1..

In this next module, we want to discuss an important language teaching principle that comes from
nderstanding the difference between Acquisition and Learning. While both can be good, in learning
languages there is a big difference between acquisition and learning. And the two concepts don't really
get along.

In one corner you have Learning. Learning involves the ability to comprehend and recall information as it
is given to you. Much like what occurs for most classes. You read from a book, you have discussions, you
try to understand the principles and show your understanding though some kind of testing.

In the other corner, you have Acquisition. Acquisition is much more than simple learning. Acquisition
means that you not only learn but apply those principles in the real world. And when it comes to
language learning, acquisition is truly the only way to measure student success.

This means that you are able to not only understand and recognize vocabulary words and grammar
tenses, but you can also use the linguistic structures you have learned in a way that is fluid and
automatic.

In some sense, the idea behind acquisition is that after you leave the comfy confines of a classroom, you
can actually use the language you were given to speak, write, listen and read in real context and under
real circumstances.

Thus, in language teaching, acquisition wins over learning [SOUND] every time. In the next few videos
we will discuss some principles and methods that will help you ensure your students are acquiring
language and not just learning it.

2..Hello, again. In this lesson, we are going to continue our discussion of acquired language, language
you can actually use by discussing two different modes of learning.

H. Douglas Brown introduces the idea of two different types of learning by using the metaphor of a
camera. For Brown, using language is like using a camera that has two different lenses, a zoom lens and
a wide angle lens.

When you are learning a language through a zoom lens, you are focusing in on a very small specific
linguistic form, like a vocabulary word, the past tense or a small pronunciation rule. However, when you
are in a wide angle lens mode of learning, you are trying to understand an overall general meaning. Or
trying to convey a message without worrying so much about every small rule of grammar, vocabulary or
pronunciation.

Brown isn't the only one who talks about two distinct modes of learning. Barbara Oakley, who teaches
the famous online course Learning How to Learn, explains this by describing two different ways to focus
your learning. One she calls the focused mode and the other, the diffuse mode of learning.

In a focused mode, you concentrate and look very specifically at certain tasks, such as reading a chapter
in the textbook. She recommends focusing for a specific length of time, like 25 minutes when in a
focused mode. A diffuse mode, however, is a time to let your mind wander and make connections that it
otherwise wouldn't make when you focus too narrowly.
As a teacher, one of your jobs will be to sometimes help students narrow in on a specific feature of their
language, often that they haven't been paying attention to. But other times, having them step back and
not pay attention to every single mistake. By stepping back, you will help learners understand overall
structure and meaning as they communicate and gain fluency.

In this sense, language is a camera, and you are the photographer, moving the students back and forth
between two modes of learning.

In the next video, we are going to have a very special guest deepen our understanding of these two
modes. Thanks for watching.

3…Hi. My name in Michael Jordan, and I'm excited to teach you how to play basketball. Are you excited?
Of course, you are. I am Michael Jordan.

Let me just explain a little bit about how we're going to learn in my class. First of all, I've written a new
book called How to Play Basketball like Michael Jordan. I've divided the class in to ten different sections
that correspond with the ten different chapters of my book. Sounds fun, right?

Each chapter is 100 pages long, and in each chapter, we'll go over 100 rules. For example, in chapter
one, we will learn 100 rules for how to dribble. In chapter two, 100 rules for how to shoot. And chapter
three, 100 rules for bounce and chest passes. My personal favorite, chapter ten, 100 Rules for how to
slam dunk.

I will give you a test each Friday to go over the 100 rules of each of these chapters just to make sure you
all know how to do every rule. If you study hard, and I know you will, you will get an A on each test. And
by the end of this course, you will be able to play basketball just like me, right? What? You don't think
so? Why not? All right, the real Michael Jordan would never have made the mistake you just saw
dramatized. He knows, as I am sure is clear by his level of play, that he didn't just memorize a bunch of
rules.

What do you need to become a great basketball player? Certainly, you need the coaching, and there is
no doubt you want to master the rules of the game. But the word that probably came to your mind by
watching fake Michael Jordan is the word practice. And when you think of practice in a language
classroom, you're starting to gain some perspective on what we mean by acquisition. Acquisition refers
to the ability to put into practice. The ability to interact with others in a real language environment in
order to convey meaning and ideas that will be useful to communicate information. After all, that's what
language is for.

While test taking and learning in a focused mode can be useful for language learning, it's simply isn't
enough. In fact, many people have taken years of language classes without ever really acquiring the
language.

Think about this, I took Spanish in eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth grade, eleventh grade and twelfth
grade. All in an effort to try to connect with my Mexican heritage.

Notice the Spanish bolo tie.

I really wanted to learn Spanish to speak to my grandparents in Mexico. And I studied hard, in fact, I got
A's in every class I took. I studied the textbooks. I read all the rules, and I memorized all the vocabulary.
And while my teachers tried to give me some assignments to engage in real communicative activities, I
would say that the majority of time, let's say 80%, was spent in learning the rules of Spanish.

I'm embarrassed to admit now, as a language professional, that while taking those Spanish classes, I
never considered my mother, a native Spanish speaker, and my father, a Spanish teacher, as resources
to practice what I was learning in class. In fact, I never connected the classroom as place where I learned
anything that connected to the real world. What a wasted opportunity and a lack of understanding.

So your job as a teacher is to not only teach language through grammar rules, drills, and worksheets, but
to encourage students to have opportunities to practice the rules and language you give them, and not
just once, but many times.

Just like basketball, acquired skills are those that fade over time. Meaning, that if you don't use it, you
lose it, and just because you teach it doesn't mean they learn it. Learning the skills to actually use
language comes through practice.

Perhaps, a simple rule of thumb to help you combat the problem of practice is the 80/20 rule. The 80/20
principle suggests that practice should be the majority of what is learned in class, 80%. Whereas 20% of
the time, you can flip to that zoom lens mode, provide instructions and details that will allow them to
focus in on things they have not yet noticed or seen.

In this way, you can certainly see that language is basketball, and you are the coach. Yet, another
metaphor to store away and help you understand some of the fundamental principles in Teach English
Now.

4.. Welcome back. In this lesson we'd like to build your knowledge of the two different modes of
learning, and give you some simple tips on how to help students practice in both modes.

First, let's start with the focus mode of learning. The focus mode, you'll recall, is one in which students
need to zoom in on the details of learning. For example, it might be learning from a vocabulary list,
practicing a particular tense, or working on the pronunciation of a group of similar sounding words.
Small things, focused. Now, as a teacher, how would you help students tackle these kinds of
assignments? Well, one of the worst things you can do when encouraging learners to memorize is to
simply force them to sit down and try to learn everything at once.

Some of my students insist that if it is good to learn 20 words in a day, it must be better to learn 40. And
if 40 is great, why not 80 in one day? The problem with this idea is it gives no time for the brain to
process the information.

It is a little like believing that if you can bake a cake at 350 degrees for one hour, then you can bake that
same cake at 700 degrees in 30 minutes. It'll save time, right? Of course not. If you double the
temperature, what happens? You got it. Burnt cake.

And if you double the amount of information, you may end up frying your brain.
For your brain to truly learn words and keep them, learners need to allow their brain time to process the
information. One great way to do this is to use spaced repetition.

Spaced repetition is a particularly good technique for learners when they are trying to memorize lists.
Rather than learn all the words at once and considering the learning finished, learners are invited to
spend a limited amount of time with the material, and then come back to it at a later time.

Each time the learner comes back to it, however, the amount of time between intervals increases. This
allows for the learning to stick and become more automatic.

There are many different systems people use for spaced repetition. But one of my favorite systems for
spaced repetitions is the Leitner System. In this system you practice items you haven't learned more
frequently than those you have already memorized. For example, if I was studying vocabulary words on
flash cards, words I correctly answered would go into a box with a higher number and would be studied
less frequently. While words I incorrectly answered would go into a box with a lower number, meaning
they would be studied more frequently.

And remember, you don't have to come up with systems yourself. A simple Google search will reveal
many different systems for spaced repetition, along with computer software and websites all designed
to help you memorize things more quickly and easily. These software and websites usually let you create
your own lists or look at lists other teachers have created. I look to look for lists that I know will help my
students learn about a specific, targeted group of words I want them to know.

And if you aren't into serious kinds of spaced repetition, here is an even easier tip. When you do practice
a particular group of words during a week of instruction, please remember to try to use those words in
upcoming weeks. Just giving students lists, having students memorize those lists, and then leaving all
that learning alone will simply cause students to believe that learning a language is nothing more than
memorizing, taking a test, going home, and taking a shower that erases all of that knowledge away.

You know what I'm talking about. Don't do it. Recycle those words throughout the semester. Have them
reappear throughout your time together.

Now let's talk about the diffuse mode.

To practice the diffuse mode in class engage students in activities that move them beyond a list of words
or a single rule. This means that you will need to zoom out and create general, not specific, tasks for
your learners.

Creating a general task means you aren't asking them to perform a memorized bit of vocabulary or
grammar, but asking them to perform in a more open style.

For example, you could ask students to order at a restaurant, buy some shoes, or talk about your best
friend.

Do you see how these are more general tasks? Do you notice that in these tasks there is more than one
right answer, and that students could talk for a short or long period of time?

These tasks could all include different kinds of grammar and vocabulary, and invite learners to
communicate in real, unscripted ways.
At advanced levels of English, teachers often challenge students to think critically by asking questions
that require students to synthesize, put together what they are learning. For example, by pairing two
apparently unrelated ideas

you can invite students to consider how they might be related. Let me give you an example. The theme
of our first module, motivation, and let's tie it to the theme of our second module, practice.

I could ask you, advanced English speakers, a question like this. How is practice related to motivation?

By taking these two separate ideas, practice and motivation, and asking students to put them together,
you now engage students in not just language production, but critical thinking. Here students will
naturally focus away from grammar and from details of vocabulary words they know and focus on what
they think, feel, and believe. Suddenly they will get lost in the task and start speaking in a free way. Trust
me, there is no more real context you can provide than asking students to engage in critical thought and
serious reflection. Now you're talking.

Can you think of any other times we have employed the technique of putting two unrelated ideas
together in order to help learners think? Hm, how is language like cake?

How's it like a camera? How is language like basketball?

Accuracy vs. Fluency: Find a Balance and Keep Moving Forward

by Andrea Murau Haraway

When I was a young, 20-something, I accepted a job teaching English in Japan. While I had never studied
Japanese or lived in Japan, I did have experience learning other languages and living in other
countries.When I arrived in Kyoto, I joined two other English-teaching colleagues -- also new to Japan.
We spent our first few months teaching, and outside of teaching, struggling to get by in daily life. We
soon realized that we needed to take language classes, so as summer break approached, we enrolled in
intensive Japanese classes.

It was very interesting to watch our different approaches to learning (and using) our new language.

One weekend, we decided to take a day trip to Ryoanji, a famous rock garden, located in the outskirts of
Kyoto. We took a train to the area, but from the train station we had to ask directions to the garden.
Here is where I discovered our different approaches.

One friend was very particular about speaking correctly. She would spend several minutes quietly
thinking to herself, checking her dictionary, and planning how she should best ask how to get to Ryoanji.
Five minutes passed before she would even open her mouth!

Another friend was very open and gregarious and rather indifferent to language structures and cultural
convention. She grabbed the first person she could find, and asked him for directions. The problem was
that he had difficulty understanding what she was saying. When he finally understood, he offered the
directions, but then she didn’t understand everything he said, so she asked again and again for him to
repeat the directions. Several minutes passed and she was still not clear on the directions and he was
trying to find a way to escape!

My approach was different. I considered what I was going to say, and then asked the nearest person for
directions. She said, “You go down this road and take the second right. Then you…” Unfortunately, my
Japanese was only good enough to retain small chunks of information, so I couldn’t understand the rest
of her directions. But I thanked her kindly, walked down the street, and took the second right. Now out
of sight of the first person who gave me directions, I simply asked a new person for the next set of
directions. And so I continued until I made it to Ryoanji!

Consider the following questions:

• Which of the people in the story were more focused on learning? Which on acquisition?

• Is your approach to language learning similar or dissimilar to the examples mentioned in the
reading? How?

• Which approach is more likely to propel a language learner toward acquisition? Why?

5…In this module, we have learned that there's a big difference between Acquisition and Learning.
Learning by memorizing lists of vocabulary and grammar can be important, but acquisition means you
can put all that knowledge to use through real communication.

We learned about two modes of learning, the Focused and Diffused modes. In order to help deepen
your understanding of learning which tends to be more focused and acquisition which tends to be more
diffused. Your job as a teacher is to give learners both modes of learning and to switch between these
like a photographer might with a camera.

We introduce the concept of practice by bringing in a guest celebrity, Michael Jordan, who never really
would've taught a class like we dramatized. He would know that practice is a necessary skill for
basketball. Similarly, language must involve more than just rule based learning. Students must engage in
practice. The concept of an 80/20 rule helps gives you a general guideline an ideal for your language
classroom. 80% Practice 20% instruction. Finally we discussed how to get students to practice in either
mode of learning. In the focus mode we talked about space repetition, a technique that allows the brain
to process information by spacing out learning overtime. In the diffuse mode, we talked about creating
events that allow students to engage in real, communicative activities. And questions that invite
students to engage in real critical thinking. Speaking of critical thinking it is now time for our next
essential question. Remember an essential question asks you to consider the truth of an assumption
based on the information we have just discussed. This modules assumption is what is taught is what is
learned. What is taught is what is learned. What could that mean? How is it true? How is it not true?
Good luck thinking about this one. It's a bit harder than the last essential question, but aren't hard
questions some of your favorite kinds of questions?

See you in module three. Where we'll learn about a man some people call a genius and others call a fool.
We'll see what you think.