I was recently in Riga, Latvia, a charming city of 800,000 people, half of whom are Latvian speakers and half of whom are Russian speakers. Riga's architecture reflects the influence that Latvia's more powerful neighbours, Germans, Swedes and Russians, have had on its history. Riga was at different times a main port for the German based Hanseatic League, the second largest city in Sweden, the third largest city in Tsarist Russia, and a major manufacturing centre in the Soviet Union. Latvia has been independent only between the first and second world war in the 20th century and since 1990.
Latvians are struggling to re-establish their independent existence as a country after half a century of Soviet dominance and increased Russification. As a result the language rights and linguistic presence of their large minority of Russian speakers are to some extent suppressed, even though there has been a Russian minority in Latvia for generations. Hopefully a balance will gradually emerge between the needs of Latvian identity and the rights of a linguistic minority.
I do not speak or read any Latvian and I am not about to start to learn it, although maybe later. I am studying Russian. Therefore I was delighted to discover a large Russian language book store in Riga. I bought books and audio books to take back to Canada. One of the books was "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey, in Russian. This book has sold 15 million copies and has been translated into many languages.
I am reading the book in Russian. I have listened to an audio book version of the book in English just to help me through the Russian version of the book. Like many self-help books, "7 Habits" reaffirms many well established moral principles, but organizes them in an interesting way. There are a number of concepts that Covey introduces that have relevance for language learning.
He begins the book by stressing the need for a paradigm shift in how we look at our lives. If we want a break through in our effectiveness, we have to break with established ways of thinking. This is certainly true for language learning. The established way of teaching languages is highly unsuccessful. Most people studying languages do not achieve fluency. The paradigm shift must occur, not in the minds of the teachers, but in the minds of the learners. The responsibility for success in language learning lies with the learner. It is pointless to blame lack of language success on factors that are beyond the control of the learner. "I am too old to learn." "I am not good at languages". "I need to live where the language is spoken" and so forth. Learners need to believe they can learn. They need to accept that whatever their ability level or age, wherever they live, success in language learning depends on them. This leads directly to Covey's first habit, which is to develop the habit of being pro-active, of taking initiatives. There is no successful language learner who is not pro-active, seeking out language content to listen to and read, choosing what to do and so on. I often am asked by learners at The Linguist questions such as, "How often should I listen to one content item? ", "Which items should I choose? ", "What is a useful phrase? ", "How much time should I spend reviewing my saved words and phrases?" and so forth.
We make suggestions to these learners. But really I would like to tell these learners, "Make up your own mind!" "Do what you want!" "Do what you enjoy!" "If you enjoy what you do, if you take charge of your learning, you will learn faster!" This is a habit that we try to encourage at The Linguist.
Covey explains how his seven habits will move a person from a position of dependence, to a position of independence. Once a person is independent, he or she can then move to a position of interdependence or mutual dependence with others. This is the most effective approach to take to working with others. The same is true in language learning. Interdependence is a fundamental concept that has been built into our new Lingq system (www.lingq.com). Since LingQ will offer the opportunity to learn almost any language, we expect that our members will have the experience of learning and helping others to learn. If our learners can enjoy learning with LingQ, and at the same time enjoy helping others learn with LingQ, there will be a strong synergistic effect. Everyone will become a better learner. People will be sharing language and improving. Everyone will be a teacher and a learner.
Covey stresses the need to spend as much time as possible on activities that are important but not urgent. This is how we build up our competence, our abilities and our strengths. Unfortunately many people spend most of their time on things that are either urgent and important (putting out fires that were sometimes avoidable), urgent but not important (unnecessary panic), or neither urgent nor important. Language learning is a synergistic activity that enables us to develop a very useful skill, increase our knowledge on many subjects and improve the fitness of our minds.
I am excited and yet impatient as I await the launch of LingQ which will make the task of language learning more interactive and more effective than anything we have seen in the past. I know, because I have been using it these last months for my Russian studies.
