadığımı falan söyledi. She can hardly speak English and I didn’t want to probe, but I said how much time do you actually spend with English? ||||||||||inquire|||||||||||| |||||||||verbo auxiliar|investigar|||||||||||| Neredeyse hiç İngilizce konuşamıyor ve ben de fazla kurcalamak istemedim ama İngilizce ile ne kadar vakit geçiriyorsun dedim. How much effort do you put into it? |how many|||||| Bunun için ne kadar çaba harcıyorsunuz? I think there are various levels of motivation. Bence motivasyonun çeşitli seviyeleri var.

There are those people who aren’t interested at all and I knew a lot of those when I lived in Japan; for example, Europeans and North Americans who lived there and made absolutely no effort to get beyond konnichiwa in Japanese. ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||bonjour|| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||안녕하세요|| |||||||||||||||||||||||||norte-americanos||||||||||||||| Hiç ilgilenmeyen insanlar da var ve Japonya'da yaşarken bunlardan pek çoğunu tanıdım; örneğin, orada yaşayan ve Japoncada konnichiwa'nın ötesine geçmek için hiçbir çaba göstermeyen Avrupalılar ve Kuzey Amerikalılar. So there’s the zero motivation group. İşte sıfır motivasyon grubu. Then there are the people who say yeah, I would love to be able to speak Spanish. Bir de evet, İspanyolca konuşabilmeyi çok isterdim diyen insanlar var. At a certain level they’re motivated, but they either aren’t sufficiently motivated to push or they become easily discouraged. ||||||||either||adequately|||||||| Belli bir düzeyde motive olurlar, ancak ya zorlamak için yeterince motive olmazlar ya da kolayca cesaretleri kırılır. This was another point that was raised by Luca, that the initial period with a language can be quite discouraging because it’s so difficult. Este fue otro punto que planteó Luca, que el período inicial con un idioma puede ser bastante desalentador porque es muy difícil.

Basically, you can’t make sense of the language, you don’t understand and stuff, so it is important to persevere and break through that to the next level. ||||||||tu|||||||||||||||||| Essentially||||||||||||||||||persist and overcome||overcome|||||| Now, in my own experience, I find that the initial period in some ways is quite rewarding because very quickly you know the word for dog, horse, cow. Şimdi, kendi deneyimlerime göre, başlangıç döneminin bazı açılardan oldukça ödüllendirici olduğunu görüyorum çünkü çok hızlı bir şekilde köpek, at, inek kelimelerini biliyorsunuz. You know some things, whereas previously you knew nothing. ||||tandis que|||| Daha önce hiçbir şey bilmezken bazı şeyler biliyorsunuz. Then comes that very long period where you have to move from some understanding of the language to actually reaching a comfortable level of fluency. Ardından, dili biraz anlamaktan gerçekten rahat bir akıcılık seviyesine ulaşmaya geçmeniz gereken o çok uzun dönem gelir. So I think that intermediate to advanced stage takes a much longer period of time than getting from zero to some understanding in the language. Bu yüzden orta seviyeden ileri seviyeye geçmenin, dili sıfırdan biraz anlamaya geçmekten çok daha uzun bir zaman aldığını düşünüyorum.

I think there, too, people lose their motivation. Bence orada da insanlar motivasyonlarını kaybediyor. There again my advice always is to give yourself credit for being better than you think you are, but also stay with activities that are interesting and follow your interests. Yine benim tavsiyem her zaman kendinize düşündüğünüzden daha iyi olduğunuz için kredi vermeniz, ancak aynı zamanda ilginç ve ilgi alanlarınızı takip eden faaliyetlerle kalmanızdır. Now, that’s assuming people have interest. Şimdi, bu insanların ilgi duyduğunu varsayıyor. If you have no interest in any aspect then probably you’re not going to be so motivated. Herhangi bir konuya ilgi duymuyorsanız, muhtemelen o kadar motive olmayacaksınız. I just felt coming off that discussion with those polyglots and also with Nicholas that there’s a small group of people, maybe those are the people who watch my videos, who are into learning more than one language, a very small number. |||arriving|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Bu çok dilli insanlarla ve Nicholas ile yaptığım tartışmadan sonra, birden fazla dil öğrenmek isteyen küçük bir grup insan olduğunu hissettim, belki de benim videolarımı izleyenler bunlardır, çok küçük bir sayı.

Then there are a very large number of people who, to varying degrees, would like to learn a language, but they aren’t motivated enough. |||||||||||different|||||||||||| |||||||||||diversos|graus||||||||||| Bir de farklı derecelerde de olsa dil öğrenmek isteyen ama yeterince motive olamayan çok sayıda insan var. Now, why is that? Maintenant||| Nedenmiş o?

Is it that we have to make it easier for them to achieve some success and that they could feed off that success to become more motivated? |||||||||||||||||||feed||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||sucesso|||| Bazı başarılar elde etmelerini kolaylaştırmamız ve bu başarıdan beslenerek daha fazla motive olmalarını sağlamamız mı gerekiyor? That’s the thing I always struggle with. How do you motivate people, assuming there is some degree of interest in speaking another language? |||||가정할 때|||||||||| |||||||||grau|||||| Is it a matter of convincing them that they’ll be so much happier if they speak that other language; in other words, making the reward more palpable to them? |||||||||||a lot|||||||||||||||tangible|| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||실감할 수 있는|| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||mais tangível|| Again, I was talking to someone in Europe and there unemployed people receive 600 Euros a month, but if they attend a language school they get 800 Euros a month.

So they are motivated to attend the language school, but this person told me most people don’t learn very much there. |||||fréquentent||||||||||||||| So the motivation drives them to attend the language school six hours a day with 20 people in a classroom. If they do that for a year, that’s 2,400 Euros. Maybe you could motivate them by saying if you achieve level X in the language we will give you 2,400 Euros.

Rather than motivating them to go to school when, in fact, the schools are very often quite unsuccessful at teaching the language, maybe the motivation should be if you achieve level X we will give you 2,400 Euros. Now, you still have to find people willing to come up with the money to motivate people, but even if you don’t get the money the rewards for being comfortable in a language to me are so obvious in terms of professional opportunities, in terms of cultural enrichment, in terms of being able to make friends and travel in different countries. It’s like getting a bonus of 2,500 Euros or 5,000 Euros. It’s worth more than 5,000 Euros. I guess the question is how do you initially make that achievement of being comfortable in another language seem genuinely attractive to people so they’re just committed to it and then how do you maintain their motivation by making sure they do activities that are interesting to them and then how do you insure that they achieve some degree of success so that that will in turn encourage them to continue. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||s'assurer que||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||truly||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||mantienes||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

I guess part of that is to not allow them to be discouraged. Allow them to recognize that it takes a long time to learn a language. These are some of the things I often wonder about.

I think, potentially, if there are a very small percentage of people who are very motivated to learn languages, how do we make that 10 times the number? I’d be interested in hearing your comments about this whole issue of motivation and how to motivate people beyond what I call our ‘little ghetto' of polyglots into the sort of average population. ||||||||||||||||||||||||작은 세계|||||||| Мне было бы интересно услышать ваши комментарии обо всем этом вопросе мотивации и о том, как мотивировать людей за пределы того, что я называю нашим «маленьким гетто» полиглотов, в своего рода среднее население. How do you get more people interested in learning languages and get them to stay with the program until they achieve success? Как привлечь больше людей, заинтересованных в изучении языков, и удержать их в программе, пока они не достигнут успеха? I look forward to hearing any comments. Я с нетерпением жду любых комментариев.

Thank you for listening. Спасибо за то, что вы слушали.