Are you Hitting the Language Wall?

Language learning is a fabulous activity, usually fun and interesting and with lots of side benefits like improving your mental fitness and health. However, for some people, learning a language can be a troublesome and frustrating experience. A student of mine once told me Once I finally decided to take an English Course London greeted me with open arms... once I opened my grammar book, it kicked me in the shins! This is not an uncommon situation, people will get excited at the new possibilities and experiences that will be theirs when they acquire the language, but find themselves frustrated and lost after starting the process. The same thing happened to a relative looking to learn Spanish. Now if you are looking for a Spanish course London might not be the best place to go, but he was determined and enthusiastic about it. However, after the initial month he didn't want to listen to another word in Spanish.

Attentiveness and Language Learning.

If you are having difficulties with your language learning process, you should start by developing higher levels of attentiveness. Attentiveness, the ability to notice how a language is being produced in this case, is vital to the learning process. If you look at most learning programs you will see a big number of activities directed to increasing the levels of attentiveness in the student. It requires a steady patience and delicate attention to detail. This is really important because an attentive position towards language is totally contrary to the natural way we deal with language. Language is part of our perception and the way we see things. Its structures and mechanisms act on a subconscious level, rather than a conscious and attentive one. But in order to make that happen for us when dealing with a new language, in order to actually be able to think in that language we need to train our brains to do so.

There are two mayor concepts to keep in mind when training your mind in attentiveness: improvement through repetition and laser like focus. Like any sort of fitness, repetition is the key to success, your brain (like your muscles) needs to get used to new "ways of moving" and you build this muscle memory by devoting a constant amount of time to your language learning process. Even if you are attentive, you can't deal with everything at once. If you are at the gym, you can't train your biceps, quadriceps and general stamina at the same time. Focus on a small part of the language or grammar at once. Look at it from several angles and think about how you can apply it in your everyday life. If you make small but constant steps, you will surely build the mind bridges that will make your linguistic dreams a reality.