how to learn languages with nlp
TRANSCRIPT
HOW TO LEARN LANGUAGES WITH NLP by Sergio Clemente Aparicio.
Take a look at my website: learnlanguageswithnlp.com
I. CONCEPT OF GENERATIVE NLP MODELING ©. 1. What is NLP? What is modeling?
2. What is a generative open source model? 3. What can this report offer to you? 4. Can anyone be unconsciously competent?
5. Why is that modeling hasn’t spread to language learning? 6. Why do I not address the whole process of modeling?
II. UTILITY AND USES FOR MODELING.
7. What is modeling for? Which is it for? 8. Do you want to improve your learning system? Can you learn better? 9. What are the prerequisites?
10. What would not be a reasonable expectation? 11. Why traditional education often does not work?
12. What happens if we cannot discern the critical distinctions of a skill?
III. MODELING PROCEDURE. 13. How are experts modeled? How to make things right? 14. How are patterns detected?
15. Why the installing of mental program is so important? How to install patterns? 16. How to make things wrong?
17. Which excuses are not acceptable? 18. What shouldn’t you do after having devoted your time to read this text?
IV. INSPIRING EXAMPLES 19. How do best polyglots learn?
20. How do great teachers teach? How do you know that your teacher is a good one? 21. And you? How do you learn?
22. How it's difficult to learn? 23. Learning with or without tests? 24. How do you know that you don’t learn?
V. HOW DO YOU LEARN . YOUR LEARNING STYLE. 25. Which is your learning style? 26. How do you know that they teach you well and you learn well?
27. Do you take your own decisions? Do you learn with a teacher o do you study by yourself?
28. What if I you didn't care for good grades? 29. Learning without a system, without plans, without records? 30. Do you set your own goals or do you follow goals that aren't yours? What is the
"scope" you want to achieve? How could you design your own learning project?
VI. MYTHS AND TRUTHS ABOUT LEARNING.
31. What if the genetic paradigm wasn't completely right? 32. Emotional Intelligence or IQ? How about your quotient for curiosity? How strong is
your will? 33. Suppose you only have something to gain and nothing to lose. What would happen then?
34. What if you had no fear or hurry? 35. Why not breaking the rules of your own grammar?
36. Knowing your mother tongue leverages you or slows you down? How to distinguish good friends (cognates) from bad friends?
VII. MODELING PRINCIPLES.
37. Which principles underlie a mental program? 38. Where do they come from? 39. Are they reasonable?
40. Are those principles enough? 41. Is contradiction healthy or unhealthy?
42. What if we could not deny them?
VIII. PRE - REQUISITES. 43. How much does motivation count? What motivates us? What discourages us? 44. How important is time?
45. How important is money? 46. What if I'm not motivated?
47. What if I don't have time? 48. What if I have no money?
IX .BASIC DISTINCTIONS, PROCESSES, PROCEDURES, SYSTEMS AND
PRINCIPLES.
49. Which are the basic distinctions to learn a foreign language? 50. In which order do those processes and procedures work? What is the difference
between a process and a procedure? Which are the operating principles? 51. How many dimensions does a simple word have? How to close the circle of learning? How to modulate the intensity of distinctions?
52. How is it that we do not realize? 53. Do the size of vocabulary and grammar matter? What is the scope of your goals?
54. How is that children do not confuse use and mention?
X. THE "OPEN SOURCE" GENERATIVE MODEL. 55. What consists for this model? How to learn a foreign language?
56. Which are the basics of this model? 57. How, where, when and with whom can you test it?
58. What if talent wasn't only a genetic gift and you could build artificial neuronal circuits? 59. What happens if you don't check this model out?
60. What if this model were only the beginning of a universal, useful and testable improvement?
XI. STUDY MATERIALS.
61. Is there more than one way to skin a cat? 62. How to use study materials?
63. Which study material fits your own learning style? 64. Can an airplane fly without a critical number of pieces? 65. Can an airplane fly without an engine?
66. Improvement without recording?
XII. DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED ON THE WAY. 67. How to deal with the sound barrier?
68. How to deal with the meaning barrier? 69. How to deal with the speed of the sound barrier?
70. How to deal with the speaking skill barrier? Is there a silent period in adults? Be silent or speak? 71. How to deal with mistakes?
72. What if it seems to us that we don't progress at all or that we progress very little? How to deal with the plateau of the learning curve?
XIII. INSTALLING AND TESTING THE PROGRAM.
73. Why installing is a key question? What if I don't install a program? 74. How to install mental software? 75. How long will take the installing? What if we don't can eat an elephant without
chunking? 76. What if I don't have enough patience?
77. How do you know that the installing is finished? 78. What if my kite doesn't fly? What if my plane doesn't take off? What if I don't know how to land my plane?
XIV. RUNNING THE PROGRAM.
79. Do you need to reinstall your program? Did you follow thoroughly all the instructions?
80. You'd rather prefer to install the program through metaphors, games or exercises? 81. What is the requisite variety principle? 82. What if I the program becomes blocked?
83. What if the program has a virus? 84. What if the program doesn't work for you?
XV. YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS.
85. Have you learnt something new and useful? When, where and with whom will you apply it? Which are your own conclusions? 86. Can you improve the system?
87. Do you want to publish your own improvements for the open source model? 88. You didn't learn anything?
89. It wasn't useful at all? 90. You didn't improve your outcomes?
XVI. ADJUSTING.
91. Can you tune the system? 92. Do you want to model someone? 93. Do you want to model yourself?
94. You don't know how to model?
95. Whom do you don't want to model? 96. Did you find the boundaries/limits of the key distinctions?
XVII. CHANGING
97. Is there something that isn't needed? 98. Is there something missing?
99. What makes the difference? 100. What if the codes are not congruent? 101. You didn't record your progress?
102. Don't you come up with something else?
XVIII. IMPROVING 103. Can you combine different strategies and built your own system?
104. Leaning with native speakers? 105. How would it be your own ideal system? Could you build it? 106. What about mistakes?
107. What if you don't learn? Why don't you contrast some situations? 108. You can't build your own airplane? Nor a paper one? You couldn't fly your kite?
Did you put an engine between your vocabulary pieces? Do you use your tongue to communicate?
HOW TO LEARN FOREIGN LANGUAGES WITH NLP?
It was December 2012. Once again, I looked at on youtube "NLP and learning
languages." I found nothing. I was interested in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) modeling and I was also interested in learning foreign languages efficiently. Modeling is extracting and replicating the mental software from people who have reached
excellence in a professional field. Richard Bandler and John Grinder obtained a linguistic model observing expert therapists (Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and Milton
Erikson).
Had someone done something like this with such a complex skill as learning a foreign language? Apparently not. At least on youtube. I did not find anything. Thus, from this personal need not covered, emerged the idea of writing these lines. I was decided to
undertake a small research about the topic.
Genetic limits us. If someone is 5 feet tall he hardly will play as a pivot in the NBA. Most children come with the necessary genetic load to learn multiple languages, it is
almost certain that this potential is not updated without the input that usually mothers provide.
Culture limits us too, considering a long time, women have lived apart from science and
culture. So, we soon understand that we have lost female talents such Newton’s, Euler’s, Goethe’s, etc. along several generations. It was widespread the false belief that
education and especially higher education was not for women and that belief alone was
sufficient to block the access of female talent to science and culture for many years.
The gene-seed is of little use if it’s not planted in suitable soil in which to flourish. Cultural weeds (limiting beliefs) may also prevent natural talents from flourishing.
Against the limitations of the genetic load we can do little, if anything, provide a stimulating environment . Against the cultural constraints we can use the antivirus of
critic. However, it is neither genetic nor culture itself that interests me, but the will on which we do have some control. My point is: Is it possible some type of advancement that facilitates an improvement in the language learning around the world? I think the
answer is yes. Just as the "Fosbury" jumping technique was revealed as a valuable technique for athletic high jumping, we all can take advantage of certain forms to learn
(modeling) that are better than others . This does not mean that we all will win an Olympic gold medal, but we all have at our disposal the possibility of an impressive personal improvement.
I began by researching NLP modeling. About who were the best NLP modelers all over
the world? Had they published a book? I had a book on my shelf about modeling written by Robert Dilts, and I also knew that he had extracted a model for learning
foreign languages observing a the polyglot named Janulus Powell.
I wanted to go a little further, exploring the territories of language learning at a more advanced level. Curiosity led me to discover that Lesley Cameron, David Gordon and Michel Lebeau pioneered the modeling. David Gordon and Graham Dawes had
published the last book on this matter and called their modeling camera "Experiential Array." As I advanced in my research I also discovered that Wyatt Woodsmall was one
of the best examples of modeling and he had modeled the polyglot Michel Thomas. I chose the "experiential array" as if it were a camera to model those polyglots who I admired so much. This technique was cutting edge and simple.
On youtube I discovered great polyglots. Luca Lampariello speaks fluently and with
perfect pronunciation more than ten foreign languages. Moses McCormick aspires to learn a huge amount of foreign languages and he has reached a surprising level of
Chinese proficiency. Professor Alexander Arguelles is a teacher and a pupil at the same time. Tim Ferris speaks Japanese, fluent Spanish and German. Michel Thomas was a mysterious character polyglot and spy at the same time. Canadian Steve Kaufman is
also admirable because he speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, etc.. I would have liked to have been able to make an appointment with each of them. For Michel Thomas
it was totally impossible because he was deceased. I don’t know personally the polyglots I admire, nor do I have a budget to travel all over the world. I do not know if they would accept to undergo modeling sessions. Anyway they had published several
blogs on the Internet and many of his videos are public so I went ahead decided to model with the materials I had at my disposal.
As I progressed in my research I realized that some plolyglots preferred some material
over another. Lampariello prefers "Assimil" method, Moses McCormick uses the "Teach Yourself" method. The Pimsleur method was reputed to be very effective. It was
evident that not only the material itself but also the order and how to learn them seemed to matter. The "Assimil method" differences between a passive phase for reading and listening and other active production phase for speaking and writing. Pimsleur quickly
realized that illiterate people were perfectly capable to speak and I think he was well
aware of the existence of separate brain circuits for hearing- speaking and reading-writing. AJ Hoges is an English teacher and a wonderful person for many reasons.
Besides, he had applied NLP modeling techniques for learning foreign languages. I think his most important contribution in addition to their joy and his crazy stories is deep learning. It is by means of continuous repetitions reinforcing brain synapses that
we learn. In Spain, the most popular English teacher on the internet is Monica. She had also discovered a key I shared: learning vocabulary is going beyond visually
recognizing a written word, you must be able to recognize it when you hear it, you need to be able to pronounce it, you need to know how to write it.
The question of sensory preferences and cognitive and learning styles it’s not a minor
one. To the classic sensory preferences revealed by NLP I added the theory of the four brain quadrants developed by Ned Hermann.
I had a methodology for modeling, a lot of material on which to apply the technology. I lacked a structure for spinning the lines that follow below my blog page. By chance I
stumbled upon a video where Oper Brayer presented the most appropriate structure to compose multiple clusters of ideas that sometimes combined in the form of hopscotch.
In May 2013 I looked at my preferred polyglots through the prism of the "experiential
array." I had several models, and it became clear that some strategies were completely opposed. There wasn’t such a thing as an only model in which all polyglots coincide. For instance: Michel Thomas said that you always need to know what you're saying,
Professor Alexander Arguelles uses a technique called "echoing" and you simply reproduce what you are listening. Michel Thomas said that the responsibility of learning
languages rests entirely on the teacher, Luca Lampariello postulates that foreign languages can only be learned and not taught. That's why I decided to leave the model open so everyone could choose the model according their personal preferences allowing
them include improvements. Everyone can add and contribute.
The "open source" model that I present is only a synthesis given in conclusion. After differences between the different strategies of the best polyglots some simple
conclusions emerged. Deaf people cannot talk. Listening skill is previous to speaking skill. Listening skill is necessary but not sufficient for speaking skill. You don’t start talking overnight just after listening . Speaking practice is needed too. Reading skill is
previous to writing skill, on the same terms. What it is guessed by way of agreement between all multilingual is that only through a deep learning you generate new mental
circuits created by the sound inputs and visual inputs and speaking and writing outputs. This way we can decode the visual and sound signal and produce them. These simple ideas shown that there are actually very few strategies to learn the four skills needed to
take over every language: listening skill (audio understanding), speaking (audio producing) skill, reading skill (visual understanding) and writing skill (visual
producing). There is a very simple order you should consider when you learn a foreign language. No teacher spoke me about this logical sequence and I fear that foreign languages have been taught haphazardly.
We are in the era of globalization. Today we don’t need eighty days to go around the world. Neither eighty clicks are needed to discuss real-time with a native speaker anywhere in the world.
Of course, it would have been better if we all had studied in an English school or
American or German or a French school. Maybe your parents could not afford it, maybe your parents did not speak foreign languages. Maybe yes, and you also want to learn
more foreign languages. Do what you can with your will and your time. Do what you can with whatever you have. I hope this book will serve to help you and your children to improve your learning. It is not enough to read it. The most important thing is to
install a mental model to facilitate your learning.
I. CONCEPT OF GENERATIVE NLP MODELING ©.
1. What is NLP? What is modeling?
In 1972 the student of mathematics and systems Richard Bandler was interested in Gestalt
psychology created by Fritz Perls. Reponsible for analyzing and cataloging Perl’s videos in
action for a publisher, Bandler unconsciously detected certain patterns in Perl’s behavior and
he dominated them to the point that he got amazing results in his therapy groups. Santa Cruz
University allowed young Richard Bandler to teach Gelstat therapy to a group under the
condition that his work needed to be supervised by John Grinder, Professor of Linguistics.
Grinder was surprised by the results obtained by Bandler and asked him to teach himself what
Richard was doing to extract the underlying linguistic patterns of that recent expertise. Later
on, they extracted patterns underlying the actions of other therapy geniuses like Virginia Satir
and Milton Erikson. This way born modeling, wich constitutes the nucleus of a new discipline
named Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
There is not a simple definition of what NLP is. In the beginning it was defined as the study of
the human subjective experience. To Richard Bandler it’s a meta-discipline, an educational
tool for improving in any area of human performance. To John Grinder is a technology that
looks for differences that make the difference between geniuses and average people. To
Robert Dilts, one of the great developers of this discipline, is the way your thinking and self
talking affects your actions. The way we think, speak and act are systemic, interacti ve and
interconnected processes.
Modeling is the process of identifying and describing in a useful manner those patterns that
make up a particular skill. A model is a code of patterns that underlie a human aptitude. To
the process of creating a model, system or program that allow us to replicate excellence in
some expertise area we call it “modeling”. It is a methodology for synthesizing talent, creating
an artificial form of skill. The result of the process of modeling is a model, which is conceived
as an extension of the human mind as microscopes amplify vision or printing multiplies
human memory. Nowadays modeling is not limited to linguistic patterns, it reaches other
levels such identity, values, beliefs, metaprograms, emotional states, cognitive strategies,
behaviors, environments, etc.
2. What is an “open source generative model”?
An “isomorphic” model is limited to extract and replicate the code, program or mental system
o f one or more experts (usually not more than 3). It seeks to improve or simplify what experts
are doing going even further. With a generative model it is possible to create a model that
combines elements of several experts to generate a global model that goes beyond the
capabilities of any of the modeled individual experts.
Initially I did not intend to create a generative model. But the approach of addressing modeling
from the dynamics and learning and the track of multiple examples of learners and teachers
led my curiosity to the point of a generative model.
Why is this modeling “open source”? Usually NLP seminars are expensive and they are not
available to all budgets. As you surely know it is easy to find open source software with similar
benefits to more exclusive programs at a really reasonable price and sometimes for free. So, I
want this model to learn foreign languages to be affordable, in the sense that you can access it
without economic restrictions and it’s also “open source” in the sense that each user can
improve or customize it according to their own learning style and experience.
3. What can this report offer to you?
The men and women of the XXI century can move around the world at the click of a mouse. Speaking foreign languages either English, Chinese, Spanish, French or German makes communication easier and allows you to reach more people.
The value proposition of this site is to help humanity offering the strategies of the best
polyglots, language learners and teachers in an open source manner to enhance and extend foreign languages learning. Students of all ages, from the youngest to adults, and teachers of second languages may find it useful and valuable.
If what you intend is to master the principles of learning a foreign language applied by
the best experts and you want to prevent second or third language dominate you, this report may be helpful.
If you want to improve your system or method of language learning and avoid an uncontrolled learning this report is also for you. This report will offer strategies to
improve your processes and your results. If you want a more intuitive way to learn foreign languages and take your own
adventure or learning project based on your own experience avoiding rigid structures and disciplines, this book is for you.
If what you intend is to expand your circle of relationships and avoid the isolation caused by the lack of linguistic skills, this book is for you.
Whatever your learning style is you can set a goal, assess your strengths and
weaknesses, test a model based on what the best polyglots, students and teachers in the world are doing, so you can to finish your own learning project. Probably you will learn something after reading this text, and if some ideas work well for you, you can update,
improve, customize or tune the model your own way, because the code is open.
4. Can someone be unconsciously competent?
To acquire a skill we usually go through four stages: 1) we are unaware of our incompetence, 2) We are aware of our incompetence, 3) We are aware of our competence, 4) we are unaware of our competence. Think about when you learned to
drive: conscious learning leads to automatic unconscious skill and exercise.
From another point of view our brain is divided into three parts from the point of view of the genetic evolution: the oldest part of our brain corresponds to the reptile brain (which assimilates automatisms), the middle part is the emotional brain (part that
records alerts and preferences), and the cerebral cortex is the youngest part at the top of our brain (the center of thoughts and decisions). The reaction time of the brain is faster
in the oldest layer of the brain. Imagine a dangerous looking snake is appearing in front of you. Would you stop to think about a book of biology or would you get out as faster as you can? You, yourself have the answer.
When we learn, at first glance it seems that the program can go from the cortex, through
the emotional brain to the reptilian brain, although other options fit: from the reptilian brain to the emotional brain and finally to the cortex.
Experts often work unconsciously and they do not know exactly what they are doing.
We are unconsciously competent in the use of our mother tongue. 5. Why is that modeling hasn’t spread to language learning?
It seems that commercial NLP approach put more emphasis on models (pictures), that in
the process of modeling (camera). The first attempt to model learning languages at a basic level that I know comes from Robert Dilts who modeled Powell Janulus, who spoke 42 languages when he was 38. Marilyne and Wyatt Woodsmall have modeled
Michel Thomas. Professor AJ Hoges modeled best students comparing what they did with average students, he interviewed Steve Kauffman (polyglot) and he researched
Krashen theory, finding relevant matching patterns. The advent of the internet puts at our disposal excellent examples of polyglot people,
allowing us to apply the modeling process to extract the program or code that underlies their expertise.
6. Why do I not address the whole process of modeling?
Surely you know how to drive without knowing the mechanics of your vehicle thoroughly. I am interested in putting a good machine in your hands. Those interested in
more details can rely on the literature of authors experts in the field. Maybe later on you can put in your hands a book about modeling, especially if you are one of those who enjoy the mechanics.
You know what? If you read the whole text and practice about it you're going to learn how to model just by doing.
II. UTILITY AND USES FOR MODELING
7. What is modeling? What is it for?
Modeling is a tool for learning. It has spread from the initial uses in therapy (going beyond the initial linguistic models) to business (leadership, sales, negotiation, communication), high performance sport (Olympic athletes), education, personal
finance, music, advocacy, etc. Inevitable, it has also been given a military use to these techniques.
8. Do you want to improve your learning system? Do you think you can do it
better?
Often experts in any area of expertise (successful students, investors, entrepreneurs, journalist, athletes, etc) follow a system and worry about updating and improving it. Do you have one? Probably yes, but you are not conscious of it. This text put in your hands
the best systems of students and teachers to learn/teach a foreign language.
9. What are the pre-requisites?
What do have in common successful students, businessmen/women, or elite athletes?
They make plans, manage their time and energy (motivation), resources (money, relationships, information, etc.) and scope (goals and objectives). Learning foreign
languages requires your time, your dedication and your resources, you will need to set your own goals too.
10. Which would not be a reasonable expectation?
Let’s take for example the meta-model originally created by Richard Bandler and John
Grinder. This model allows you to ask the questions that the best therapists use. Does it mean that you can compare yourself to the best therapist in the history (Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, Milton Erickson) with only a handful of good questions? I think not, a yes
would be too pretentious. You can’t in a few minutes reach levels of mastery that have been adquired for decades, not to mention the particular identity of each person. I think
you can’t ask modeling more that it can do for you: improve and accelerate your learning.
Robert Dilts proposes different uses for modeling:
a) Learn about the differences. b) Do something differently. c) Do something better.
d) Do something new. e) Have more options.
d) Change perceptions. David Gordon tell us that modeling provide us with a fast, easy and secure way to
access the desired skills, Lesley Cameron and Michel Lebeau talk about reproducing competence.
11. Why traditional language learning often doesn’t work?
We can find many reasons for the failure of the traditional education in teaching
languages. Here are some of these reasons: 1.- Learning a foreign language, like any other project, is about considering learning
objectives in a given time. Language learning requires the investment of much time, however it is difficult to find a little orientation specifying approximate deadlines and
items to study. If someone is going to build an airplane or run a business project, time, scope and resources are specified. How is that nobody has done something similar about learning foreign languages? It is not the same to spend 2000 hours to reach a B2
level of German than saying: “it depends on the individual” or “what is to know a foreign language?”. Specific targets and deadlines may be more or less accurate but they
are better than avoiding the question of how long does it take to learn a second language. For languages like English or German, we could calculate about 2000 hours to reach a B2 level and about 3000 hours to reach a C1 level. For other languages like
Chinese or Russian we can ask other students or teachers about the question: how much time do we need to spend to reach a certain level. If we want to master a foreign
language we need to spend a considerable time and effort, and in formal education time is pretty short.
How is that a child who has studied at a British school, a French school or a German school ends up perfectly competent, while a child raised in a traditional school with the
second language as subject barely finishes his education in some babbling? The time of exposure to a second language is a critical variable. It is necessary to provide students a context in which they are permanently in contact with a second language. Audio-books
can be used according to the level of each student, internet facilitates relationships with people from other countries, etc.
2. Studying a second language as subject in traditional education does not distinguish between the levels of the students. You can find in the same class beginners with
advanced students so the objectives of the study are blurred and distorted.
3. The inertia of the educational bureaucracy leads to some teachers to focus on grammar, vocabulary, written lists and translations away from any useful context, on reading…so it’s not clear the beginning (maybe it’s better to begin with phonic
emphasis on the listening skill) and at the end you can find some students with an advanced level of vocabulary and grammar but they barely can understand anything and
some of them really can’t speak a foreign language. It is know that a deaf person can learn to read but can not to speak. Being listening a necessary (in my opinion not sufficient) condition to speak: how is that some teachers pretend that they pupils can
understand and speak if the focus on reading, and the listening skill is absent? How do they intend their student to be fluent in a foreign language if they don’t provide them
with the necessary in put of audio? 4. Materials are most of the times texts for reading and they don’t consider everyday
life or the pupil’s interests. Students aren’t provided with audio and they don’t get some keys to a proper spelling in a new language.
5. There is no preference for the most frequent vocabulary, sentences and grammar. Tim
Ferry uses the 20/80 rule. 80% of the time you use 20% of the new language. 80% of the time you make 20% of the mistakes. The statistical rate it’s not the same for
listening/speaking and for reading/writing. Usually you begin learning a foreign language with a small vocabulary (1200 to 2000 words).
6. Sometime there are not clear standards for evaluation. Which are the standards for the exam? How can I get those standards? I prefer precise criteria as the number of known
words, grammar structures, global idea and details after listening, etc. 7.. Your mother tonge interferes with your second language. Sometimes there is a
common origin between the languages and you can lever your learning on that, because the vocabulary and grammar are more familiar for you (for instance between English
and Deustch or between Spanish and French). Anyway, we can’t forget that the vocabulary and grammar of our first language and of our second language aren’t the same!
8. You need a great commitment to learn a foreign language. There is an element of
monotony that usually isn’t balanced with the pupils interests. For instance, learning to read a little story or a comic may be more funny than textbooks. The student need clear pre-requisites (look at question 9). If you are not engaged in the learning process it
could be better not to start it at all.
9. Some methods focus on vocabulary and neglect grammar. It is like having 1200-2000 parts of an aircraft and pretend to fly without an engine, you end up speaking like Tarzan. Other ones focus on grammar but neglect vocabulary: you have a big engine
but no pieces. Some people focus on listening and take speaking for granted, they suppose that just listening you’ll be automatically able to speak. Some methods don’t
provide audio?!!!!(visual illusion that reading is enough). So as we can see usually students need to adapt to weird and even stupid methods. On
the contrary, my approach is that method should be adapted to the student’s learning style. In my opinion, the learning cycle should begin with spelling, continue listening
and reading, follow speaking (without reading), continue reading without listening and finally writing. You can change the pieces of this system but for me it’s out of question that listening is previous to speaking and reading is previous to writing. There are some
skills that implies links between visual and auditory: reading out load (visual, auditory and oral) and dictation (you translate auditory signal to visual signals –so there are some
previous sound and images in your mind- and finally you write them out). 10. Lack of feed back. When we learnt our mother tongue, usually our mother gave us a
continuous feedback about our progress. It’s imposible to ask such a commitment to our teacher, our pal, our skype friend , etc. So it’s up to you to get all kind of interesting
materials that will allow you to get on the right track. 12. 8. You need a great commitment to learn a foreign language. There is an element of
monotony that usually isn’t balanced with the pupils interests. For instance, learning to read a little story or a comic may be more than textbooks. The student need clear pre-
requisites (look at question 9). If you are not engaged in the learning process it could be better not to start it at all.
9. Some methods focus on vocabulary and neglect grammar. It is like having 1200-2000 parts of an aircraft and pretend to fly without an engine, you end up speaking like
Tarzan. Other ones focus on grammar but neglect vocabulary: you have a big engine but no pieces. Some people focus on listening and take speaking for granted, they suppose that just listening you’ll be automatically able to speak. Some methods don’t
provide audio?!!!!(visual illusion that reading is enough).
So as we can see usually students need to adapt to weird and even stupid methods. On the contrary, my approach is that method should be adapted to the student’s learning style. In my opinion, the learning cycle should begin with spelling, continue listening
and reading, follow speaking (without reading), continue reading without listening and finally writing. You can change the pieces of this system but for me it’s out of question
that listening is previous to speaking and reading is previous to writing. There are some skills that implies links between visual and auditory: reading out load (visual, auditory and oral) and dictation (you translate auditory signal to visual signals –so there are some
previous sound and images in your mind- and finally write them out).
10. Lack of feed back. When we learnt our mother tongue, usually our mother gave us a continuous feedback about our progress. It’s impossible to ask such a commitment to our teacher, our pal, our skype friend , etc. So it’s up to you to get all kind of interesting
materials that will allow you to get on the right track.
12 What happens if you can not discern the critical distinctions of a skill?
Could you save money if you spend more than you earn? No, you couldn’t. Saving is
the result of spending less than you earn. Any personal finance system must include at least three distinctions: income, expenditure, and savings.
Do you think that you have no talent for drawing? Betty Edwards provides a book that makes drawing available to everyone. There are some basic distinctions in her system:
line, shapes, edges, positive and negative spaces, proportion, light and shadows. You have no excuse my friend, all talented people make such distinctions, you can learn
them artificially. So if you don’t know how to draw it’s no because you born without a gift but because you don’t want or you don’t devote the necessary time and attention to painting following the right distinctions.
What happens if we try to speak a foreign language without listening it? Such a thing is
impossible. Listening is a previous condition (not sufficient in my opinion) to speaking. If we try to speak without listening we are following the worst of the possible ways, educational bureaucracy sometimes lead us through that impracticable way.
Our plane will take off and move in the sky (context, pragmatic situation of
communication) you’ll need some vocabulary (1200-2000 most frequent words) and a generative engine (basic and frequent grammar). Try to listen before you speak my friend. Try to read before you write. Tailor your material trying to understand at least
90% of what you hear and read. At first, it can be disheartening: too many pieces, too many vocabulary. Start flying your kite little by little, at least half an hour a day. Close
the circle. The words have a sound dimension (syllables), a visual dimension (letters), a kinesthetic dimension (pronunciation and writing). The word is associated with a
meaning that can be visual (red, green, blue) auditory (miaow) or kinesthesic (soft).
Those dimensions appear not only in vocabulary but in sentence construction too. III. MODELING PROCEDURE.
13. How are experts modeled? How to make things right?
You start looking for the best experts in an area of expertise (in our case I have worked with good teachers and polyglots). You can model an only expert in three different
situations probing his/her skills. Three experts may also be used for modeling contrasting what they do with average people.
14. How are patterns detected?
The patterns are detected through similarities in three studied situations. David Gordon and Graham Dawes follow a protocol for the elicitation. Robert Dilts extracts patterns from differences and variations in the degree of the variables too.
15. Why the installing of metal programs is so important? How to install patterns?
That’s for sure that you have sometime downloaded and installed a program in your computer. The program is given and you only need one click to install the program at
once. But, you know what? Our brain doesn’t work that way! Human learning doesn’t happen so fast. To install a new program in your mind you spend time and normally you
have to chunk down the material in small pieces to make it easier. How much time do you spend installing a program? There is kind of myth that says that it takes three weeks. Maybe is more exact at least a month. It may be less, it may be more, it depends
on your own experience. Apparently neuroscience suggests that the period is a month. Remember this: you only can eat an elephant in small pieces. Our brain doesn’t install
programs with a single click, you need to spend time and patience. As far as modeling is concerned I’d rather say that you should spend 80-95 % of your time installing and 20-5% of the time extracting the program.
16. . How to make things wrong?
Usually when people have attitude and/or aptitude problems, they make things wrong.
The cause of the attitude problem can be intrinsic or derived from the bad influence of some other person (sometimes some teachers insert in your mind mental viruses: “you
are not gifted for languages or mathematics or whatever…”). You can solve an attitude problem reflecting on your own motivations to learn a foreign
language. If unfortunately somebody has infected your mind with a mental virus (limiting beliefs) you should start neutralizing it.
If your problem is aptitude modeling could be a solution. So, here you can find a lot of systems for learning and customize or adapt them to you own learning style.
Of course, my friend, starting such an adventure as learning a foreign language moves
you out of you comfort zone into the unknown. Along the way you are going to find obstacles (you don’t understands, they speak too fast, too many vocabulary and
grammar…boredom, monotony). So, only if your motivation and confidence in your
learning system is high you are going to undertake inevitable obstacles along the way.
17. Which excuses are not acceptable?
You don’t have enough time? I can’t belive it. We all have 24 hours a day. So, if you
are not ready to spend at least half an hour a day to kite your fly and learn a foreign language these pages aren’t for you. Half an hour a day is a minimum, you should
increase your dedication. You don’t have money? Oh! Nowadays you can access to free resources and materials
to learn foreign languages. How much does ignorance cost? Suppose that you earn 30 euro for each hour you devote to learn a foreign language, if you spend 3000 hours
studying a foreign language you get a return of 90.000 euro. That’s the way Richard Vaughan motivates his pupils to spend their time and their effort. Try to fly your kite on matters interesting to you (traveling, reading, mode, make up, etc.).
You don’t know what you want? Money and love motivate people. If your partner
speaks a foreign language it can be a beautiful challenge to learn it. Maybe you need to move into another country to make a living, so if you need to speak a foreign language it can be very motivating too. Precise the scope of your objectives little by little: what
do you want to achieve? Get by in a hotel or in a store? travelling abroad? Simply reading stories? Listening comprehension at B2 level? Speaking skill at a B1 level?
You can’t learn a foreign languages because you are older than 5? You can’t travel abroad? It could be that children learn faster because of neuronal plasticity reasons.
Anyway, my friend, take a look on youtube and check out how does Luca Lampariello speak English, French, Spanish, German. You know what? He never traveled to the
USA and he masters English. He didn’t learn English when he was five. Take a look again on youtube and look at Steve Kauffman. How old is he? More that five? Yeap! More than forty? Yeap!. And he follows learning foreign languages. So, it is not a
question of age. 18. What shouldn’t you do after having devoted your time to read this work? Of course, this text is not only for reading, you need to practice the system described here. Modeling is about a system working in your mind (David Gordon). This text is your friend, you can take it wherever you want. That’ s not the question. I insist, only if you install in your mind a system of the ideas here presented, you will get a return of profitability.
IV. INSPIRING EXAMPLES
19. How do best polyglots learn?
Usually polyglots have a solid belief system (attitude), so they can get by with the
inevitable obstacles that appear along the way. At the same time they follow useful learning strategies making more fun, easy, effective and efficient their learning (aptitude).
Let’s see some of those belief systems.
Powel Janulus, who was modeled by Robert Dilts, used to think that if even people with
mental disabilities were able to learn a language, he could learn too. He had his own learning system that went directly from language to experience (objects, colors,
actions). He had an original system for auditory notation common for all the languages, so he could manage quite well with pronunciation in different languages. He tried to identify himself with the culture and identity of the language he had chosen. He worked
in NLP second position (he identified himself with native speakers) and he used to correct immediately his mistakes.
Luca Lampariello is well known on youtube. He speaks a lot of languages really good. He is an electronic engineer, but he loves languages. He likes to make difficult things
easier. He looks for simplicity and fun when he learns a foreign language. His learning system is named “to close the circle”, he basically translates from second language to
mother tonge, and then from first language to second language. His system allows him to remember about 80% of the material he reads, listens and writes.
Professor Alexander Arguelles is a polyglot who combines teaching and auto-learning. He has a deep interest in other cultures and appeals to well focused energy, discipline
and good materials for success in learning. He follows two techniques called “shadowing” (listening and immediately speaking what you learn; like it were an echo) and “scriptrorum” (a technique that combines writing and speaking out loud).
Moses MacCormick looks for fun when he learns a foreign language. He looks for big
challenges with difficult languages like Chinese. He feels a big interest for foreign languages and peoples. He follows a system for speaking called “FLR” (Foreign Language Roadrunning) basically he wants to accelerate oral production (speaking
skill).
Tim Ferris speaks Japanese, German, Spanish…He looks for efficiency when he learns. So he focuses on most frequent vocabulary and grammar and follows de 80/20 rule. We use 20% of our language 80% of the time. He usually begins with phonetics, and then
he assimilates a basic grammatical framework and the basic vocabulary.
Steve Kaufman understands the foreign language process of learning as if it were an adventure. He focuses on listening. He suggests that everyone with a sufficient exposure to a second language can learn it. If you can travel and live abroad it’s up to you to
create an environment in which you can become familiar with a foreign language.
Stuar Jay Rag, speaks more than 13 languages. His pronunciation system uses colors. When he looks at the dictionary some word, he tries to visualize himself speaking that word. He listens, reads, writes, makes mental maps of the throat, mouth and tongue. He
expands the basics to more advanced degrees.
Michel Thomas used to think that anyone can learn a foreign language. It was just the responsibility of the teacher to teach it the right way. He created a relaxed and friendly environment focusing on comprehension more than in memory (what you completely
understand you never forget it). He used the familiarity among some languages (German-English or Spanish, French-Italian) to somehow lever the leaning process.
20. How do teach great teachers? How do you know is your teacher is a good one
for you?
Michel Thomas though that the responsibility of learning lies on the teacher. However, Luca Lampariello says that a language can be learned but not taught, so he follows an auto-learning system. Probably both are right. Depending on the learning style of the
student may be more useful to follow an auto-learning system or hire a teacher.
Professor AJ Hoges, has inspired me. He is a natural motivator and he applies NLP techniques to learning too. In Spain there is an amazing blog written by Monica Tapia Stocker for learning English. Professor Alexander Arguelles suggests to adapt learning
material depending on the student’s learning style. In his opinion Pupils drive and time management are important too.
So there are great teachers out there.
According to Ander Ericsson the best practices to reach excellence through deliberate practice include:
1. The importance of a coach or mentor who provides motivation and feed-back
about our progress.
2. Visualizing how experts work. 3. Divide and chunk tasks, make things easier.
4. Repeat many times each of these fragments. 5. Use different speed when you repeat, sometime use slow-motion repetitions. 6. Leave the comfort zone and get over our limits.
7. Maximum concentration. Achieving this state is possible only a few hours a day. 8. Feed-back to learn about our mistakes.
Malcolm Gladwell estimated at 10.000 hours (2 hours a day for 14 years) the time required to achieve mastery in any skill. If we apply the 20/80 rule we can learn the
basics in 2.000 hours.
In the early 30s. Mrs. Maw was 70 years old and asked Dr. Milton Erickson to teach her how to read and write. She has tried it unsuccessfully for many years. Dr. Erickson became Mrs. Maw an assiduous Reader Digest reader. Some initial small successes
changed her conviction that she could not learn to read and write. Dr. Milton Ericson combined simple lines “that even a child could do” and made those lines to have letter
forms. When she formed the first letters, words and sentences she was sure that she was able to read and write, the rest of the process was quick and simple. Our beliefs determine the limit of our capabilities, and a good teacher not only provides a good
model or system but also a set of positive beliefs. A belief system is like a leverage point where you support your cognitive system.
Through modeling we can synthesize talent, we can create talent artificially and accelerate our learning.
21. And you? How do you learn?
What is your predominant sensory channel? Do you learn better when you see, when
you hear, when you do or when you speak to yourself? Are you interested on principles or about what experts say? You think that procedures or methods is what matters? Do
you prefer to explore yourself and get your own experiences? Do you learn better when you relate to other people?
22. How it is difficult to learn?
A set of negative limiting beliefs stops us: if you think that you cannot learn foreign languages you have an attitude problem. It is also needed to find a model/system to facilitate the task of learning and give us feed-back about our progress. If you have an
attitude problem even if your learning system is awesome you’re not going to learn.
23. Learning with or without exams?
The real test, the real proof, is when you are in a position to speak the foreign language
with a native speaker. I prefer auto-evaluation maybe because my learning style tends more to auto-learning. However, I must admit that when we need to face an exam we
usually work harder because of the challenge. More than to get an A or a little victory the real value of exams is the information that they give us about our progress. When we must take an exam we manage our time depending on the date for the exam but
learning a foreign language is a never ending story. Maybe you can combine distribute periods of learning with periods of total immersion in this never ending story.
Michel Thomas and A. J. Hoges avoid exams just because they create unnecessary tension and negative physiological estates.
24. How do you know that you don’t learn?
It’s up to you to answer this question. I do know that I’m not learning when there isn’t a learning project running in my agenda.
V. HOW DO YOU LEARN. YOUR LEARNING STYLE.
25 Which is your learning style?
Each person has his/her own learning style. NLP tell us that people usually have a
preferred or dominant sensory channel: some are more visual, another more auditory, there also more kinesthesic people and people who prefer to talk themselves (internal
dialogue). More than a predilection for a sense it seems that every person follows a particular order with their sensory perceptions and mental representations.
Ned Hermann developed a brain model distinguishing 4 ways to operate, to think, to create, to learn and to live, according to the predominance of one of the four brain
quadrants:
1. Those who have left cortical quadrant predominance, are logical, analytical, they
base on facts and figures. They process information sequentially. They think, act and feel.
2. Those who have right cortical quadrant predominance, are strategists, holistic,
integrative, intuitive. They look for synthesis and process information simultaneously. They act, feel and think.
3. Those who have left limbic quadrant predominance, are organized, sequential, planners, perfectionist, collectors. They love procedures and methodologies. They act, think, feel.
4. Those who have right limbic quadrant predominance, are good communicators, sentimental, aesthetic. They feel, act, think.
Kolb distinguishes 4 ways for processing information:
1. Through concrete experience. Divergers. 2. Through reflective observation. Assimilators.
3. Through abstract conceptualization. Convergers 4. Through active experimentation. They combine concrete thinking and active
experimentation. Adapters.
Once you have identified your favorite sensory channel, your brain dominant quadrant
and you favorite way to process information you can get a pretty accurate idea about how do you learn. Differences between the student’s learning style and the teacher’s teaching style can create some conflicts in the learning process. Imagine an intutive
student with kinesthesic sensorial preference, and then imagine a teacher who loves concepts and theories with visual sensorial preference. Could they get on? The student
needs to do and experience to learn, while the teacher is more visually oriented an loves theory…a little conflict could emerge.
From the point of view of language learning:
1. Communicators like interactions and relationships. Maybe they are not very interested in grammar.
2. Theorists prefer tables and grammar rules. Maybe interaction is not so important
for therm. 3. Intuitive people would prefer experience to theory.
4. Organizers will look for methodology and quality in everything they do. They maybe spend less time interacting with people.
Each learning style has its strengths and weaknesses. Good polyglots combine in a balanced way the four brain quadrants: the ultimate goal of learning is to communicate,
so they need to master some principles and a praxis based on a sound methodology, so they can crystallize intuitively a complex system.
Of course, all this is a simplification. I realized that polyglots use different ways or systems to learn. Why is that? We are all different human beings. Is there something
common among all polyglots? I’d rather say yes, some circuits are universal. Maybe each polyglot learn his/her own way, but there are ways that get you where you want to go, and there are ways to nowhere. Could you write before you read? Could you speak
before you listen? Noop. We need some audio-visual in put before being able to reproduce sounds and letters. Unfortunately some teachers only give you a list of
vocabulary and they ask you not only to write them correctly but a good pronunciation too? Are they crazy? How can you reproduce a sound that you have almost never ever
listened before? Aha, bureaucracy. Aha, they have always done things so. Aha, their
common sense is missing: they suppose that only visualizing some words you will be able to pronounce them correctly!
26. How do you know that they teach you well and you learn well? How do you
know that they teach you wrong?
In the answer to the question above I alerted about some discrepancies that once
identified can be solved. This does not mean that the teacher is bad or the student is bad, there are simply cognitive styles differences: perhaps some compromise can be reached between the teacher and the student.
To know if you are well taught and if you learn the right way you need to get on the
track and record and evaluate your own progress. I wouldn’t accept to learn lists of written vocabulary without the necessary sound and
out of context. How can you speak if you haven’t listened before? Is it really meaningful a word out of context? The teachers can provide materials according to the
student’s interest and motivation (sports, business, fashion, or whatever it could be). Evaluation is only a way to give us information and make the necessary adjustments if necessary. In my opinion it’s not enough to listen, once you have the sound in your
mind you have to pronounce it. It’s just my experience, although I know that following some theories listening is enough to start automatically speaking. So, I think listening is
necessary but not sufficient to speaking. So, you need to close a circle: words have a sound dimension (syllables), a visual
dimension (letters), a kinesthesic dimension (speaking and writing). All these dimensions occur in each word of vocabulary and in grammar, when you built and
combine words making sentences. Whatever the vocabulary or grammar could be, listen to it, pronounce it, read it, write it. We have to two channels for sound and visual in put, our hears and our eyes, and we have two channels for the output: our voice and our
hand (for writing). You know what? Our first language will be most of the time out there, sometimes interfering, sometimes helping, there is a double direction path
between our first and our second language. Is it better to translate or to suspend our first language? At the beginning some basic cues are necessary, but you cannot always translate from first language to second language, because they are different languages
with different structures, so I think that at the intermediate phases of the process of learning we should somehow suspend the interference of our first language.
27. Do you take your own decisions? Do you learn with a teacher or alone?
It’s obvious that a person who prefers communication just because brain reasons will learn better in good company. Other people could prefer a rational approach and
prefer to learn on their own. Anyway, a good teacher is always a valuable resource, even a critical resource. However, when there are restrictions in your environment and you can’t afford to hire a good teacher, you can always study on your own. Even
Professor Alexander Arguelles admits that self-learning is a perfect way in the beginning.
28. What if we didn’t care about grades?
In the current education system evaluations entail some tension, some fear from failure, some risk of discredit. Sometimes the negative consequences that the school system
produces in student train ruin people perfectly capable. Some teachers avoid exams because motivation for learning should go further than passing some tests. I think, that a good feed-back is always valuable to make adjustments, so I would eliminate
connotations of rewards and punishment when evaluating. The award is the progress itself, and being aware of some backward movements can help you to enhance your
drive. 29. Learning without plans, without systems, without records?
There are people with such a big motivation for learning that they learn even without
any conscious system. In the past polyglots in Africa learnt through massive listening and repetition (without distinctions for reading and writing). These days you need to read and write too. Maybe it’s a good idea to be illiterate in Chinese. Anyway, I
think that some systems for learning are more efficient and effective than others. There will always be someone opposite to wheel. Do you think that a car will never replace a
coach with horses. Mmm. You know what? Whatever your system is you only have two hears, a tongue, two eyes, and we usually write with a hand!
30. Do you set your own goals? What scope do you want to achieve? How to design
your own learning project?
Motivation can be intrinsic or extrinsic. The best polyglots don’t need anyone to encourage them to learn foreign languages. Each person should set his/her own goals
based on their needs, preferences, beliefs, resources, etc. For setting you own goals you can follow the SMART method (look at on the Wikipedia). One could be to master
1200 basic words and most of basic grammar (present, past and future) in 9 month, other one could be to read and listen to an audio-book for one month. Some people will need to get by when they travel abroad, other will need more ambitious goals.
VI. MYTHS AND TRUTHS ABOUT LEARNING.
31. What if the genetic and Darwinian paradigm of talent were not completely
right?
The dilemma between nature or nurture was somehow decided towards genetics. Intelligence was something inherited and immutable. Ander Ericcson argues that
deliberate good practice can create talent. Malcolm Madwell has theorized that 10.000 hours of deliberate practice are needed to reach mastery at complex skills like musical composition, business skills, etc . Good teachers and an a total immersion environment
can make a difference if you are learning something.
It seems clear that some people are born with the virtue of making some distinctions that go unnoticed by others. NLP modeling makes it possible to accelerate learning, synthesize talent, creating distinctions, structures and systems that facilitate the process
of learning. 32. Emotional intelligence or intelligence quotient?
Intelligence quotient predicts success. Daniel Goleman introduced the idea of emotional intelligence, that makes a difference about personal and professional success. Howard
Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory includes: verbal intelligence, mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, musical intelligence, kinesthesic intelligence, intra-personal intelligence, interpersonal intelligence and naturalist intelligence.
The brain perceives stimuli through sensory channels, processes information in a
sequential and simultaneous way, makes, executes, creates, relates to other people, etc. A good integration of the four brain quadrants seems to be behind the best results. Maybe that happens in a random genetic form, maybe it could be possible to replicate
and democratize what have been a random genetic privilege until now.
I don’t think intelligence is absolutely independent from will. A healthy curiosity and willingness are variables over which we have some control. The belief that the more you want the more you can could be useful and maybe you can leverage on your will.
Plants need a fertile ground to grow.
33. And if you had something to win and nothing to lose?
If you have nothing to lose and everything to gain you move into a double positive
bound. That is a good starting point for any learning.
34. And if you had no fear or hurry?
Fear is a useful tool of control and some people don’t hesitate to use it in their own
benefit. Teaching sometimes is based on fear. The rush comes either from outside or we have internalized it. We can set our own pace and use our little space of liberty.
35. Why not to break your grammar rules?
One of the strategies I follow to learn a foreign language is to take the Spanish vocabulary and built sentences following the grammar of the second language. I get a
little advantage doing so, because if I translate from “Spanish” to second language the task is easier.
36. Is your mother tongue a leverage or a brake that slows you down? Do you
know how to distinguish true friends from false friends?
You master your native language, that has its advantages and disadvantages. Languages
from the same family (English-German, Spanish-French-Italian-Portuguese) have a common root, so there is a familiarity between some words, and learning vocabulary is
easier. Michel Thomas and the Peruvian polyglot Jorge Fernandez Gates have capitalized these partnership among some languages. The downside is that, of course, languages are different, and the first language usually interferes with the second
language, just because languages haven’t the same pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.
VII. MODELING PRINCIPLES.
37. Which principles underlie mental programs?
1. Relax and appropriate physiology. (Michel Thomas, Luca Lampariello, Assimil method, Alexander Arguelles, Robert Dilts, A. J. Hoges)
2. Spaced learning. (Pimsleur, Michel Thomas).
3. Deep learning. (Michel Thomas, A. J. Hoges. Luca Lampariello) 4. Association. (Michel Thomas, Ramón Camapayo).
5. Total immersion. (Steve Kaufman, Krashen). 6. 80/20 Rule. (Zipf took a text and counted how many times each word appears.
The French mathematician Benoit de Mandelbrot, father of fractal mathematics,
devote his doctoral dissertation on the mathematics underlying the frequency of words. Tim Ferris uses the 80/20 rule)
7. Combination. (Steiner Brothers use combination and listened grammar, I think it’s a great idea).
8. Circle closing. Luca Lampariello uses a double translation system first from
second language to first language and afterwards from first language to second language. I’d rather say vocabulary and grammar have an implicit visual and
auditory remembered component, so you need to recognize sounds, reproduce them, recognize visually letters and write them down.
9. Leverage. Michel Thomas, Jorge Fernandez Gates.
10. Immediate feedback. Michel Thomas, María Montessori.
38. Where did I extract those principles from?
Modeling polyglots, great students and great teachers they appeared.
39. Do you think those principles are reasonable?
It’s up to you to answer this question my friend. This space is for you own reflection.
40. Is it enough to know these principles?
No. You need to systemize them, internalize them, practice them and verify your criteria and standards.
41. Is contradiction healthy or unhealthy?
Contradiction and paradox are sources for creativity. There are apparent contradictions that are partially true. For examples, Michel Thomas said that the teacher was
completely responsible of the student’s learning. Luca Lampariello, on the contrary, downloads all the responsibility on the students. I think that more than a contradiction
there are two different styles for teaching and learning, Moreover both of them (Luca and Michel) are excellent teachers and students at the same time.
From a logical point of view, contradiction is dangerous. How is that we are forced to speak a second language without a previous listening period? How is that if you need to
speak a foreign language material you focus on reading and writing? How is that some teachers don’t distinguish use from mention and prefer to explain grammatical rules
instead of using them in a relevant context (listening, speaking, reading and writing).
There is kind of logical misunderstanding there that confuses mention/explanation and use.
42. What if we couldn’t deny those principles?
If we cannot deny those principles the system would be validated. VIII. PRE - REQUISITES.
43. How much does motivation count? What motivates us? What discourages us?
Motivation has to be greater than the resistance to change. Foreign languages learning involves overcoming some adversities, so our drive has to be bigger that the feeling
relating to handicap. We can distinguish between needs and wants. We need bread to survive, although we
want chocolate. Needs from the point of view of submodalities implicate greater motivation. Who learns before, a person who needs to learn a foreign language or
someone who only wants to learn it? Well, when we were children we needed to communicate. Tod Epstein said that is amazing how fast you can learn when we have to survive. Vietnam veterans learned Vietnamese to return home alive. Language is also a
social tool because it serves social needs. If we keep climbing Maslow’s pyramid speaking languages could be a form of self-realization or a way to social recognition.
Mc Cleland studies motivation from the point of view of power (status), affiliation or belonging and achievement. So we move towards control, acceptation and success and
we avoid domination, rejection and failure.
Some people need to emigrate so they need to speak a foreign language. Money (work positions) and love motive most of the people. If your partner speaks a foreign language you can practice with her/him, you’ll probably be more interested in foreign
cultures.
Some people are motivated to avoid some risks instead of getting some opportunities. Fear drives a lot and it is on the base of the educational system.
And you, what motivates you? What do you do if you lose your drive? Do you motivate yourself or do you need somebody to motivate you?
You will find some barriers and difficulties on the way? Are you ready to overcome them?
1. The sound barrier. The pronunciation is pretty weird, oh man! Native speakers
speak too fast… 2. The barrier of meaning. What does this word mean? And that? And…!!!! 3. The barrier of syntax and grammar. The order and structure of the second
language is new and different of ours. 4. The barrier of writing. If you learn Greek, Russian or Chinese alphabets, so to
speak, are different so you will need to become familiar with them.
5. The plateau. In the beginning the study of a second language is fast, but at
intermediate levels the learning curve flattens and it seems that we don’t progress despite our efforts.
44. How important is time?
Time is a critical barrier and somehow it’s under our control. It’s a fact that those who have studied since childhood at an English school, a German school, a French school, a
Basque school…command at least the second language. On the other hand, most of the students who simply studied the second language as a subject most of the times have a poor knowledge of the second language. So, the exposure time to a second language
seems to be critical.
45. How important is money?
With more money you can travel abroad or take an intensive course or buy better materials. I don’t think money is a critical variable anyway. Whatever your economic
situation is there is always something you can do about that. Do what you can with what you have.
46. What if I am not motivated?
The best thing here would be to stop and think if you are really interested in starting a learning project. Maybe you can change your motivation changing your beliefs. Robert
Dilts has an useful test about beliefs maybe you can use it like a thermometer for your motivation.
47. What if I have no time?
All people have 24 hours a day, but we occupy it in different things and those things are expression of our values. If you don’t have even half an hour a day to start learning a foreign language, it means simply that you don’t mind learning a foreign language
because it is not important to you.
48. What if I have no money?
Wealth it is not only about money but also about things that you can do for you and for
others. You can start learning a second language with a very low budget. Perhaps the absolutely essential equipment are an mp3 reproducer (almost all cellular phones have
one) and reading material (preferably audio-books graduated according to the level of each student). Oh my friend, with little money, a lot of motivation and some time you can learn foreign languages. So, here money is not the problem.
IX .BASIC DISTINCTIONS, PROCESSES, PROCEDURES, SYSTEMS AND PRINCIPLES.
49. Which are the basic distinctions to learn a foreign language?
1. Pronunciation.
2. Vocabulary. 3. Grammar. 4. Listening skill.
5. Speaking skill.
6. Reading skill. 7. Writing skill.
Think about that, my friend: we all have in our minds some kind of audio archives (listening comprehension) and visual archives (reading) about each word. Only if we
have those memories we are able to reproduce them: speaking and writing. Think about that my friend… grammar is about order and structure: has grammar an audio-visual
component? It’s up to you. Yeap. So, how do best polyglots face those distinctions? Good question. We’ll address it a
little later.
50. Which order to follow? Process and procedures? What is the difference
between a process and a procedure? What are the operating principles?
Some teachers focus on vocabulary. Others prefer to focus on grammar. Some people prefer to read and listen before studying grammar. Some people just listen a lot of time
before trying to speak. Other ones start listening and speaking just from the very beginning. Of course, there is a traditional system to focus on reading and writing. Some teachers believe that after a massive input of the second language mistakes
correct themselves. Other experts suggest that you should correct your mistakes from the very beginning through immediate feedback and self-correction.
Oh, there are a lot of ways.. and Frank Sinatra did it him way…. Each of us will have to decide too.
Most materials present progressively vocabulary and grammar. It is important to
graduate materials according to the student’s level. I think we should start with the pronunciation. After pronunciation I should put my focus on listening, and most frequent vocabulary and grammar (listening and reading are critical to me, only if we
have a memory of sounds and letters we are going to be able to reproduce them later speaking and writing). So I’d rather start listening and reading, later I should listen
without reading trying to understand. Can I reproduce what I’m listening and reading? So, I should try to listen and repeat, read and write, listen and write. At the end of each unit I should study a little grammar. You know…Has grammar and audiovisual
component? What about double translation? It could be useful because you read and write. It could very useful because even when we speak a foreign language our first
language is dominant and we translate from our first language (Luca Lampariello’s systems for translating is very interesting).
51. How many dimensions does a word have? How to close the circle of learning?
How to modulate the intensity of the differences?
The word has an aural dimension (listening comprehension), a visual dimension (reading) and a kinesthesical dimension (speech and writing). We see and understand,
that’s reading. We listen and understand, that is listening comprehension. We talk to be understood, that is the speaking skill. We write and are understood that’s the writing
skill.
When we learn vocabulary and grammar we have to cover all dimensions, not only
reading. Do you recognize the word/sentence when you listen? Are you able to pronounce it? Can you write it down? Can you read and understand it? Some people are
aware of all those dimensions. Luca Lampariello’s system includes double translation first from first and second language. That makes sense, at first we think with the vocabulary and structure of our first language. Pimsleur somehow knew that there are
two separates channels for listening-speaking and listening-reading. Illiterate people can’t read or write but they understand and speak. Somehow there are at least two basic
circuits for listening-speaking and reading-writing. We have in our memory sounds and letters associated, so we usually don’t read and immediately write but, usually we listen and read so we create a strong aural-visual association. Once this strong association is
created, we can reproduce sounds (speaking), decode sounds into visual letters, and decode letters into sounds.
The complex linguistic system could be reduced to vocabulary, grammar and pragmatics (contexts of communication). The multidimensional aural, visual and
kinesthesic (oral for speaking and hand for writing) applies to vocabulary (the pieces of the aircraft) and to grammar (the motor of the aircraft).
52. How is that we do not notice those circuits?
We speak our mother tongue pretty well. It is easy for us to understand and be understood, we listen and automatically understand, we speak, we read, we write. We
are not aware of the difficulty of those tasks and we don’t remember the time we have spent learning them. We acquire an unconscious level of mastery in which we get a deep understanding of the whole system and parts of our language.
53. Does the size of the vocabulary and grammar matter? What is the scope of our
goals?
An airplane of paper can fly (only a piece, a small push and it flies a little), but it won’t get very far. With 1200-2000 words of vocabulary and basic grammar you can make a pretty good basic system. To fly higher and to read, you will need to extend your vocabulary to 7.000 to 9.000 words. Depending on where you want to go you will need a simple aircraft or a complex one. Yes, the size of the vocabulary matters. The motor of the aircraft is important to, so without a good control of the grammar you won’t go too far. Without the structure of the syntax, the pieces will lack connection and the engine won’t work.
.
54. How is that children don’t confuse use from mention?
Children are leading experts about learning languages. Children learn vocabulary and
grammar intuitively when they use the language. Because of inertia and historical reasons the educational system focuses on mention: how grammar rules work. Babies
first listen and speak, the educational system asks for reading and writing. What was first listen and speaking or printing? Guttenberg came later. The natural way is to use the language first and then deduce grammar rules. It seems that education is somehow
confused by the importance of writing and reading. What is the historical cost of confusing the logic levels of use and mention when learning a second language? I don’t
know what Sir Bertrand Russell should say about that.
X. THE "OPEN SOURCE" GENERATIVE MODEL.
55. What consists of the model? How to learn a foreign language?
Modeling has two important aspects. One is to extract the mental software from experts. The second one is to transfer the extracted model and install it in other people. I will
focus on the second one.
Here I follow basically David Gordon’s model for installation with some little innovations.
0. Ecology. 1. Primary Motivator (Yours). Why is learning a foreign language important to you?
2. Laboratory of experiences and Primary Motivator: I consider all temporary lines present (experience, good practice makes perfect), past and future. Which are your past, present and future experiences about learning a foreign language?
3. Definition/ Criterion/ Evidence + Supporting Emotion (physiology +mental state) What is important for an expert when he/she learns a foreign language? What
emotion (physiology and mental state) uses he/she when he/she learns? 4. Laboratory of experiences and Definition/Criterion/Evidence. All temporary lines. 5. Supporting Emotion.
6. Laboratory of experiences about supporting emotion. 7. Supporting Beliefs. Which is the system of beliefs of our expert/s?
8. Primary Strategy. How does he/she do when he/she learns? Which distinctions are critical? Is there and order? Are the processes simultaneous or sequential.
9. Enabling Cause-Effect. What makes it possible for the expert to learn?
10. Secondary Strategy. What do we do if our first strategy for learning doesn’t work? What do we do with mistakes?
11. Self assessment. Third Position. Do we record and evaluate our practice? Does it sound weird? Let’s see some examples about each of the distinctions with our
admired polyglots.
0. Ecology. Learning a complex skill as to understand and express oneself in a
foreign language involves some changes in your thinking and behavior that can affect your life? It makes sense to consider in advance which could be the
consequences of these changes in other areas or your life. Make sure that you make the changes that you want to do.
1. Primary Motivator. Why is important to you to learn a foreign language? Do you want to travel abroad? Do you want to study using a foreign language? Are
you interested in other cultures? Do you want to obtain more professional opportunities? Do you want to read scientific articles? Do you want to communicate with your partner if he/she speaks a foreign language? Do you
want to increase your status and power? Do you want to overcome a challenge? Do you want to establish new relationships? The Primary Motivator is about you, not about the expert or the model. I insist, here matters your true reason.
Here they are some reasons for polyglots:
o Michel Thomas. The innate drive to learn. o Luca Lampariello. Moving around the world in many languages
(girlfriends, relationships, information, entertainment, education, etc). o Alexander Arguelles. A deep interest in other cultures. o Moses McCormick. Learning a foreign language is a way to extend your
identity and project your personality through other cultures, so you will change your way of thinking.
o Tim Ferris. He is a traveler and speaking foreign languages helps you to move around the world.
o Powel Janulus. He wanted to identify himself with another cultures and
languages.
2. Laboratory of experiences and Primary Motivator.:
o Past. Take a look at you past experience. Have you ever needed to speak
a foreign country? Is there any connection between knowing a foreign language and your primary motivator?
o Present. Take a look at your present experience while you practice a foreign language? Is there a connection between your primary motivator and your actual practice?
o Future. Imagine that you are in the future (bridge to the future). Is there some connection between your primary motivator and your future?
Although David Gordon and Graham Dawes test the Primary Motivator
only in the past I find useful to extend the test trough all temporary lines,
especially in present because you will need a big deal of practice.
3. Criterion, Definition and Evidence . Here I introduce 3 concepts:
o Criterion: What is really important for the expert when he/she learns a foreign language?
o Definition: What is to master a foreign language? o Evidence: How do you know that you master a foreign language?
Here we consider the expert’s criterion, definition and evidence. For instance:
Michel Thomas.
Criterion: What is important to learn a second language? A relaxed and
stress free environment. You don’t forget what you completely
understand. Building first the structure (grammar) and later fill it with
vocabulary. Immediate feed-back and auto-correction.
Definition. What is to master a foreign language? Express yourself at a functional level. Here in Europa I’d rather say it’s a B1 level (Common
European Framework of reference for Languages), a survival level of
expression and understanding.
Evidence. How do you know that you master a foreign language? When you know how to build sentences and correct your own mistakes.
Luca Lampariello
Criterion. What is important to learn a foreign language? Make things easy
and take it easy. Definition. What is to master a foreign language? Understanding the second
language and feeling comfortable to speak it. It is a process that goes through stages. In the intermediate level the curve of learning slows down, and it
seems that you don’t progress. I’d rather say that although Luca considers all levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced) he moves at a very high standard probably a C2 level in Europe.
Evidence. You feel comfortable when you speak and you understand.
Alexander Arguelles.
Criterion. What is important to learn a foreign language? Well focused
energy, intelligent methods and good materials.
Definition. What is to master a foreign language? Express yourself fluently and correctly. Understanding. He moves at very high level probably C1-C2 in Europe.
Evidence. You understand and you speak fluently and correctly.
Moses McCormick
Criterion. What is important to learn a foreign language? To learn as soon as
possible and find ways to have fun while learning, good materials and
practicing with native speakers.
Definition. I haven’t found any interview answering this question. Anyway, I
bet I won’t be very difficult to complete it.
Evidence. I haven’t found any interview answering this question. Anyway, I bet I won’t be very difficult to complete it.
Tim Ferris.
Criterion. What is important to learn a foreign language? To learn quickly.
Methods and materials.
Definition. What is to master a foreign language? Understand 100% and being understood 95%. I’d rather say, Tim considers a functional and survival level, let’s say B1 in Europe.
Evidence. You understand and are understood.
4.- Laboratory of experiences and Criterion-Definition-Evidence. Now I
want you to choose only one of the polyglots, test in your experience his Criterion-Definition-Evidence. Does it work in your past experience? Does it
work in your present experience? Let’s go ahead and imagine that you are in the future, would the triad Criterion-Definition-Experience work in your experience? For instance, let’s say that you choose Michel Thomas and you
are a beginner student: is important to you to built correct sentences , to get immediate feedback in a relaxed environment and to be capable of correcting
your own mistakes? Does this Criterion-Definition-Evidence match your past, present and future experience?
Make your learning funny, take it easy and make it easy, use good methods (strategies) and materials, study regularly, immediate feed-back, self-
correction…etc. are without a doubt critical aspects. By the way, when you go to the school, you have to pass an exam to get an A or B or an F or whatever, but rarely the teacher explains you which strategies you have to
follow to reach the required standards (We will get to that point –strategies- a little later, so it makes sense at least to me to model the systems and
strategies the best polyglots use and adapt them to your own leaning style!) 5.- Supporting emotion. All experts agree: the emotional state is a key
aspect when you learn a foreign language.
Michel Thomas. It is very important to create a relaxed and stress-free environment to avoid memories of school headed by fear. It’s through little
and continuous progresses that students self-convince of his/her own capability, this way enthusiasm is generated.
Luca Lampariello. Passion, joy, patience are some of his supporting
emotions.
Alexander Arguelles. He introduces a physiological innovation. He
recommends listening and repeating out load while you are walking/exercicing.
Moses McCormick. He loves challenge, the more difficult the language to learn the better.
Tim Ferris. To him facing challenges is very important too.
Steve Kaufman speaks about passion and patience.
Assimil Method. Lessons are brief and sense of humor is present.
Sugestopedy. It is a method created by Dr. Lozanov that paces breathing
and baroque music while student learn vocabulary. Pupils assume new identities and roles and can choose new beliefs and behaviours.
A J Hoges. He proposes physical and mental (NLP swichss technique, submodalites) exercises at the beginning of the class.
Robert Dilts. For Robert emotional stage is so important as content. The neurophisiological predisposition is so important as the directions given
during learning. He has a pretty good job about postures and physiology. The pupil himself can contrast which states are good for effective learning and which states are distracting or blocking.
The emotional state has a physiological dimension (matrix of sensations in
the body) and a cognitive dimension (beliefs). Dr. Paul E. Dennilson has created a system of physical exercises that can improve the coordination between brain hemispheres. Mexican Luz Maria Ibarra has also published a
book about physiology and learning. The pioneers of the cognitive component of emotions were Lesley-Cameron Bandler and Michel Lebeau
who addressed some techniques to gain control over emotions in their book “Emotional Hostage” . Wyatt Woodsmall says that emotions are the result of images, the tonality of our voice (internal dialogue) and sensations (some
sensations cause other sensations to happen).
We could distinguish the moments about emotional states: previous to learning, during learning and after learning (probably a good emotion about the future will help to consolidate learning).
What is the emotion you lean on when you learn a foreign language? Joy?
Challenge? Patience? The supporting emotion will help you to sustain the Criterion in your experience when you practice them in your temporary lines (past, present and future). Look for vivid and intense experiences until you
can maintain the supporting emotion.
6.- Test Criterion-Definition-Evidence and Supporting Emotion in all
temporary lines. Now you have to test in all temporary lines (past-present and future) all the previous components: Criterion-Definition-Evidence and
Supporting Emotion. Do they help you to express your capability in each situation (past, present and future experiences)? When you satisfy the Criterion
you help to satisfy Primary Motivator
7.- Supporting Beliefs. There are usually punchy statements, kind of motto or slogan. Look for in your own experience those beliefs. Here are some
supporting beliefs of our geniuses. Michel Thomas. You never forget what you completely understand.
Teaching takes place in the now.
Luca Lampariello. Studying and learning is funny. Anyone can learn a foreign language following his method.
Alexander Arguelles. I you are a mature student, you’d better learn yourself. Moses McCormick. Try to be a foreign version of yourself. Your personality
and your mindset change when you learn foreign languages.
Tim Ferris. Traditional education doesn’t work, so he proposes something
better. Steve Kaufman. Learning a foreign language is just a question of practice.
8.-Test your supporting beliefs in all temporary lines (past, present and future ): Do they work?
9.- First strategy. A first strategy is what the experts do when they express their
skill. A second strategy is what experts do when the firs strategy doesn’t work. Here we present different strategies for:
1. Phonetics. 2. Vocabulary.
3. Grammar. 4. Listening skill. 5. Speaking skill.
6. Reading skill. 7. Writing skill.
1. Phonetics.
Luca Lampariello’s phonetic strategy. Luca’s pronunciation is awesome,
so native speakers usually get amazed when they listen to him. This way the motivation for him to follow is greater. Phonetics fascinates Luca. (1) He reads a phonetic introduction of the essential sounds (2) then
he goes to practice: listening and reading at the same time, this way he creates a link between the written word and the sound. (3)
Understanding sounds is important in order to reproduce sounds. He pays more attention on the musicality of the whole phrase rather than on the pronunciation of simple words. (4) Once we understand how
phonetic works we are ready to speak . For instance, you can start little monologues with yourself, nobody is going to correct our mistakes but
we are going to gain fluency. (5) Search somebody on the skype to practice the foreign languages, this way we get feedback. The critical moment to gain a good pronunciation is in the beginning, “A good start
makes win the middle of the battle”, this way you are going to listen new sounds and reproduce them gradually. He get his awesome accent
through listening and what he calls “emotional repetition” of words and sentences: he imagines himself as a one more character of the film he is watching and interacts with the other characters (It seems kind of NLP
“second position” when yourself in someone’s shoes). Powel Janulus phonetic strategy. He didn’t try to repeat words to say
them correctly. Instead of listening carefully to the pronunciation he observed a native speaker and reproduced his/her facial expressions,
movements and gestures –In NLP putting yourself in other’s skin is
known as “second position”- (Was he somehow aware of the physiological phonetic cues? I don’t know, maybe). Then he started to
speak and he memorized the feeling he experienced while pronouncing those words. He used to mentally record words in his own notation
system. He had his own notation code of pronunciation for all the
languages he knew (he spoke 28 languages). This code of pronunciation was different from the one used for spelling. So he visualized in two
different languages (maybe you can use different colors) one for pronouncing and another one for spelling. A great idea! Maybe some of you know what IPA (an international code for pronouncing) is, it’s a
kind of phonetic alphabet, most of dictionaries use it, but I don’t find it very useful because it doesn’t work on keyboards, and even if you
somehow can reproduce it on your keyboard you lose a lot of time. So, I find a great idea to create your own pronouncing notation.
Ramón Campayo’s phonetic strategy. Campayo has his own notation
system too. The international code (IPA) in my opinion doesn’t work as well as it should, so to me creating your own notation system for the
sounds makes sense. Campayo uses sound associations and he creates weird and funny stories that allow him to associate some sound of his first languages (Spanish) with the sounds of other languages.
Pimsleur. You just listen and repeat sentences.
2. Vocabulary.
Powel Janulus’ vocabulary strategy. Powel Janulus learnt Pakistaní living
with a Pakistani family. One day he watched a mentally handicapped speaking Pakistaní, so he decided he could learn too. Robert Dilts modeled Powel
Janulus’ vocabulary strategy, he distinguishes between object and actions, adjectives, adverbs and phrases. You need to look for a native speaker and ask him/her to make a list of 6 objects (door, chair, etc) , 6 actions (run, jump, hold,
etc) and ask him/her to say the word, draw, point and execute the action in the case of verbs. Student try to imitate the pronunciation and expression of the
native speaker in second position, trying to say the word at first looking at the word, and later without looking. The students are asked to pronounce the words when they are shown and to write them down when they listen. In the case of
verbs students will take action. In the case of adverbs and adjectives similarities and contrasts will allow to make distinctions (dancing fast, walking slowly,
green pencil, green chair, red chair..etc). Ramón Campayos’ vocabulary strategy. Let’s say that in a short period
of time you are going to travel abroad. Which words would you take in the
backpack? With this premise Ramón creates a list of vocabulary with his own
transcription for sounds. His hearing strategy is to find a similarity with his
own native language, the he creates extravagant visual stories to remember the sound, this way he fix in his long term memory the sound of words.
Tim Ferris’ vocabulary strategy. Tim seeks the 500 most frequently
used words in the spoken language. His approach is statistical. While it’s pretty easy to find that kind of list for written language, it’s not so easy for
spoken language. It’s really a shame but there is no statistical approach for spoken language.
Pimsleurs’ vocabulary strategy. The Pimsleur method is based on spaced
repetition. The first lessons introduce translation of dialogues in your native tongue. This method is very useful for the listening and speaking skills. You
learn to read later. Often the words are repeated through the lessons. So, there is a circuit for listening and speaking and another one for reading. The drawback is
that written texts are not included. I like this method but you need to look a
solution for reading and writing to avoid became just illiterate. Luca Lampariello’s vocabulary strategy. Luca usually works with the
Assimil method. On each page you can read the translation into your native tongue. He closes the circle: listening and reading, listening without reading,
listening and speaking, and then he translates (writing) from 2L to 1L and
from 1L to 2L. This strategy allows him to retain what you read, listen and write.
A. J. Hoges’s vocabulary strategy. He explains verbally and provides written material about the vocabulary.
Lozanov method’s vocabulary strategy. The accelerated learning is
based on a state of relaxation created by the pace of breathing and baroque music. There is an active concert music that actives the brain frequency
(allegros), the material is read and pupil contain breathing while the teacher recites. In passive concerts baroque music is used, pupils listen to the vocabulary while the music sound in the background and breathe at the same pace that
word are recited, the contain the breathing while the information is provided taking breathing (taking are in and out) during the breaks. Pupils try to visualize
images too during the passive concert. Steve Kaufman’s vocabulary strategy. Repeated listening is the key
(some time he repeats twenty times). He reads about topic of his personal
interest. You can learn the vocabulary better if you know how it sounds and if you read it. So, it’s better to learn vocabulary in the context of a sentence .
Michel Thomas’ vocabulary strategy. This teacher used to begin with basic vocabulary taking advantage of the common family between 1L and 2L (for instance English and Deutsche have an indo-european root, French and
Spanish have a lof of words in common because the two of them are bad Latin). He puts a special focus on verbs, because they are the nucleus of the sentences.
Frequent used phrases are studied too. Spoken active vocabulary is about 1500 words. It’s funny but you need at least 7.000 words if you want to start reading.
Can we somehow design a method and combine some of those tips and procedures? I use to create a data base with an open source software “Teach 2000” you can write the
words and its translation, you can put a phrase to remember it, you can put your own audio (I usually put my own pronunciation a native speaker’s one would be better), an image… you can review following the Pimsleur method (spaced repetition). You can
use baroque music in the background…you can evaluate your results. Is it possible to test your pronunciation, no my friend, nothing in this world is perfect… sometimes
because we just don’t imagine solutions. Not perfect, but pretty good.
3. Grammar.
Grammar studies the rules and principles governing the use of languages and the
organization of words in a sentence. Sintaxis is the part of the grammar that studies the ways words combine and the relationship between them. Basically we can reduce grammar to the order in which words are put together and how verbs are conjugated.
Michel Thomas’ grammar strategy. The master teacher followed a method
developed through his lifetime to concentrate learning in about 40-50 hours. He focused on mastering basic grammar and vocabulary. Classes were intensive 8-
10 hours. The environment was relaxing to avoid bad memories about learning
during childhood, this way pupils can focus their attention better. It’s understanding which leads to knowledge. You never forget what you really
understand, that’s the key. Sometime you can struggle or block (maybe you have the word in the tip of your mouth), but it you learned it well it’s somewhere in your mind. Michel created the language in some chunks or blocks until the
student mastered a sufficient number of structures and words. He introduced some little sentences and asked the pupil to translate it into 2L and then provided
immediate feedback. Usually the student repeats the sentence, after the translation is done. Michel helped the student to correct himself/herself (metacognition) and focused specially on verb conjugations and modal verbs .
Grammatical instructions are introduced with a funny language. Michel simplified the grammar discovering hidden patterns. Learning occurs in layers
(pre-learning, learning and revision/review). He used to provide pupils little successes early on, taking advantage of familiarities between languages. Students were exempted from remembering and paradoxically pupils
remembered almost everything. All responsibility for learning lies on the teacher, the student is released from guilt.
Steiner’s grammar strategy. Steiner’s method is pretty similar to the Assimil method, because you have the translations of dialogues into your native language in a book. However, this method focuses on grammar, you start from
the very beginning listening grammatical structures, written explanations and grammar tables, so you can practice to generate new sentences. So, you can
listen, speak, read and write grammar. Some brief spoken and written tasks are added too. The idea is to get an auditory and intuitive notion of grammar from the very beginning, later you can study grammar more formally. I
appreciate this method. Powel Janulus’ grammar strategy. (1) Take a triple simple sintax (subject,
predicate, object, or whatever the correct order for your second language). Check the changes of meaning that occur while you change the order: “The boy runs to the chair” doesn’t mean the same that “The chair runs to the boy”. Both
sentences are grammatically correct, but as you can say they don’t mean the same (2) Differences between grammatical errors and semantic errors: (a) it’s
grammatically correct to say: “The chair run quickly to the door” but it’s grammatically incorrect to say: “The boy to the chair run” (b) It’s grammatically correct but semantically incorrect to say: “The chair drunks a rock” (3)
Demonstrate where is the error comparing correct and incorrect sequences, (4) Ask students to tell/write the correct and incorrect sequences.
A. J. Hoges’ grammar strategy. A. J. Hoges tells a crazy story and tries to teach the verb forms by listening and repeating at least 7 times. He provides texts too. It’s an intuitive approach to grammar. He asks some little questions (audio) and
you have to answer them quickly out loud. Planeta Agostini method uses a very similar formula but asks for complete answers.
Tim Ferris grammar strategy. Tim creates a net for grammar first and then completes it with vocabulary. He suggests reading material of your interest because the grammar is always the same. Steve Kaufman suggests the same an
intensive listening and reading gives you a good exposure to the second languages. Tim creates very simple question and asks a native speaker to
translate them into the second language. This approach it’s very similar to Michel Thomas’.
Assimil’s grammar strategy. Brief notes and grammar explanations are provided,
there are some written exercises too. Pimsleur’s grammar strategy. Spaced repetition is the key. You are exposed to
well formmed sentences in relevant contexts. There are no grammar explanations. The grammar is used but not explained. It’s a very good formula for listening and speking skills but reading and writing are missing.
Rosseta Stone is pretty similar (spaced repetition) but more visual.
4. LISTENING SKILL. One of the sins of language teaching is the lack of listening to the 2L. At least in my
school days the teacher spoke to the minimum, wrote a lot, and you were supposed to learn a foreign language just with a simple book and some exercises, even more
you were supposed to be able to make some complex translations in your exams.. Let’s see how we can improve that.
Luca Lampariello’s listening strategy. Listen, speak and repeat, read with
audio and without audio, translate from 2L to 1L and from 1L to 2L. Luca
calls his method “close the loop”. Alexander Arguelles listening strategy “shadowing”. Michel Thomas used
to say that communication is a cognitive process, so you can’t speak just
listening. Alexander Arguelles approach is completely opposite to Michel Thomas’. He reads and simultaneously repeats what he listens (echoing).
You can also just listen and repeat as if you were making and echo. You can practice this technique 15-30 minutes a day while you walk or while you exercise, keep an upright posture and speak out loud and clear (as if you
were in the army). The apparent contradiction between Michel Thomas’ and Alexander Arguelles can be dissolved. Everybody needs certain intuition of
the 2L before starting to speak. Anyway, to speak properly you must know what you are saying.
Moses McCormick listening strategy. To learn Chinese it’s very important
to read and listen to at the same time, speak and write the characters (up to twenty times or more)
Steve Kaufman’s listening strategy. He listens to the audio twenty times if necessary.
Pimsleur’s listening strategy. The audios are programmed in a way that you
repeat the vocabulary and key phrases as you go on with the lessons. It’s just listening and repeat. To some extent I think Arguelles’ strategy is somehow
reminiscent of listening and repeat, but I think there is a little difference of degree and sometime little differences make big differences.
A. J. Hoges listening strategy. He asks for listening and repeat from 7 to 10
times. You can also read and listen and listen without reading. The key is repetition to get a deep learning.
5. Speaking skill. Moses McCormick’s speaking skill.The FLR “Foreign Language
Roadrunning” consists of creating a written script to say it verbally. For example, we can prepare a brief presentation of ourselves in the 2L. We can
prepare ourselves to say that we don’t understand anything in the 2L or built useful sentences. He plays with questions (where, when, why, what, how,
why, who) and verbal modes, he makes simple questions and understand
simple sentences. He uses questions in present, past and future. He links
keywords (adverbs, conjunctions, connector, etc.) and sentences. He often
takes advantage of grammatical patterns that usually come at the end of the books . You can use FLR combining 2-3 Chapters.
Luca Lampariello’s speaking skill. In the beginning he listens and repeats.
At a more advance level he uses subtitled films and simulates an imaginary character that acts and interacts with others or he creates a monologue. The
Peruvian polyglot Jorge Fernandez Gates uses to talk himself too (monologue).
A. J. Hoges’s speaking strategy. A. J. works with intermediate students the
key of this method is deep learning, continuous repetition (7-10 times). You must answer some little questions about crazy stories. This method somehow
assumes that just listening you are going to be capable to speak. Anyway, for speaking he recommends repeating too. Somehow this method assumes that mistakes are corrected just through a linguistic immersion.
Alexander Arguelles’ speaking strategy. The “shadowing technique” is useful not only for listening but for speaking too. You just make an echo of
what you are listening to. Michel Thomas’s speaking strategy. You start speaking from the very
beginning little by little.
6. Reading Strategy.
Steve Kaufman’s reading strategy. Why not take advantage of wind and sail your boat to favorable winds? If you are interested in some topics (martial arts, fashion, sports, stories, etc) you can leverage that interest reading topics
that you like. Tim Ferris’ reading strategy. He loves martial arts which led him to learn
Japanese. Naturally his readings were decanted into martial arts. It is clear that grammar is the same whatever you are reading, so this strategy makes sense.
A. J. Hoge’s reading strategy. He gives us a very good recommendation: we
should graduate our readings according to our level (beginner,
intermediate, advanced). Instead of using textbooks he suggests audio-books. You should understand at least 95% of what you are reading.
Alexander Arguelles’s extensive reading strategy. The main idea is that you
should graduate your readings so you understand 98% of what you are
reading. You can watch two interesting videos on the youtube: “Extensive
reading and vocabulary range” and “Selecting appropriate texts for expanding vocabulary through extensive reading”. In English you need about 8.000 words (family words) to speak fluently but you need 9.000
words of vocabulary to get 98% of reading understanding. A native speaker instead usually has a 17.000 words vocabulary to understand 100%
of the reading. He provides an online tool to help you diagnose the number of family words you know. There is some software that allows you to graduate your readings according to you level.
7. Writing.
Alexander Arguelles’ writing strategy: Scriptorum. The main purpose of the
Scriptorum technique is to slow down, to reduce the speed so you can notice
the details. Here are the steps: (1) read a sentence out loud, (2) pronnounce out
load each word of the sentence while you it (3) read out loud the word you have written, (4) check and correct.
Luca Lampariello’s writing strategy. Basically it’s a double translation
technique. Let’s see his whole technique: (1) just listen, (2) listen and speak (repeat); (3) read with and without audio, (4) write a translation from 2L to 1L,
(5) write a translation from 1L to 2L. This way Luca “close the circle”. I think this technique makes a lot of sense.
Monica Tapia Stocker’s writing technique. Monica is an excellent teacher.
Learning vocabulary it’s not just read a word and go. Do you know how does that word sound? Can you say it out loud? Could you write it without looking at
it? Could you write it after listening? Good systems for studying lead to success. When you write you usually translate from 1L to 2L, somehow it’s natural but it’s a mistake. The first thing that happens when your write in a foreign language
is that you vocabulary in the 2L is smaller than your vocabulary in 1L so your expression is lower. We can draw two important conclusions: (1) It’s necessary
to expand your vocabulary in his multidimensionality (read, listen, write, speak) to increase our expression capability, (2) You need to master grammatical structures if you want to built sentences. Here are some more recommendations
for writing: (1) first, make a draft to structure what you are going to write (2) write clearly (3) expand your vocabulary (4) use correct grammar (verb tenses,
punctuation and spelling). 8. Pragmatics and communication.
Pramatics and Pimsleur approach. I find the Pimsleur approach very useful,
because language is used in meaningful contexts. The Assimil method, for instance, is very funny but maybe it’s not so useful as far as everyday live is concerned. You should evaluate how useful learning materials are about relevant
situations as taking a plane, a taxi, staying in a hotel, going to the doctor or the pharmacy, renting a car, taking a bus, etc.
10Laboratory of experiences. Test Criterion-Deinition-Experience, and
supporting emotion and supporting belief, and primary strategy in all
temporary lines.
11.Recognize that the enabling cause-effect belief is true. Enabling cause-effect makes possible to satisfy the Criterion. For instance is it true that sense of humour is
important to relax and learn better?
12. Laboratory of experiences. Test Criterion-Definition-Experience, and
supporting emotion and supporting believe, and primary strategy, and
enabling cause-effect belief in all temporary lines.
13. Secondary Strategy. (Take a look at question 67-72, Section XII). Think about
difficulties you will find on the way to learn a foreign languages. What are you going to do if you first strategy doesn’t work? You could choose another one, for instance,
because the report gives you a great deal of different strategies. What are you going
to do if the listening is too fast? What are you going to do if you don’t remember the meaning of a word?
14. Laboratory of experiences. Test Criterion-Definition-Experience, and
supporting emotion and supporting belief, and primary strategy, and enabling
cause-effect believe, and secondary strategy in all temporary lines.
15. Metaposition. Third position. Can you think about the proccess/es you are
using to learn. Can you think about your own learning?
56. Which is the foundation for my open source generative model?
The generative model is founded on NLP modeling. I’ve just modeled great polyglots
and great teachers. It’s just an attempt to broadcast effective and efficient learning systems.
57. How, where, when and with whom can you test it?
The open design of the model allows you to customize the settings to your own learning style. You can test it if you are interested in learning foreign languages. You can create
your own system or you can follow one of the systems here presented. 58. What if talent were not a question of genetics and because of brain plasticity
you could build neural circuits?
One of my great inspirations has been the book “The Emprint method” written by Lesley-Cameron, David Gordon and Michel Lebeau. I do not deny that genetics has o may have an important role in the performance of great people. Genetic is a lottery but
we have control over our will, so we can improve our performance through systems, models and culture. The Spanish Nobel Prize, Santiago Ramón y Cajal in 1906 said a
tremendously powerful statement: “Every human being, if the tries, can become sculptor of his/her own brain”. I hope all this report to be useful for knitting new brain circuits.
59. What happens if you don’t test all those models?
Well, if you don’t test all those models you won’t take any advantage of them.
60. What if all these were just the beginning of one universal improvement, useful,
verifiable, and easily testable?
I really don’t know if all those models are useful for everybody. Anyway, I assume all the risks. My desire is to contribute to improving the teaching-learning dynamic
worldwide. I’m perfectly aware that the open form of my model makes very difficult
it’s testability but it’s my decision. I prefer the freedom that combinations give to the
limits of closed options. Anyway, it’s not my business to asses or critisize the content of all those pages.
XI. STUDY MATERIALS.
61. Which materials should you choose?
Your choice should be based on your own learning style. There are 5 methods or
approaches to language learning.
1. Material based on vocabulary. Those materials emulate the way we learnt when
we were child. Words are associated with sounds, images and objects that represent them. The rules of grammar are not explicitly expleined , grammar is used but not explained. The Rosetta Stone should be the “see and say” of those
materials. The Pimsleur method should be the “listen and say” of those materials. I find the Pimsleur method takes apart two different circuits: listen
and say, and listen and read. The disadvantage is to neglect correct grammar. 2. Double translation. Luca Lampariello calls this method “closing the circle” when
he uses the Assimil method. This way you translate from 2L to 1L first and then
from 1L to 2L. You can avoid the risk of focusing too much on reading and writing through continuous listening and speaking.
3. Material based on grammar. The “Teach yourself” method introduces a small amount of vocabulary and a lot of grammar rules. The lessons are built on previous vocabulary learning. Once you assimilate the grammar it’s easy to
integrate and use new vocabulary. This is Moses McCormick’s favorite method. It requires memory to learn grammar rules. Michel Thomas focuses on grammar
too, but he simplifies it and explains it through speaking. 4. Material based on communication. They work with small groups of students.
The lessons are divided into units that emphasize receptive skills (listening and
reading) and productive skills (speaking and writing) combined with vocabulary and grammar. The learning is very slow because this method looks for deep
learning. This is the approach AJ Hoges follows to teach grammar implicitly telling little stories and making little questions.
5. Based on immersion. Go to a foreign country and communicate with local native
speakers. Listen to the radio, watch the tv and movies, attend to the theater. Find a boyfriend or a girlfriend to speak 2L. Create a 2L environment about
interesting books, videos etc. Steve Kauffman option is just that, even if you don’t leave your home you can create a 2L environment for yourself. This way forces you to listen and acquire the vocabulary you need to get by and gain
confidence. 62. How to use materials? What material can close the loop?
Materials can be combined depending on the objectives of learning and learning style of each student. Most methods aren’t perfect so you will have to combine materials.
Some methods are good for listening and speaking, but lack for reading or writing. Most methods are good for reading and writing. Some of them focus on grammar or just vocabulary. Some methods are good for communicative situations on everyday life.
You should cover listening skill, speaking skill, reading skill and writing skill. To do so
you probably will have to use different materials. You need to build new brain
circuits on your brain at least: from listening to speaking, from reading to writing,
from reading to speaking (auditory memory), from listening to writing (visual
memory)…Repetition and association are key.
So you have a great deal of materials in the market and here in this report there are the strategies bests polyglots use, now it’s up to you improving your learning adapting
strategies and materials to your own learning style. 63. Which material fits your learning style?
Depending on your learning style and your goals you can combine methods: you need
some grammar, vocabulary, every day communication, listening, speaking, reading and writing.
For instance, if you are a visual person you can chose Rosseta Stone method to learn vocabulary and basic grammar. Probably you will feel good with grammar tables
(Rosseta Stone). If you are more auditory than visual perhaps you’d rather prefer Pimsleur method to learn basic vocabulary on everyday situations and Michel Thomas method to learn grammar. You should look for the combination that works better for
you.
64. Could a plane take off without a critical number of parts?
No. To start to speak you will need at least a 1200-2000 words of vocabulary. You can look for most frequent words or just use common sense: which words would you put in
your backpack if you need to visit a foreign country? Make your own list (do you need to drink and eat? Do you need to sleep? Do you need a toothbrush? Create your own
list.Which words do you need to get by in a foreign language? 65. Could an airplane fly without an engine? Can you land your communication
without using your tongue?
Basic vocabulary it is not enough, you need to master basic grammar (present, future and past). Syntax gives you the required structure so you can use your vocabulary and generate new sentences. The engine of grammar and syntax will allow you to fly. To
land a good communication you need to build meaningful sentences.
66. Progress without measuring?
There is no progress without measuring. How many hours do you spend learning a
foreign language? How many for listening? How many for speaking? Do you record that? Are your aware of your progress?
XII. DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED ON THE WAY.
67. Coping with the sound barrier?
Now we face the sound dimension of a word. If you are a Spanish speaker and you get
a list of vocabulary in German, it will be easier for you to learn it than a list of vocabulary in English. Why? Well, German is almost pronounced the way it’s read,
while with the English language that’s not the case. We usually use lists of vocabulary to learn it, maybe this reading strategy it’s not very useful from an auditory point of view. Usually good dictionaries offer you the IPA pronunciation key for each word. As
far as IPA is concerned I see two problems: first, you need to learn a new code, second, computer keyboards don’t know about IPA calligraphy. Speaking dictionaries usually
offer most common words. I usually create my own special lists with an open source software (teach 2000) you can write and read the word, but most important you can add an image and put an audio file for each of the words…you can also put the word in the
context of a sentence, and you can follow a Pimsleur sequence for repetition. I find this software great, but if it had voice recognition it would be perfect. So, nothing is perfect
my friend, neither teach 2000 software, so you can evaluate your pronunciation your own way.
Associate, repeat and play. These are the three secrets to learn vocabulary. As you repeat words and sentences your brain recognizes the sound signal with more intensity.
AJ Hoges often says that it takes 30 repetitions to learn a new word. You only know a word of vocabulary when you are able to recognize the sound (listening comprehension), you can pronounce it, you can visually recognize it (reading) and you
are able to write it… and of course vocabulary is a question of meaning.
68. How to cope with the sense barrier?
I find useful to investigate the meaning of a word and then repeat it 10 times with audio
and10 times without audio. Maybe you can reduce it to 7 times. Even more you can reduce the process to repeating while reading and listening for 7 times. In short, you
should be able to listen and understand the meaning of the word, read it, pronounce it and write it. That’s the outcome you need to get, whatever your strategy is.
69. How to face the barrier of the speed of sound?
VLC is a free software that allow you to slow down the speed of the audio. Slow it down until you feel comfortable. Repeat the listening until you understand what you hear. At the end you should understand perfectly the sound at a normal speed and pace.
70. How to face the sound production barrier?
Here is a problem that maybe you share with me: when you follow a traditional method for learning, you usually get a good level of grammar and vocabulary (let’s say a B2
level or high intermediate level), usually your listening level is step below (let’s say a B1-A2, low intermediate level or high beginer ) and probably your speaking is another
step below (let’s say a beginner level). Usually your writing skill is better that your speaking skill (let’s say a low intermediate level?) Why is that? There is a kind of stair there. I think the reason for that is that we follow this sequence when we learn: READ,
WRITE, SPEAK, LISTEN. We spend a lot of time reading and writing, and sometimes we start speaking without an enough amount of listening. With this premise the results
exposed make sense. We have overlooked that listening and reading are passive skills
and speaking and writing are active skills. We need to put some balance about to spend
our time more wisely.
Luca Lampariello pronounces phrases instead of single words in order to learn vocabulary. Pimsleur method does the same. If you use all your representative systems (image, color, movement, sound, speaking…) the learning will be easier.
How do you face pronouncing? You can intuitive just say what you listen or you can
follow phonetic transcriptions (It’s a kind or reading). Most software allows you to evaluate your pronunciation through voice recognition on real time.
Children usually have a silent period so they listen but they don’t speak. Do we adults do the same? I think that we’d better work on listening before we try to speak,
nevertheless I don’t think you need to listen for thousands of hours to start saying some words. Even more, in my opinion listening is not enough you need to practice speaking too. So, I think you need to listen before speaking, but I don’t think you need to delay
verbal production for a long period of time.
71. How to handle errors?
AJ Hoges usually refers to studies that indicate errors are self-corrected over time. The
20/80 rule says that 20% of the errors happens %80 of the time. Michel Thomas used to correct errors as soon as possible so the pupil could self-correct himself and not make
them again. I’m afraid making errors could create bad habits and/or neural networks that later could be difficult to amend. Making mistakes is part of learning itself, so correction and adjustment are parts of learning too. It’s better if we eliminate the
negative emotional charge that usually is given to error. Children learn without a sense gilt, why would we feel uncomfortable when we make mistakes?
72. What if we think we don’t progress at all or we progress very little?
When we start to learn a 2L the learning curve rises pretty fast and we feel that we have learnt a lot because we start from knowing nothing. At intermediate stages of learning
the learning curve flattens and it seems to us that although we study we don’t progress. We must take into account all this in advance and learn to “love the plateau” in the believe that eventually in our final experience will find the progress we look for.
XIII. INSTALLING AND TESTING THE PROGRAM.
73. Why installing is the key? What if we don’t install the program?
We drive cars without major mechanical aptitude and use computer software without having any idea about programming. In this report I try to ignore the elicitation phase of
NLP modeling, when you decode the programs experts use. What interest to me is you to take advantage of those programs. So you need the programs to be installed in your mind. IMPORTANT WARNING : unlike computer programs that are installed in your
computer in a very few minutes, installing the programs we present requires time, many days. How many? At least 30 days.
Sometimes we find valuable books, real treasures, and we think that reading is enough
to assimilate valuable principles. The required magic is more complex and takes time, practice and work.
74. How to install a program in your mind?
IMPORTANT WARNING: If you don’t install a strategy in your mind, it’s not going to work,
of course. Could you run software in your computes without installing it? No. Installing software
in a computer is a fast proccess, you can do it in a few minutes. To install a strategy in your mind
you will need at least 30 days. Take it easy, love is patience, and you need patience to install a
strategy in your mind. I’ve just applied NLP modeling techniques (basically David Gordon’s and
David Graham’s experiential array) to polyglot genius. Maybe part of the geniuses’ success lies on
merely biological circumstances, my approach is that you can sculpt your brain an improve your
learning through better mental strategies, regardless of your luck with the genetic lottery.
Probably these strategies contain common elements with mathematical, musical or athletic
performance, but there are some differences that make inoperative these strategies out of context.
Could you use a word processor as a spreadsheet? No. It is very important to follow installing
instructions and keep patience until the installing process is consolidated. The author of these
sheets delegates the responsibility of making a good use of these strategies to the people who are
ready to use them to improve their own results and spread them in order to create a better world.
Those models are open source and are provided the way they are, so anyone can improve them or
adapt them.
You are going to need experiences in present (practice), past (memories) and future (simulation and imagination). David Gordon’s uses to say: it’s not about a model it’s about a model in your mind. So you need to integrate the models in your mind and your
own experience is the way to do that.
How to do the installing? If you are a how to person you will feel comfortable with precise commands. If you are an intellectual person you will prefer to go the most important principles. If you are a creative and intuitive person maybe you prefer a
metaphor or a story in order install the model in your mind, instead of pure instructions. If you are a social person you will prefer to create groups of practitioners. Whatever the
“kind” of people you are, keep this in your mind: the order in which the elements are
installed is very important and you need to follow it. It’s not the same to put a coin into a machine and press a button to buy, that to press a button in a machine without
putting a coin. It is not the same putting coins into a machine covering the price as putting less money than the critic amount needed.
Protocol to install models in your mind.-
You need to get a fast access to the items of the skill through your experience: present experience (practice makes perfect), past experience, and future experience (rehearse in
your imagination). You are going to make mistakes, do the same that children do: don’t be ashamed or feel guilty as an adult would do, just correct and adjust your behavior.
(0)Evaluate the ecology of understanding and speaking a foreign language (listen,
speak, read and write). What can those skills do for you? Do you find some objection? (1)Primary motivator. Why do you want to command a foreign language? The
question is about YOU.
(2)Laboratory of experiences. Test Primary Motivator in all temporary lines:
Present, Past and Future. Identify past, present and future situations in which you needed, need, are going to need the ability. Let’s say for instance, do you remember
when you went to France?…you are practicing right now…where are you going to travel next holidays? (3)Criterion-Definition-Experience. Choose a skill: listening? Speaking? Reading?
Writing? Follow a model. For instance let’s say you have chosen Alexander Arguelles Criterion-Definition-Experience. You could choose another skill or author
for this, of course. (4)Laboratory of experiences. Test Criterion-Definition-Experience en all
temporary lines.
(5)Supporting Emotion. Which emotion will support your Criterion-Definition-Experience: patience? Joy? You know, emotion is a matrix of sensations, could you
reproduce and increase in your body those sensations?
(6)Laboratory of experiences. Test Criterion-Definition-Experience, and
supporting emotion in all temporary lines.
(7)Supporting belief. Choose a supporting belief, for instance, let ’s say you chose Michel Thomas’ supporting belief: you never forgot what you deeply understand.
(8)Laboratory of experiences. Test Criterion-Definition-Experience, and
supporting emotion and supporting belief in all temporary lines.
(9)Primary Strategy. Let’s say, for instance, that you are working on writing skill
and you are following Alexander Arguelles Scriptorum technique or model. (10)Laboratory of experiences. Test Criterion-Deinition-Experience, and
supporting emotion and supporting belief, and primary strategy in all
temporary lines.
(11)Recognize that the enabling cause-effect belief is true. Enabling cause-effect
makes possible to satisfy the Criterion. For instance is it true that sense of humour is important to relax and learn better?
(12)Laboratory of experiences. Test Criterion-Definition-Experience, and
supporting emotion and supporting believe, and primary strategy, and
enabling cause-effect belief in all temporary lines.
(13) Secondary Strategy. (Take a look at question 67-72, Section XII). Think about difficulties you will find on the way to learn a foreign languages. What are you
going to do if you first strategy doesn’t work? You could choose another one, for instance, because the report gives you a great deal of different strategies. What are you going to do if the listening is too fast? What are you going to do if you don’t
remember the meaning of a word?
(14)Laboratory of experiences. Test Criterion-Definition-Experience, and
supporting emotion and supporting belief, and primary strategy, and enabling
cause-effect believe, and secondary strategy in all temporary lines.
(15)Metaposition. Third position. Can you think about the proccess/es you are
using to learn. Can you think about your own learning?
75. How long will the installation take? What if we cannot eat a whole elephant?
I cannot give you an exact figure, but I can give you some indications. Our model is based in four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. I’ve added two more
categories: vocabulary and grammar. The natural language system works as a whole, of course, and I make some distinctions in order to make the learning of a foreign language
easier. The reality is that when we use a language we only use vocabulary and grammar
in a context and for a purpose. I bet there is kind of mental circuit between listening and speaking and between reading and writing. On the other hand vocabulary and
grammar are multidimensional from a sensory point of view: you can read a word (visual), write it (kinesthesic), listen to it (auditory) and say it out loud (kinesthesic). I suppose we have kind of auditory file in our mind, before we speak; and kind of visual
file before we write. That makes sense. By the way, when we start learning a foreign language we don’t have internal dialogue in the foreign language, only when we learn
we can sub-vocalize when we read and at the very end we start dreaming in the 2L. In this report you can find the strategies that some of the best polyglots use, you can
combine them as you want according to you personal preferences, so you can have more choices and learn better.
Experts in modeling such Lesley Cameron Lebeau, David Gordon and Michel Lebeau advise not to study more than a variable at a time, making sure that each variable is in
place before starting the next. You can chunk down each skill into more easy pats to drive chunks and distribute them over the time (take into account that we are talking of
one of the most complex human skills). Richard Bandler used to say that you need 21 days in a raw to acquire a new skill,
although it could be more less true, it depends on the difficulty of the skill and the personal ability of the learner. The truth is that repeated practic over years create
myelin, a substance that generate high speed circuits in our brain. So I propose to divide each sub-skill (listening, speaking, reading and writing) into chunks or units that you can practice for 30 days. Maybe some chunks will need more time than 30 days and
other less time, so it is up to you to decide when you do feel comfortable about what you are doing and when you believe that an automatism is operating in an unconscious
level. 76. What if I don’t have enough patience?
Love is patience. If you don’t have enough patience/stamina for a long trip maybe you
can sub-optimize your goals. Maybe you’d like to achieve a great inter oceanic flight, maybe you prefer a small plane, maybe you just want to fly your kite, maybe you want just to built a paper plane. The choice is yours. Whatever your goal could be you’ll find
here useful tools to learn effectively and efficiently. If you want to learn quickly this report can be useful too.
Nowadays cars sometimes incorporate cutting edge technology from formula 1. Could you do something similar taking advantage of NLP modeling following what best
polyglots do?
77. How do you know that installing is finished?
Once you have chosen your own path between the components here exposed, you have
created your own personal combinatory learning technique. You need to install the components or units in present (practice in real time), future (simulation) and past (past
experiences). Do you feel comfortable when you fly with your own brand new little
plane/kite? If you have thousands of pieces of vocabulary and powerful engines of
grammar you can fly on the sky overcome the resistance of the gravity law.
78. What if your kite doesn’t fly? What if my plane doesn’t take off? What if I
can’t land my plane?
Maybe you are a beginner and your kite doesn’t fly, you’d better practice half an hour a day and take it easy, look at a comic, read an audio-book for children. If you have a
plane with 1500-2000 words of vocabulary and a basic grammar engine, be patient, look for a deep learning, you’ll have time to expand your vocabulary and grammar, take into account that the learning curve flattens at the intermediate stage. If you can fly yet, but
you aren’t capable of landing your plane on real-time communication, you can diagnose the problem and come back to the basic principles: acceptable and comprehensive
communication (not necessary perfect), basic vocabulary, frequent used words and phrases, basic grammar, listen and speak, read and write. Practice, practice makes perfect.
XIV. RUNNING THE PROGRAM.
79. Do you need to reinstall your program? Did you follow the directions?
It may be that your program does not work. Then, the first question is: did you install
the program correctly? If you didn’t install the program well, you need to reinstall it from the very beginning following the order and directions for installing. Try to locate that program units that haven’t been properly installed and be sure you have assimilated
all the units of the program and the program as a whole.
80. Would you prefer to install the program through metaphors, games or
exercises?
Very creative people usually get bored with directions for installing. If you are some of those people I propose a challenge to you: you can create a metaphor or story that will
allow you to assimilate the entire sequence of the mental program. GS Clason’s book “The richest man in Babylon” is a good model for domestic economy
presented in story form. I appeal to your creativity to transform here exposed model for language learning into a beautiful story that you can use to assimilate the code.
81. What is the principle of requisite variety?
In cybernetics and theory system the law of requisite variety states that any system is an unit of interaction in dynamic equilibrium within an irreversible evolution. (!!) Sorry to
say that. This means that we should constantly explore variations in operations and processes to get balanced and ecological results. In order to adapt and survive the members of a system need a flexibility that is proportional to the potential variation of
the system. Past successes do not guarantee future successes. The more flexible member of a system usually catalyze the system.
Here presented open source generative model is designed so you can mix and match
different strategies until you become your learning more efficient.
82. What is the program crashes?
Maybe your computer blocks when several software programs work at once, you are asking too much to your computer and it can give you so much. The same thing can
happen to you if you simultaneously open multiple strategies at once…You need to restart the system from the very beginning with a simple and short version of the open source generative model until you work comfortably with it. Later you can try to expand
your model.
83. What if the program has a virus?
Another reason for the system collapse maybe that you have a mental virus. Usually negative beliefs create resistance to change. You need to debug your mental viruses
before you install positive beliefs.
84. What if the program didn’t work at all?
If you have installed the program correctly and it doesn’t work you should consider if
there is something there you can take advantage of. Take into account that here we explain what best master polyglots do. There is nothing you can learn about that? You
are absolutely free to adapt and adjust the models the way you want. XIV. RUNNING THE PROGRAM.
85. Did you learn something new and useful? When, where and how are you going
to put into practice? What are your own conclusions?
After reading this report you can take your own conclusions, I hope you find something new, useful and interesting. I encourage you to start and get going the open source
generative model that I offer for your learning and/or teaching. For instance, when you learn vocabulary, grammar, listening skill, speaking skill, reading skill, writing skill.
86. Could you improve the system?
The system is designed in an open source manner, so you can improve it according to your own experience or according to other people’s experiences.
87. Would you dare to publish your improvements?
I’d like this report to be useful, and to create a community, this way the model could be improved. So publishing is necessary condition to spread the input and contributions of
the member of our community. 88. Didn’t you learn anything at all?
I can’t believe it. Take into account that we look for what best polyglots do when they learn.
89. Do you think my report is not useful?
Will you offer me something more useful? 90. You didn’t improve your results at all?
The answer to this question lead us to: (1) you have recorded your results before and
after using our model, (2) you have compared the results before and after using the open source model. It could be your experience to be negative anyway, you could learn something useful about what best polyglots do. Can you do it better than they do?
XVI. ADJUSTING.
91. Can you tune the system?
Maybe you can refine the model by adjusting the weight of its components into a new
equilibrium. Once you are familiar with the system if you are an advanced user you can consider to play with the pieces. For instance, let’s take Luca Lampariello’s double
translation technique and let’s introduce a little innovation: the translation in my native language has to keep the grammatical structure of the 2L but you have to retain as far as possible the vocabulary of 1L. It’s something like crossing the grammatical structure of
a second language, let’s say German, for instance, into my Spanish vocabulary. I find this helpful to reverse the translation from 1L to 2L. A further improvement that
happened to me was to repeat each sentence writing it three times. Another possibility could be to combine Alexander Arguelle’s Scriptorum technique with Luca Lampariello’s double translation technique.
I hope you can “tune” or “customize” the generative model for you. Choose what you
find more useful for you and discard the rest. 92. Do you want to model someone?
Maybe you know someone whom you admire because his/her ability to learn foreign
languages. Modeling would be something like taking a camera that decodes his/her skills so you can replicate his/her results. It could be that you don’t reach his/her level of ability, it could be you go even further, it could be you just improve your results.
93. Do you want to model yourself?
Maybe you have your own strategies to learn a foreign language but you don’t know exactly what are you doing. You can extract your own strategies and compare them to
other polyglot’s strategies.
94. You don’t know how to model?
For the purpose of this report I have focused more on installing than on decoding or
extracting a model. Anyway, you can find out about modeling. Here you can find some keys.
95. Whom not to model?
You’d better don’t look yourself at some mirrors that can ruin your self-esteem. You
should try to model experts, people you admire and contribute this world to be a better world. They are usually generous people.
96. Didn’t you look the limits of critical variables (distinctions)?
I have observed that the differences between some of our experts are just a question of degree: the do the same but they change the speed or intensity. Variations in patterns can lead to variations in results. You can try to play and do the same.
XVII. CHANGING
97. What is in excess?
This learning system allows you to combine different strategies. There are some
elements that cannot be changed because of the risk of making the system ineffective, but there are other elements (especially strategies) that can be combined. You should
respect the basic structure for installing, so you can choose a strategy for vocabulary learning, another for grammar learning, another for listening, speaking, reading and writing. You can choose the strategy more comfortable for you.
98. What else is needed?
Here proposed generative model is not perfect and can be improved. Perhaps it would help to include Meta programs of experts and trainees in the model. It might be useful to
introduce perceptual positions in the model and create a triple description as meta-position. I didn’t include meta-programs because I don’t have access to in depth
interviews with the experts. Anyway, I appeal to track progress, setback and to being aware of your learning process.
99. What makes the difference?
I would say that enthusiasm and good strategies makes the difference. From my point of view the emphasis is on the use (practice) rather than just in mention (grammar rules), deep learning (when you really want to learn a foreign languages your objective is not
pass an exam, but command the language as far as you can). Vocabulary has a sound dimension (listening comprehension), a meaning dimension (semantics), a visual
dimension (reading). Grammar is about rules to built correct sentences, you can speak about rules (mention) or use them (use). If you use grammar rules, then you can induce them, this is the way we all learn our native language. When you study a second
language, usually the way is just the contrary: first rules, and then use. What is better? The answer is: what fits better to your learning experience?
I’d rather say there is something in common in all our admired polyglots: building brain circuits for listening-speaking and reading-speaking. You built those circuits through practice.
100. What if there is not code congruence? What is collateral energy?
We introduce here two ideas that Robert Dilts uses to explain.
A frog egg unfertilized lacks the necessary information to be frog. The information of the male sperm is needed to discern the front, back, right, left, lower and higher parts of a frog. The tip of a camel hair is about the same size that a frog sperm. If we stick an
egg frog with a camel hair, the egg begins to divide and evolve to be a live frog that breathes and catches flies. Camel hair is a kind of “model” of frog sperm. This
artificially created frogs cannot reproduce themselves because they lack chromosomes normally provided by male cells. Camel hair is not completely code consistent because of the lack of information that allows frogs reproduce themselves.
Modeling is able to produce information and capacity but it does not provide
information at the identity level, so it is important to include in our model as many levels as we can. David Gordon says: “modeling is about a system operating in YOU”. So, YOU are the more important component of modeling. You cannot remove from
here presented open source generative model key pieces: primary motivator, supporting emotion, your personal experiences…if you eliminate those key pieces you are
destroying the efficiency and effectiveness of our model. Biological and social dynamic systems provide their own source of energy. If we kick a
ball off maybe we can calculate where the ball will end up. If we kick a dog with the same angle and the same force it is not so easy to say where the dog will end up,
because the dog generates its own collateral energy. A good model should be consistent with the structure of the actual process of experts.
The difference between a good model and a bad one is the consistency of the code used with the process we are playing. The relationships between the items and events
modeled (experts) should be consistent with the relationships between the elements of the model (system).
101. You don’t record your progress?
There is no progress without measure. Take a notebook or record in any other format (pc, tablet, ipad, etc.) your dedication, your progress, your mistakes…Your learning project deserves you to do so. This way you are giving importance to learning a foreign
language and you can compare your expectations and reality.
102. Don’t you come up with something else?
You have something to contribute this project. What would you like to add or
eliminate?
Someday I dreamed about a perfect system for learning vocabulary: you listen to the words, you see how to spell them, you see the word in the context of a sentence, you see a picture about the meaning and you get an evaluation about your pronunciation. The
available software on the market doesn’t allow you to get all that because of a lack of integration. I’m sure my dream is completely possible from a technological point of
view, but nobody thought about that.
XVIII. IMPROVING
103. Can you recombine strategies and models to make a new one?
Of course, you can. 104. Learning with native speakers?
Language learning doesn’t finish when you learn the system of a foreign language,
learning a foreign language is an open window to a new culture and to new relationships with other people. Learning is a never ending story, you never finish. Applying our model is not enough you need to interact with native speakers and immerse yourself in a
new culture. This way you can get a better feedback and adjust your learning.
105. How would be your ideal learning system for foreign languages?
It is up to you to answer this question. I will give you a little key: do you miss
something when you study a foreign language (materials, software, etc). How would you improve that?
106. Which is the role of mistakes?
In our model we speak about a “secondary strategy”: what will you do if your first strategy doesn’t work. Making mistakes is part of learning. Children have a little big
advantage over adults as far as mistakes are concerned, they allow themselves to make mistakes and just correct them. When we adults make mistakes there is some kind of censorship in us there. We should welcome mistakes to certain point: they are clues
about some corrections we need to do. Look at question 71.
107. What if you don’t learn? Why don’t you contrast some situations?
If you believe you can’t try this: identify situations and strategies you use when you
really learn and cross them to the new context.
108. You can’t build your own plane? You can’t build either a paper plane? You
can’t even fly your kite? Didn’t you put a grammatical engine in your vocabulary?
Didn’t you use your tongue to land your communication?
I’d really like this report to be useful for you. You deserve a profitable return for the attention you paid. I wish you to fly your kite (start learning a foreign language), I wish you to build at least a paper plane (your first words and phrases), if you assembled basic
vocabulary within a basic grammatical engine you can get by on air (survival level of communication). You know what, use your tongue and land your communication with
native speakers. Congratulations because of your determination. Happy flying hours.
