How not to learn a language

I've been teaching a language (English) for nearly thirteen years, and learning other languages (French, Mandarin, Norwegian) since I was five. Although I've never mastered a second language to fluency, I've got pretty far - enough to have regular, decent conversations in Mandarin when I lived in China and more recently in Norwegian. I've been teaching and writing materials for EFL (English as Foreign Language) all my working life. I was even commissioned to write several textbooks on the subject by Harper Collins. I thought of myself as something as an expert on the subject of learning and teaching other languages for some years.

Until I met Kevin.

Kevin wears pink shoelaces and likes jumping out of aeroplanes, but these are some of the less interesting facts about him. For me, the most interesting thing about Kevin is the way he's gone about learning Japanese. His goal is to move to Japan and teach English there, and so he's been diligently preparing for around 18 months by learning about the language and culture of Japan. This is in stark contrast to the approach I took when I moved to China to study English. A Pakistani newspaper vendor in Charing Cross station taught me how to say 'ni hao' (hello) and that was the only Chinese phrase I was equipped with when I moved there in April 2001. I could not have been less prepared. By contrast, Kevin is able to hold a decent conversation with any Japanese person he meets, and he hasn't even set foot in the country yet. What's really intriguing is how he's gone about this.

Kevin, speaker of Japanese, rider of tractors.

The general approach of anyone trying to learn another language is to buy a course - a set of face to face lessons with a class of fellow students; a book and audio CD; a multimedia course like Rosetta Stone; or perhaps just a textbook on its own. Kevin didn't really do any of that. Instead he jumped right in at the deep end and started having conversations with Japanese tutors and Japanese people as often as he was able.

He did this initially through a service called italki.com, a website which acts like an eBay for language tutors. You sign up, search for someone who speaks the language you want to learn and either pay them a small amount for a Skype lesson (if they are a professional tutor) or just arrange to talk for free over Skype (if they are just a conversation partner). Tutors are located all over the world, so you could learn Japanese from a Brazilian living in Poland, for example. Kevin has 3-4 regular tutors and conversation partners and schedules hour-long classes or chats with them at different times during the week. Since he started doing this, his conversational ability has increased incredibly quickly. In effect, he's mimicking the ideal situation for language learning - being thrown in at the deep end in the country where the language is spoken.

He has also joined a number of face to face conversational Japanese meetups, which he goes to in the evenings. There, the conversations cover all kinds of topics, making talking much more challenging. One of the problems of using a pre-designed course or textbook is that the conversations you practise there are highly structured and graded so that you aren't challenged too much. In real life, conversation flows from topic to topic, forcing you to search for new vocabulary and grammar structures all the time. Practising in this way means Kevin is far more challenged than the average language student, and can converse more fluently as a result (even if his grammar isn't perfect).

Kevin did go to a traditional Japanese teacher at first, but she was frustrated by his non-linear approach to learning the language, and the fact that he used slang and non-beginner grammar. Her strict methodological approach to teaching the language couldn't cope with his enthusiasm for absorbing Japanese any which way, and they quickly parted company.

As well as speaking Japanese regularly, Kevin uses digital support materials, such as Memrise, an app for helping you to memorise sets of vocabulary very quickly. I wouldn't normally recommend Memrise on its own, as it teaches words out of context, making them easy to forget. But if you are encountering new words every day in conversation or pieces of writing, an app like Memrise can reinforce this learning and help you to build a large vocabulary more quickly. This is especially useful once you have the most important grammar structures sorted, as it dramatically increased your conversational ability.

For the last nine months I've watched Kevin become more confident and more fluent in Japanese, to the point where it's become annoying. He often speaks Japanese to me, even though I can't understand a word he's saying!

His transformation into a Japanese speaker has been quite a profound education for me as well. It made me realise how much I still had to learn as both a learner and a teacher of language. For years I'd been following basically the same pattern, focusing on the course first and the conversation second. Kevin has helped to turn that structure on its head, and now the first thing I advise any language learner to do is to put the textbook away and get on italki. My own language capabilities have benefited as a result of Kevin's example. Yesterday I had satisfying conversations in three languages, and today I had my first Spanish class over Skype.

Today I also helped my step-daughter with her French homework - conjugating verbs. She was bored almost to tears by it, and says she 'hates' French. It makes me terribly sad that so many kids in the UK are being put off the magnificent experience of learning to communicate in another language. I honestly think there is nothing equivalent to the rush of having a successful conversation in another tongue. At least, as adults, we don't have to repeat the awful experiences of language learning at school. Get on italki, book a half-hour trial lesson (Spanish costs as little as £3 for 30 minutes) and then tell me I'm wrong.

My first week as a highly effective person

Title somewhat tongue in cheek, but in reference to Stephen Covey's classic self-improvement work, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which I am part of the way through.

I began this book about four months ago, found it engaging but somewhat depressing (I concluded I probably wasn't as effective as I'd thought) and promptly shelved it.

A couple of weeks ago I picked it up again and moved on to the 2nd and 3rd habits, and decided to give some of the ideas in the book a proper go.

I'm not going to attempt to describe the content of the 7 Habits. Happily, for once it's not a book that can be reduced to a single idea, or to a summary paragraph. Let's just say that it's well worth reading. It isn't simply a business book - there is a lot in there that's useful for personal relationships and parenting as well. It's profound and affecting. Just trust me and buy it...

The second and third habits are about prioritisation and time management. Two things I thought I was pretty good at, until I realised how much time I was spending dealing with my constantly re-filling inbox, rather than doing the work I wanted and needed to do. It turns out that 'inbox zero' is a pretty dumb way of prioritising your daily tasks.

One of Covey's ideas is that, in order to best prioritise (in both business and personal matters) you need to first really think about what matters to you, articulate that in a kind of manifesto, then use that to set long and short term goals, which then form the basis for your weekly task setting. He also uses the popular Eisenhower Matrix to help with prioritisation. I'd heard of this but never used it before.

It turns out that I was spending most of my time in Quadrant 1 (urgent and important) fighting everyday fires, and in Quadrant 4 (not urgent and not important) trying to get some respite from Quadrant 1 activities. According to Covey we should all be spending most of our time in Quadrant 2 (not urgent but important), doing the kinds of tasks that we all put off, but which would help us, for example, build up our businesses of strengthen our relationships with our children.

So last week I spent a good chunk of time, spread out over several days, thinking about what really mattered to me in life, hammering this out into a personal manifesto and a set of long-term goals. This was a strange and discomfiting experience. It felt very 'American' and 'UnBritish', but I persevered and found it quite rewarding in the end. I can't say I managed to do what Covey suggested and visualise the eulogies at my own funeral, but I did think about what I'd like people to say about me if I wasn't around, and that did help me to think about what mattered to me in life.

I then created a set of goals for the coming week, which were based on the principles in my manifesto. This was the real revelation. In an average week I'd set goals based on what was at the forefront of my mind at the time, or what I felt compelled to do because of my clients' priorities. Any personal or professional development goals were relegated to the weekend or some imaginary 'quiet time' in the future. Now suddenly I was setting goals based on what I wanted to achieve for myself and my family. So, for example, goals for this past week included 'talk to [stepson] about his choice of sixth form colleges', 'write a blog post about X', 'set up meetings with X and Y to discuss future priorities'. Now these would normally be tasks I'd never consider scheduling at the start of the week. They'd be things I might do as they occurred to me, or if I had time: not things I'd prioritise because none of them were in Quadrant 1.

And the result: I've spent the week engaged almost entirely in Quadrant 2 activities. I've still dealt with the Quadrant 1 activities, but they have seemed to almost deal with themselves. I've devoted an hour at the end of each day to clear the inbox, rather than dealing with things as they arrive. I've also spent some time in Quadrant 4, but much less than usual, and only when I was killing time at lunch or on the train. Instead of feeling exhausted at the end of each day I've felt invigorated, and strange things have happened. A long term goal that I'd set for spring next year is close to being met already. I'm not sure if this is a coincidence or a direct result of my experiment, but I don't think it's entirely unconnected. I've made significant progress in all of the major projects I'm engaged in, and have had some difficult conversations which I've been putting off. I've also achieved significant insights into my professional life, as a direct result of focusing on the future rather than the present.

Primarily, I feel more powerful and in control of my agenda. I feel a great deal more confident that I can affect positive change for my clients and with my personal projects. All this in just one week!

It's Sunday now, and although I've spent most of the weekend relaxing and doing unscheduled tasks, I've also hung out in Quadrant 2 and made significant progress with various important things. I've also set my goals for Week 2, and am looking forward to my 6.30am start tomorrow instead of begrudging it.

Bring on Week 2!

The quantified self: why small can be significant

I've been experimenting with this whole quantified self malarkey since July. I got a Ftibit for my birthday, and have been wearing it pretty constantly ever since (well apart from when I killed my first one with the washing machine - thanks for replacing it, Fitbit!) Every day Fitbit monitors my activity, telling me how active I am, how many floors I've climbed, steps I've taken and calories I've burned. I now have around 4 months worth of data on my daily activity to crunch.

Why do I do this? Well, like most women approaching middle age with a thickening waist, I'm interested in not turning into a porker. With each year it gets harder to eat cake in vast quantities and stay skinny. In previous years I've tried different diets, fasting, yoga, running, cycling, etc, with varying results. What I have singularly failed to do, along with almost everyone else I know, is to stick to any one of these regimes or to affect any significant change to my health and fitness by making a sudden, drastic change. But there's something about using a Fitbit that has made me look at the concept of affecting significant change in a different way.

For a start, I've realised that I don't want to change my body that much. I'm pretty happy with my weight and level of fitness. I wouldn't mind being 2kgs lighter, or being able to lift somewhat heavier weights, but it doesn't matter if I don't achieve this. What really matters to me is that I stay at around this weight and continue to stay fit and healthy for as long as possible. The best way to do this, I now think, isn't to go to the gym more often, or to go on the paleo diet, but to keep being *quite* active each day and to keep eating *not too many* calories each day.

I don't pay too much attention to my daily Fitbit stats, but towards the evening I do glance at how many calories I've burned. If it's loads (on a day when I've cycled into town and back, for example) I'm happy. If it's not many, I'll think about factoring in some exercise - a dance in the kitchen, maybe, or walking to the pub rather than taking the bus. Small, manageable things. If I don't manage it today, no worries, but I'll check again tomorrow and try to manage it then.

When I first got my Fitbit I did calorie counting as well, recording the calorie intake of everything I ate on a daily basis for several weeks. I stopped doing that pretty quickly - it got time-consuming and dull - but I've internalised an understanding of how calorific certain foods and drinks tend to be, and can now make broad guesses at how much I'm consuming each day. This has resulted in me consuming fewer calories each week - not by a huge amount, but enough to keep my weight stable. It's also encouraged me to snack less, and to snack on less calorific items. Small changes. Manageable changes.

What's struck me is that these changes aren't particularly significant when taken one by one, but overall, the effect is quite striking. I weigh around the same as I did in July, but I'm noticeably fitter. I now cycle whenever I can, rather than every now and then. This isn't because I've decided to cycle more, it's because I try to be more active each day. I now drink quite a lot less booze each week. Again, not because I decided to drink less booze, but because I'm trying to drink fewer calories each day.

Having a Fitbit has made me more aware of what I'm doing each day, and this has encouraged me to change my behaviour accordingly, in small, manageable steps. I'd be very surprised if, this time next year, I am less fit or weigh any more than I do now. I've changed. Not much. But significantly.

Kicking the textbook: how I've started to study online

Despite the fact that I've been creating content for online language learning schools for (good grief) nearly twelve years, I've been a complete stick in the mud about my own language learning. In the past I've preferred to learn through face-to-face classes and textbook study; I've pushed boundaries in my work that I wouldn't go near in my leisure time.

This year I decided to stop being a prat about language learning and to fully embrace the myriad new digital opportunities there are. My chosen language at the moment is Norwegian, partly because I'm planning to travel to Norway next year, but mostly because it gets me in touch with my ancestral roots (my mother's side of the family are all Norwegian).

So in August I signed up to Memrise, the flashcard tool which employs spaced learning to help you memorise vocabulary. Since then I've been slogging away at their 1,200 basic Norwegian words. I'm not a big fan of learning vocabulary in isolation. I think it sticks better when we encounter it in a meaningful context, but nevertheless I've found Memrise very useful for revising the vocabulary I already know (I had 5 or 6 Norwegian lessons a few years ago, as well as many years of exposure to the language when I was a child. Memrise has helped me to remember all the vocabulary I'd passively absorbed over the years.)

I also downloaded the Collins Norwegian/English dictionary, which I find I seldom use because Google Translate is so good now. I must use Google Translate more than any other app now I think. There is very little that it can't translate - just some idiomatic expressions.

Twitter has also been hugely helpful. I've made sure to follow lots of Norwegian (and Danish) people who work in my field, and, particularly when they tweet about educational technology, I am motivated to try and understand what they are saying and (sometimes) to respond. As usual though, most Scandinavians prefer to converse in their excellent English, which makes learning any Scandinavian language extra hard. Fortunately I have several Norwegian cousins as friends on Facebook, and so I can practise my reading and writing with them.

Other digital tools that I've experimented with include YouTube, where I watch snippets from Norwegian TV interviews and the comedy show I Kveld Med Ylvis (even that has English subtitles though, which I try to ignore). I also have a Norwegian radio app, but find that, unless the children's shows are on, the language level is too high for me to benefit from it. I have downloaded a couple of kids apps in Norwegian, which are fun, but too low level.

I also dug out my old textbook and audio CD and did a few more units in that. I find the textbook quite dull, and not being able to practise the language with real people was frustrating.

After a few months of trying these varying methods I decided to bite the bullet and sign up for italki.com, a service which helps you find language teachers and partners. I met a teacher on there who I now have a Skype lesson with once a week. These have been absolutely excellent, against my blinkered expectations. For a start we can negotiate a time that suits both of us (we are both very busy) and there is no travel involved, which keeps the costs low. There are seldom any technical problems with Skype, and she can type in Norwegian as we are speaking to show me new words or explain new grammar. Although she doesn't have a teaching qualification, she has been teaching online for several years, and I find her non-pedagogic approach to teaching quite refreshing. At the moment we are speaking in a mixture of Norwegian and English, whereas with my last teacher we spoke only in Norwegian. I find that I prefer the mixed approach, as it makes me less tired and allows me to ask questions. Nevertheless we speak most of the time in Norwegian, and I find that I've improved hugely in just four lessons.

My plan now is to continue with Skype lessons and with Memrise and Twitter/Facebook. I'll probably dip into my textbook, but only as back up. One thing I'm sure of though - I will never return to fully traditional methods of language learning, and I can't believe I stayed stuck in the mud for so long!