One phrase I heard recently was "Stop learning, and start thinking.
"
In other words, step back from the treadmill of, say, a flashcard program, and set
your mind free to explore what really motivates and inspires you.
I recently ended my daily flashcard work (nearly 4 years and 6000 cards) and
started to use some of the memory techniques of the super mnemonists. An
example of this technique would be to imagine a town you are very familiar with,
and to place the foreign words in their appropriate locations.
So, you imagine yourself walking down the main street, going into the baker's
and ordering something, by which time you could have learnt (or be practicing
the foreign words for 'street', 'walk', 'shop', 'baker', 'door', 'doormat', 'bread',
'cake', 'money' 'hello', 'expensive' and so on. The possibilities are endless.
It also has the advantage of not requiring computers or paper, and can be
practiced almost any time. Also, I don't think that you really 'own' a foreign word
until you can recall it in your mind at will, not just when it's flashed on a screen in
front of you.
The mnemonists believe (and demonstrate) that memory *is* imagination, and
that the human brain has an effectively limitless capacity for storing images.
Mnemonic tools can be used however it is important to be selective and adjust it
to the needs of language learning. We don't want to remember single words in
isolation. Words have meanings and occur in contexts, linguistic and other.
Keeping that in mind I have talked about a range of specific approaches one can
use which I have seen improve not only the memory but also one's language, at
the same time. I talk about some of this in the post "how-to-remember-
vocabulary"
Yes, I agree. So in my example, you could imagine yourself conversing with the
baker in the target language, complaining that his cake is too expensive, or asking
if it contains allergens such as peanuts or whatever. It's a structured way of
thinking in the target language, if you like.
One of the beauties of the mnemonic method is its flexibility, which is one of the
reasons that I am biased towards it -- another is that I am lazy about 'working
hard', and mnemonism seems to me to be 'working smart.'
Sounds great. One suggestion, and maybe you meant it, I believe it is better to
speak, if possible, when you are learning. Drives the learning into your muscles,
not just the brain and get you engaged at another level as well.
I like this post very much. At a local TESOL convention I attended recently, a
couple of the presentations were on learning grammar through noticing. Very
interesting. Curiosity and noticing are at the heart of learning anything, including
language. Could it be that babies and children are so much better at learning first
and second languages than adults because they tend to notice everything, take it
all in, and try to make sense of it? As we grow up, maybe we become less curious
about the world around us and other languages and cultures, stop noticing many
things in our environment, stop asking "why?", and develop a host of
assumptions about the world that allow us to ignore certain things or somehow
simplify how we view and interact with the world. I know that it is more
complicated than this, but maybe this is at least part of what's going.
