Differences between language learning and acquisition

I briefly outlined my thoughts on Language learning methods in my post learning from the outside in. I want to write in more detail about the main differences I perceive in what could be called language learning vs language acquisition.

There are 2 main differences. One is found in methodology, the second in psychology.



This image represents how a student typically learns a language when they go to a language class. As a former language teacher and language student I'm familiar with the drill of many types of language practice.

Normally, language practice is structured on teaching the forms of grammar considered the least complicated and the most usable in conversation. Almost immediately, people will learn to talk about the present, for example. Describing a past day follows almost shortly after.

Although in principle the idea I think is acceptable for some people, I find some problems with the nature of this style of methodology:

1. Vocabulary is usually chosen in an artificial manner about what the textbook writer (or teacher if you're lucky) thinks is needed. Secondly most language teachers only focus on teaching "correct" or "proper" language rather than what is most frequently encountered. Thus I had French students who despite having learned English for over 40 years, didn't know things like "gonna" and "wanna".
2. Focus on immediate production without an incubation period. Production without first learning the norms of the language gives the student no reference to work on. It is like getting a person to write a paper on macroeconomic theory having never studied economics.

While most language methods agree you need exposure to all elements in the above circle, many argue about which you do first.

This argument I believe comes down to psychology and should be treated as such. It is not in the domain of linguists.

Linguists study language structure, origins, and the interplay between language, culture and thought. But they do not study the how humans learn.

One of the first functions we develop as babies is an ability to find patterns. Through observation we learn to infer information from these patterns. It is through this ability that children learn their master language(s).

Later on at about 10 years of age, our cognitive skills develop which enable abstract thinking. The basis of the critical period hypothesis is that this cognitive dominance inhibits the ability to infer, and hence learn languages the way children do.

If this thinking sounds flawed to you. I totally agree. There is a serious lack of scientific process applied to this research. In the scientific method, to identify the influence of a single factor (like chronological age), all other variables should be kept the same if possible. In telecommunications, we used to refer to this as isolation testing.

To support the critical period hypothesis, a quality scientific study would need to use the same methodology children learn languages with adults. I have not found one study yet that does this. I've looked.

Common sense dictates that our ability to match patterns doesn't diminish either. Not if we live with our eyes open. Yet thinking persists in language (amongst other subjects) that we need to have a rule and reason for each lesson. In reality it just satisfies our brains need for a reason. It doesn't help much with gaining ability in a language though.



This picture represents language acquisition methods. A key difference is the order of the approach. Acquisition, natural, or communicative approaches focus first and foremost on providing accompanying context and environment that is conducive to inference, or "guessing" of meaning.

It is an implicit method, rather than the explicit method above that gives certain sounding rules. These rules are often comforting to adults who have a fear of uncertainty, but they are limiting as rules often only function in a restricted fashion.

Acquisition methods instead focus on the acquisition of norms as opposed to rules. Norms are rooted in the social structure of a group. In language learning, the native speakers form the 'group'. Like becoming a team member in a workplace, we need to learn the norms of the group to be in the group. Otherwise we will always be an outsider.

Acquisition methods like ALG seek to create an environment that maximizes comprehensible input and allows the student to infer meaning through observation of patterns over time. This requires the student to attempt to not analyze the language and as a result they are not allowed to take notes in class.

There is also a silent period which allows the student to identify the norms of the language before production begins. If the student hears a lot of non-native usage of the language, they become unable to differentiate what sounds normal in the target language, and what does not.

The method itself requires a leap of faith because it flies in the face of what most adults believe is "learning". In fact the process engages a very different area in our brain.

This is how people who are uneducated and often not cognitively developed (such as poverty stricken refugees from Myanmar here in Thailand) can become fluent in a new language even if they move as an adult. This doesn't happen with all, but it does with those that interact frequently with the local population (such as Burmese in service roles). For this also there is insufficient research conducted about how these groups learn languages.

Acquisition methods also may be a better way to learn vocabulary. Meredith Brinster of John Hopkins University has recently conducted research suggesting that children retain vocabulary better through inference than through explicit teaching. I'd like to see research like this done on adults.

I'm not saying that language learning doesn't work, but that it is getting the order backwards and using the wrong neural process to learn in an ideal fashion. It focuses on output before significant amounts of input are gained and not exposing the students to linguistic norms until they are advanced students. This results in the student transferring the linguistic norms of their own language onto the second one, resulting in a student that will always speak like a foreigner.

As David Long of AUA Thailand says, "ALG is a foundation method. There is no other method that takes a person up to a level where production should occur naturally".

If you are a language learner, I strongly recommend maximizing your amount of comprehensible input as I am trying to do with my experiment on acquiring Chinese.

Two methods of Vipassana

Vipassana ("vi-pa-sa-na" or "vi-pa-shya-na") or Insight meditation has become extremely popular in the secular world and now attracts millions of practitioners from all religions and beliefs.

In the way that Yoga has proven useful for the development of a healthy body without needing a specific set of beliefs, Vipassana is being viewed the same way.

Although there are a few methods of Vipassana today, two dominate in the west:

1. The Sayagyi U Ba Khin method, and
2. The Mahasi Sayadaw method

For both of these, concentration meditation is considered a foundation exercise.

I mentioned that anapanasati or breathing concentration meditation forms the basis for everything we do with the mind. The same is true of Vipassana.

The main differences between Vipassana and anapanasati are the object of meditation, and the intention of the meditation.

In anapanasati, the goal is to increase concentration strength and endurance by willfully focusing on an object (such as the breath) to the exclusion of all others. Without getting into the theory, the goal of Vipassana is to reprogram the habit patterns of the mind.

The Sayagyi U Ba Khin method has spreadly widely throughout the world by an organization headed by his student, S N Goenka. These two people were the first lay people (as opposed to monks) who had a major influence on the teaching of Vipassana.

It is generally only taught in 10 day meditation retreats as the organization feels that to experience the benefits and clear up misunderstandings, this is the best way to do it.

I'm guessing the ulterior motive is to try to get people hooked on a good habit, which is not something I disagree with. However, the retreats are far from relaxing and should be considered more of a boot camp, where it is rewarding but hard work. Many people don't make it to the end of the 10 days.

The method starts with a system of body scanning. You are taught in progressive steps to focus part by part throughout the body just acknowledging what is there. Just feeling it, and not judging it. Then after a while moving on. As with the concentration meditation, practicing over time reveals greater and greater detail about the body and the mind.

The theory is that all mental events have a physical component and so by observing the body, you are also observing the mind. However I believe at more advanced levels, other objects are also observed.

There is a lot of both criticism and praise of this organization and method. The system is designed to be able to teach as many students as possible, so the system is "simplified" in a way, but not less complete than other methods. I started with this method but studied another style as it just suited my personality more.

The Mahasi Sayadaw method is another popular style. This is the method I will attempt to explain now.

The Mahasi Sayadaw method starts with breathing meditation in the belly. In concentration meditation we aim to stay with the breath regardless of what sensations or events arise. In Vipassana meditation, we allow the mind to be led to these sensations (mental or physical) and we attempt to observe it without reacting to it.

Although it sounds simple or incomplete, the process is quite varied and complex. This is because literally anything that occurs to the mind can become an object of meditation. And different reactions can sometimes benefit from different counter measures.

In practice, what the meditator finds is that if the meditator rests with the object and is able to observe it without reacting, after a time, the reaction involved to this object "unwinds" and what felts solid becomes empty, intangible. After a while the mind will have a tendency to go to another object.

At first stages of meditation, the mind usually goes to very mundane things such as pain from sitting too long or some other physical discomfort. It is important to remember that these are also objects of meditation and form part of the practice. Also, they will not be the only objects of meditation.

Putting Vipassana into practice has many hurdles and complexities, which is why most traditions recommend only learning it through a teacher. There is also a lot of theory behind how this meditation works. I will try and cover some in later posts, but bear in mind this theory comes about to explain what is already been shown to happen in meditation in everyone who goes through the process.

It's Modernization, not Westernization

I frequently hear about people complaining about the "Westernization" of Thailand.

This mostly comes from long-term expats who have seen changes over a number of years. It reminds them of the country they left. And they don't like it.

While it's true that in general Thailand values the material and superficial, I'm not sure that this new. Even if it is a new phenomenon, it's arrogant of us to place our views above the wishes of the people.

If the people of Thailand want to be able to purchase cars, nicer phones, clothes, etc and be proud of them, that's their choice.

However even more arrogant I feel is to refer to the process as "Westernization".

Westernization refers to the process of a country adopting "Western" cultural values, although what is considered Western is not very clearly defined.

In Thailand, many people refer to Westernization as an increasing strictness of rules and regulation and a primary concern for material wellbeing (read: money).

But I think we consider these things Western simply because those cultures got there first.

We forget how much Western culture has changed in the last 100 years alone. Looking back at classic black and white movies shows me a time I can barely imagine.

In fact in many ways, the mentality of Chiang Mai residents often make me think of the TV series "Mad Men". Men were expected to philander and take control of a situation, and women were expected to be accommodating and look after a man. Gender roles were simpler then, and I think thats what many of the old timers seem to like about being in Thailand.

In the series there is even an episode when many of the wives find a single lady weird because she walks for pleasure instead of necessity. In Chiang Mai, nobody walks unless they have to. Outside of running for exercise, a person who walks for pleasure is considered a bit weird.

Western civilization has had hundreds of years of challenging paradigms that many other cultures haven't experienced, at least not to the same degree. Particularly starting with the French revolution, the idea was implanted that it was possible to overthrow a government, if they moved en masse.

America followed with a civil war and the rising of first wave feminism which resulted in the abolition of slavery and gaining women the right to vote, now considered basic human rights. In fact, many countries were ahead of Western countries in terms of human rights at this stage.

World War II had another huge change in terms of labor relations and gender roles. When men went to war, women had to do what were considered mens jobs at home. And when the war was over, women didn't want to give up their jobs. This gave rise to second wave feminism, which dealt with questions on gender roles in family and society.

This was in the 60s and 70s, only about 40 years ago, or a little over one generation. Considering the amount of changes that took place over the past 100 years in the West, places like Thailand are catching up fast.

This of course is not to mention a large period of near poverty for the masses from the beginning of the industrial age until after world war II (with the exception of the roaring 1920s). Economic equality and the emerging middle class hasn't been a phenomenon for most of western societies until about 60 years ago.

Much of this kind of development around the world seems to follow a similar pattern such as increased standard of living, and increased regulation and adherence to rule of law. Thailand is no exception to this.

I don't believe Western culture is superior. But neither is the culture here. They both have good and bad points. The sad thing about Modernization is that most cultures replace all old traditions with new. Some old traditions are good and healthy and should be kept. Some are not good or healthy and should be changed.

In the west we have rapidly gone from a culture of automatic respect to automatic disrespect. We disrespect elders and authority who may (or may not) have more experience than us or something valuable to contribute to society. We are so alert for any injury to our pride that we become unnecessarily aggressive to strangers. Thailand is not like this yet, but it's starting to happen.

I would like to believe that cultural development is like a pendulum. It swings back and forth from one extreme to another, but becomes closer and closer towards a better balance with time.

I believe we are observing in Western cultures a desire to revert back to some traditions of the past. The idea of community and morality is becoming increasingly talked about and I think this is a good sign.

But the west had to go through a period of great material wealth (80s and 90s) to realize that material wealth alone doesn't provide happiness, something else is missing.

Thailand needs to go through its period to realize the same thing. It is only just starting to enter this period.

We are seeing more cultures adopting similar values in their own fashion, especially here in Asia. It's time we stop referring to these cultures as becoming "Westernized" and start thinking of them as becoming "Modernized".

The importance of self-learning

Are you an autodidact?

Autodidact(n).
a person who has learned a subject without the benefit of a teacher or formal education; a self-taught person.

This odd sounding term refers to a style of learning that in my view is largely under-appreciated in modern society.

Self-learning or autodidactism is simply the act of finding information for ourselves, and understanding it without the help of others. With the abundance of resources in libraries and the internet, this should be easy to do.

Many of us stop learning after formal education is complete. While I think there are a few reasons for this, I think learned dependency is a factor. The modern system of education de-emphasizes self-directed learning in favor of a top-down passive style of learning. Unless people have had experiences otherwise, it becomes easy to see why some people believe they need to go to school to learn anything.

A fear of change is also a factor. Most people become averse to change in their mid 20s to 30s. It's not surprising that many people stop learning around the same age.

Learning takes effort. It's tempting to think "finally, I know enough to do well in this world". But the person that reaches that point is the person that starts to fight all change, whether for good or bad.

As I've said before, everything changes. Our environment changes, our responsibilities change, our available resources change, even our needs and wants change over time. All these changes require us to have new knowledge to adapt and benefit.

We need things to change. Perhaps from historical perspective we are doing slightly better than several hundred years ago, but we are still far from an idyllic society. Horrible things still happen, and as ethical people we should try and make things better.

I believe most people want to make things better, but don't feel they can do enough to make change. However little changes can have an effect I call the moral multiplier. Essentially, the moral multiplier means that a little change in an individuals behavior carries on to others and creates an effect much larger than the original action itself.

The point of all that is, we need to encourage behavior that adapts to change. And a very important way to do that is self-learning.

Autodidactism or self-learning is an independent form of learning. The gaining of new knowledge by ones self is empowering and teaches people to be independent. It also allows us to feel more powerful against the forces of change.

This is important. It's the direct counter attack to a society of fear. I sometimes think that many of the Hollywood movies we have depicting heroes, villains and forces larger than life would disappear if so many of us didn't feel so small.

Sugata Mitra has conducted some amazing experiments over the past 10 years to show what children are capable of learning when given the right environment.

To me it shows the power of self-learning. A quote from the video clip is "when children are interested, learning happens". I think we are all like this. We all have our passions and interests within us. As we get older they don't die, we just start telling ourselves they aren't important. Or we don't have time. Or something.

But like other forms of informal learning, it empowers us. It makes us passionate. It helps us embrace change when it is good. It allows us to benefit from change. It helps with all these things and by extension, everyone else. Because if you change your behavior, so will some others around you, and so will some of those around them, and so on.

Our job is just to do our part to make a better world. And committing effort to understanding our world is an important way to do that.

Chinese Language experiment: 20 hours

I stated my intention to learn Mandarin Chinese part time through watching television programs. I've reached my first milestone in the Chinese TV method.

After 20 hours I can say that I of course still understand very little of Chinese, although a few words have become apparent quite quickly. These words are mostly commands and short responses, like "hello", "let's go", "good" and the like.

However my main focus at this moment is not to focus on words, but to become familiar with the phonetic nature of the language.

The process is seen this graph.



In television programs, the visual input provides the point of reference of the language content. What I have learned is that programs that provide a larger number of visuals connected to the spoken content is easier to follow. Thus for comprehension, dramas, and particularly televised theater is the easiest to understand. Debates and news with few accompanying visuals are the hardest.

I am focusing now on the phonetics of the language. Rather than listening for meaning, I am trying to listen for the quality of the sound. I'm doing this in the way a person may listen to classical music, to take in all the qualities and nuances of the sounds spoken.

At this stage, it is requiring a lot of effort. However some sound patterns are becoming easier to pick up, and the language is sounding slightly more familiar.

My intention is to practice in this way until it becomes easy to hear spoken words clearly and effortlessly.

So at the present moment, I am highly dependent on good accompanying visuals to provide understanding. David Long of ALGworld says that in the first few hundred hours of language acquisition, visuals contribute to the bulk of understanding. Gradually listening takes over and becomes independent of visuals.

He then proceeded to draw something like this graph which I have rendered in digital form.


The numbers above represent the hours spent actively listening to the target language. Please note the numbers are approximations and depend on student and situation.

Lastly, as another suggestion of Davids, I have started tracking my comprehension level in 4 different categories of shows, then averaged them out.



Each time I watch TV I am estimating how much I understood as a percentage. I am then averaging each category and the total average. When I reach 50 hours I will post my progress.

The graph shows averaged self approximations of how much I feel I understand. At AUA Bangkok this method is used for the ALG assessment. Through more than 15 years of testing, David has stated that once a student reaches 50% or more by their own assessment, their predictions prove quite accurate.

So for now, treat these estimations with reservation. But when I hit future milestones, further observations and comparing numbers may give some interesting insights.

How to meditate: Walking meditation

Anapanasati, or concentration meditation using the breath is one of the most common forms of meditation. It is taught in most traditions of eastern religions and is becoming increasingly common in secular modern medicine and psychology.

Almost as common is walking meditation. Walking meditation is generally used as a kind of support and a kind of way to integrate improved concentration into real life applications.

Buddhism classifies the body in being in one of four potential postures at any time. They are: Sitting, walking, standing, and lying down. While in the west we typically associate meditation with the sitting variety, all four of these postures can be used to cultivate concentration and mindfulness.

Sitting meditation gives us an opportunity to work on our concentration with a minimum of distraction, but it can be difficult to maintain that level of concentration when we need to function in daily life. And sometimes when problems creep up in sitting meditation it can be helpful to take a break.

Walking meditation is much more dynamic, and forces the meditator to try maintaining concentration in the presence of distractions.

To try walking meditation, you just need somewhere you can walk where you won't be interrupted. It can be indoors or outdoors. Somewhere you can go back and forth for a length of 30 to 100 meters or so is ideal. And lastly, the path should not be so difficult to walk that you need all your concentration to avoid falling over.

Once you have chosen your path, it is important to know what to concentrate on when you are walking. From Gil Fronsdal at the site of an Insight meditation center in Redwood, California:

Once you feel connected to the body, let your attention settle into your feet and lower legs. In sitting meditation, it is common to use the alternating sensations of breathing in and out as an “anchor” keeping us in the present. In walking meditation, the focus is on the alternating stepping of the feet.

With your attention in the legs and feet, feel the sensations of each step. Feel the legs and feet tense as you lift the leg. Feel the movement of the leg as it swings through the air. Feel the contact of the foot with the ground. There is no “right” experience. Just see how the experience feels to you. Whenever you notice that the mind has wandered, bring it back to the sensations of the feet walking. Getting a sense of the rhythm of the steps may help maintain a continuity of awareness.

As an aid to staying present, you can use a quiet mental label for your steps as you walk. The label might be “stepping, stepping” or “left, right.” Labeling occupies the thinking mind with a rudimentary form of thought, so the mind is less likely to wander off. The labeling also points the mind towards what you want to observe. Noting “stepping” helps you to notice the feet. If after a while you notice that you are saying “right” for the left foot and “left” for the right foot, you know that your attention has wandered.

The process starts with simply walking. As above, there is no "right" or "wrong" way to walk. Walking slowly is ideal however, as it gives time to notice the intricacies of the movement. The purpose of walking meditation to keep your awareness on these intricacies, on the process of walking.

Over time, there are two things a meditator starts to notice about this type of meditation:

One, like the breath in concentration meditation, the walk starts to break down into its component parts. Very rapidly meditators start to notice 4 main phases to walking. There is the first stage where the meditator shifts their weight to the front, then they lift their back foot, then move the foot, then lastly putting the foot down.

Like the breath in concentration meditation, the longer one does this form of meditation the more detail they become aware of. The meditator will start to notice differences from step to step in how their feet move, how their body weight shifts, and the like.

If this kind of awareness is developed over time, it becomes easier to use in daily activities, as all activities requiring physical movement contain similar processes. It's judged so useful that it is becoming more common in western medical practices for elderly who are at risk of suffering from falls, and other areas where body awareness is important.

A person with improved body awareness is likely to stop doing something that is bad for their body earlier (like slouching at the desk). By becoming more aware of our body, we start thinking more about how we use it.

Secondly, over time, the meditator will start to notice that the intention to create movement precedes the movement itself. They will notice that before they move the foot, there is the intention to move it, before they shift their weight, there is the intention to shift it.

This noticing of intention to action creates awareness of the mind to body link. Where improved body awareness makes us think more about how we use the body, improved awareness of how the mind affects the body makes us think about how we use our minds.

With this kind of awareness, it becomes easier to see the links between our moods and our physical feelings. It may give us insight into postural and other long-term health problems. It gives us new understanding that the activities of the mind cannot be separated from the activities of the body. And that the health of the mind is just as important as the health of the body. A person with improved mind-body awareness is more likely to change their thoughts and intentions before negative consequences occur.

By practicing in an environment with more distractions, and by learning to maintain concentration while doing something, it becomes much easier to maintain awareness while performing other tasks. Essentially these other tasks can be practiced in the same way as walking meditation once the principles and purpose of the meditation is experienced. This leads to true mindfulness.

Mindfulness is not so much about practicing our skill in an isolated setting, but about how we use it on a daily basis. Meditation in this sense should be regarded as a type of "work out" for our minds. Then we must use these skills in daily life.

The money multiplier and the moral multiplier

A fundamental concept of monetary economics is the money multiplier.

It shows us how new money introduced into a system can multiply to become worth more than its original amount.

This table will help explain.


This table represents $100 of new money entering the banking system for the first time. In this case, the reserve rate is set at 20%, meaning the bank has to hold onto 20% in cash, but can lend out the other 80% (Bank A). If this money goes back into the system (Bank B), the process repeats, and so on. Here the example stops at 10 repetitions, but if you kept going the final amount would reach approximately $500. So in this case, the money multiplier is 5.

It's this theory that is the reason why many governments give handouts or tax cuts in times of recession, in hoping citizens will spend it. The theory is somewhat flawed since people tend to save more in these times, but that is another issue.

Side note: It's also a factor behind the failure of so many banks in America, and why other countries such as Australia fared better. Before the crash, legal reserve rates in the US were lowered to about 3%. While this created a money multiplier of over 30, the result was that most banks didn't have enough cash on hand to weather the crisis intact.

The issue is important in monetary policy, because it shows how a small change in policy can create a big effect.

In our lives, when we examine our actions and their effect, we often underestimate them. Whether our actions are moral and good for everybody or not seem irrelevant in the face of the worlds problems. If we want to do something positive, we feel like it has to be a huge gesture. And we just don't have the time or energy for that right now. Maybe tomorrow. And tomorrow never comes.

However good deeds and bad deeds are subject to their own multiplier. What I call the moral multiplier.

How does the moral multiplier work?

Moods tend to be infectious. Ever remember someone that put you in a bad mood? And someone else that put you in a good mood? If you were observant, you probably also noticed that those moods then affected how you dealt with others. Perhaps after being put in a bad mood, you put someone else in a bad mood, and perhaps they did too. And so the multiplier goes.

We don't see usually the effect because we are just one step in a chain, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think the idea seems obvious to many people, common sense. But the problem with common sense is people often fail to fully follow it through to its end conclusion.

The way we interact with others doesn't just stop at that interaction, but extends outwards. It's important to think about that when we connect with other people. If even a small percentage of society start acting more negatively, it is possible to drag the whole society down. On the other hand, if each of us make a commitment to try and be more positive in our lives, it doesn't just help us be happy, but it helps everyone around us also.

Who knows what our moral multiplier is? But it is surely bigger than one. The implications of this are that acting in a moral way is more than just about making us feel good, but it's also about playing our part to create a better society.

Positivity isn't just about nice feelings. It has great implications in the creation and perpetuation of conflict, class and racial discrimination, crime, health and many more things.

On TED, Barry Schwartz has a great talk on the loss of morality and reliance on rules and incentives at inappropriate times. In it he gives examples of where adherence to rules and incentives can sometimes go wrong. It's not that we don't need them, but we need to have the moral will and the moral skill to adapt when necessary.

The creation of moral skill may seem difficult, but moral will is easy. We just have to want to make a change. And by finding the little ways we can be positive from day to day, we can take advantage of the multiplier and make a greater impact than we realize.

How to meditate: Common problems

Note: Some of this information applies to other forms of meditation such as Vipassana more than concentration meditation, but they can occur in all types of meditation.

Through meditation, we start to discover ourselves in more and more profound ways. Along the path of discovery we encounter many resistances. Like in exercise for the body, we try to find ways to deal with these problems because we know that in the long run it is good for us.

Fortunately meditation has been practiced for a long time. And during that time many problems that mediators experience have been shared and analyzed. What has been found is that most of us encounter the same difficulties through the process, and there is a list of "best suggestions" to deal with these problems that have been refined over time.

Some of the most common problems we can encounter in meditation are:

• Physical discomfort/pain
• Inability to concentrate/"Fuzziness"
• Inability to feel the body
• Sleepiness
• Restlessness
• Physical tension caused by focus
• Discouragement/Hopelessness
• Lack of enthusiasm
• Not finding time to meditate

Physical discomfort or pain is one of the most common problems people encounter in meditation, particularly when beginning and when doing meditation for long periods of time.

Meditation is usually done with a still posture (although there are other types such as walking meditation which I'll discuss another time). Most people believe that when meditating, it's necessary to sit on the ground, back straight, face forward. While there are some advantageous to this posture, if you're unused to it, it can become painful quite quickly.

Especially when learning meditation for the first time, I suggest finding a posture where you can be still for the duration of your meditation. Sitting in a chair is fine. The objective is to find a way to minimize moving.

Movement can be very distracting when you are trying to focus on internal sensations so we should aim to minimize it, however being in pain is not a requirement for meditation. If you need to, adjust your position. But try to do it slowly and turn your awareness to the movement when you do so.

An inability to concentrate is also common and can manifest in multiple ways. It can come as a general mental "fuzziness" or fog, a strong resistance to the object of meditation, or the mind being full of activity and distracting thoughts.

Whenever it is difficult to concentrate, a strengthening of intention is required. If necessary, the meditator can intentionally breathe in and breathe out a number of times. By taking long, deliberate breaths the meditator usually finds that their mind starts to refocus after a time. If it doesn't, it could be your mind telling you that it needs a break for now. There is no need to push yourself too hard. In fact a lot of meditators become very eager when they start and make this mistake. Overtraining can be as much of a problem in meditation as it can in physical exercise.

Sometimes meditators can get so lost in the process they start experiencing an inability to feel the body. Depending on the object of meditation, this is fine for a time. The body acts as an anchor for our mind however, and if we are unable to bring our focus back to it, it is a sign that we are getting lost in a mental process.

To bring the mind back to the body more strongly, a person can clench their fists or do some other isometric muscle contractions and focus on it, until it becomes easier to notice physical sensations. By creating a stronger physical sensations, it allows us to regain our mental balance. If this doesn't work, usually teachers assign walking meditation.

Sleepiness is also extremely common. In general, it is usually dealt with in either of the two ways above.

Restlessness often occurs when the body is in the process of unwinding a mental habit, thereby freeing up new energy to the meditator. This is usually a temporary process and winds itself down with time. If the meditator is at a retreat or wishes to continue, they can try intentionally breathing and aim to make their breaths fuller and longer until the feeling of restlessness subsides. Otherwise if possible, it may be helpful to engage in something energetic such as running or exercise or even partying (none of which are available if you are at a retreat).

Sometimes meditation makes us more tense. Physical tension caused by focus can occur when new subconscious tensions come to our awareness. Our awareness can trigger the underlying tension by bringing our focus to it. Although unpleasant, it's actually a sign that we are starting to work through a new tension, which is a good thing.

Much in the same way as a runner would do, the meditator should try and "work through the pain" as much as possible. Intentional breathing with the object in mind and/or isometric muscle contractions can help with this. Also, the tension doesn't need to be dealt with all at once. The meditator can "chip away" at the tension by focusing on it for a time, and then moving awareness to another object (such as a different part of the body).

For deeply ingrained tensions, it's quite common to have tension over a period of many sits, or even many weeks. Like dealing with a big project, it requires patience and persistence.

Discouragement/Hopelessness can happen to any meditator after a period of time. They perhaps feel the internal processes they are monitoring are too powerful or too ingrained for them to make a change. Or sometimes they feel as if they are simply not making any progress. It can become tempting to give up.

This is one area where meditation is different to physical exercise. The mind does not have the same limitations as the physical body. This mental reconditioning is a fundamental aspect of the mind I'm sure I will get to in a later post.

The progress of the mind is also much harder to measure. There are no fat calipers for the mind, or tape measures, or scales. Yet it is important to measure progress in terms of not how we feel, but how we perform mentally in the world.

Often as new awareness comes, we feel as if we are going backwards in meditation, and there is a tendency for intermediate meditators to give up because they feel they are going nowhere. The meditator needs to be creative about how they assess their progress in order to stay motivated.

In terms of concentration, the person should find a way to track progress in how easy it is for them to concentrate and how long they can concentrate for before getting tired. A weekly meeting at work, or a specific class at school can be a good measure for this.

In terms of nonreactivity (which is a long term effect of meditation, particularly Vipassana) can be measured by the amount of time it takes for your mood to recover from external triggers. If we know that particular words or actions put us in a bad mood on a regular basis, we can use this as a measure of progress. If 6 months ago it would take us a full day to return to a good mood and now it takes us only 12 hours, we can clearly see progress.

Relying on what a person feels during meditation is not a good measure of progress, so the meditator is recommended to find external measures of progress.

Lack of enthusiasm is also related to discouragement above and can usually be dealt with in the same way. However, sometimes it is a signal that the mind needs to integrate something previously unwound. If the lack of enthusiasm is temporary, taking a break from meditation may be helpful (although I recommend committing to 5 minutes minimum per day to strengthen the habit of meditating). If the feeling extends for a longer time I would recommend treating it as discouragement in the way listed above.

Lastly, not finding time to meditate is not so much a problem of meditation as it is a behavioral result of one of the above. I will write about the importance of creating a habit to meditate another time, but I wanted to stress it here. I recommend a commitment to 5 minutes meditation every day. If the meditator really doesn't have time to meditate longer, that's fine. Anybody can find 5 minutes, and this regularity will make it easier for the person to find time later and harder for them to give up.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This list is not exhaustive. There are other ways to deal with these problems, and other problems that come up in meditation. These are just some of the common problems and solutions many people find useful. The best way to deal with these problems is to experiment in what works for you. A community and a teacher can help you with ideas by sharing their experiences, but ultimately we all respond slightly differently. You have to put them into practice and find which are the most effective for you.

How I acquired the French language

In my last post on language learning vs language acquisition, I described how learning a second language can be grouped in roughly two ways.

The first is the way a child approaches language, through massive amounts of input paired with nonverbal indicators. Language is "acquired" through a process of pattern matching and inference.

The second way happens to most of us after about 10. This is incidentally when certain cognitive skills begin to develop, such as enhanced ability to reason. The popular idea is that this development inhibits natural methods like the ones children use.

I agree that reason inhibits intuition. But as with all ideas, it pays to read between the lines and question all assumptions. Here the assumption is that a person can no longer voluntarily turn off this analytical function once they have it.

The arts have long proven that to be false, in my opinion. This idea just hasn't been carried across to popular language learning mentality.

Most of us have the idea that we can't use that part of our brain anymore, at least not for language. I think my experience with French proves this idea wrong.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I have always wanted to learn a second language. In high school, I studied Korean for 5 years. I was lucky enough to go to Korea in my senior year, a huge eye opening experience for me in many ways. However I quickly learned that I could barely speak the language. And now, my Korean is barely on par with your average tourist.

Like most people I had assumed I was at fault. I told myself I wasn't good at learning languages. But a part of me also realized that I could learn better if I lived in a country where they used it. I wanted to test my idea and see how good I could get. And so I quickly narrowed down a list of languages I'd like to learn and settled on one: French.

I moved to France in the Summer of 2007. Before arriving I had started a crash course of 60 hours of traditional instruction which I felt gave me some basics. Only when I got there to realize I didn't understand a word that anyone was saying.

I was lucky to be put in a homestay with a French lady who taught French literature in high schools. She was very passionate about the language and also constantly talking, which gave me a lot of language practice.

Her rules were to use French and French only in the house, and to make it to dinners as often as possible. This is where she observed most people actually picked up the most language, and as her 50th student, I was inclined to trust her judgement.

I had signed up for a one month intensive at the alliance française. We covered a few tenses and the like. It was very formulaic, but it seemed helpful at the time. The problem was that I couldn't transfer it into real use of French.

French just like any language has a lot of shortcuts in common spoken form. it seems to be a universal feature of humanity that no one speaks their language like textbooks say they ought to.

It took me almost 2 months to realize the most common way of saying "I do not know" is said something like "Shay pa" instead of the oft learned "Je ne sais pas". I certainly didn't learn it in class, and this is the equivalent of not teaching "Dunno" in beginners English, which is actually one of the first things I teach students.

So at the end of the month, I had totaled up 100 hours of language study, plus the 60 I had done in Australia. However I started feeling I was learning more at home than I was in class, so I stopped going to class.

At home I was spending at least an hour or two helping in the kitchen with my homestay mother, listening to her chatter on about I-have-no-clue. I was also watching up to 2 hours of talk shows and dramas on TV, and I was reading at least 1 news article per day (with a French-English dictionary at hand).

For a long time I could barely feel I was getting better. I was learning some more words and understanding common phrases but I couldn't understand anything out of the ordinary and my responses were very wooden. Then a very strange thing happened.

It was 6 months of headaches, confusion and tiredness (paying that much attention is more draining than you might think). I recall watching a TV talk show called "C'est dans l'air", and all of a sudden I felt like I could understand almost everything they were saying. Furthermore, it suddenly took very little effort to listen. The language sounded as easy to the ear as English.

Although I didn't understand it at first, I learned that this stage is common in acquisition methods and is sometimes referred to as emergence.

The theory as I understand it is that a foundation of linked experiences connecting sounds to concepts need to be created first. When this process has reached a sufficient level, it becomes reliable enough to determine what is "normal" for the language, and what is not, in terms of meaning, grammar, and sound. In ALG, these are called mental image flashes, or MIFs.

So without knowing what was going on, I had crossed a threshold from having insufficient experience to judge new French input into having a basic intuitive feel for the language.

And from that point on, my ability in the language bloomed. I felt I had got over a major hurdle and I could use that energy to focus on what I needed more of, vocabulary.

I took focus away from learning grammar, as what I was saying just started to sound "right" or "wrong". Vocabulary was easy to pick up in the context of a conversation now, so "studying" consisted of watching and reading things I would want to in any language anyway. I would talk about politics, economics and local culture.

I left France in November 2008. After a period of 15 months in the country, I had become fully conversant in a number of domains in French. I knew that if i stayed I would be able to refine my French further and become more eloquent in the language, but I had other plans.

I'm not saying my French is perfect. But even after 2.5 years of not using the language, I can still walk up to any French person confident in my ability to talk to them. I have barely lost any ability in the language despite not using it, and after a day or two of using the language, I'm right back where I was when I was living there.

What mistakes I do have are inconsequential and generally do not impede meaning. And improving grammar and spelling in French is much the same as for in English. I just need to read more in the language and I'll "pick it up".

Even with my mistakes, most French people don't believe I got to where I was after only 15 months living in country and 160 hours of language lessons. After many French people exclaiming they wish their English could be as good as my French, those people came to the conclusion that they "weren't good at languages".

My point is not to say how good I am at learning language. I believe I'm average. What's different is the method I used. "Adult" language learning methods do not ever give these results. You will never learn how to share emotions on a deep level by learning in a classroom. You will never learn how to pick up on a persons accent, background, and personality just from standard language lessons.

The only way these can be achieved is through real life interaction with natives of the language. Short of moving to another country, concepts like ALG provide this kind of environment for the students. In addition to not putting the cart before the horse, providing this kind of environment is its strength. For that reason "acquiring" languages has a great deal to offer the language learning world, especially for those people who have convinced themselves they are "not good at languages".

The smiles of the Land of Smiles

Thailand is famous for its smiles. Most people hardly go a day without someone smiling at you for seemingly no reason in this country. I'm so used to it now that it usually goes straight to my filters. I don't even think about it.

Despite the fact that Thailand still suffers from drug trafficking, human trafficking, poverty, high levels of AIDs, and a large number of orphans, it's easy to believe that people here must be much happier.

Of course in some ways they may be (I'll write my thoughts about social development vs. economic development in a later post). But in general, I don't think the average Thai is happier or more miserable than the average citizen of any country.

Unless you've lived here a while you probably don't realize that Thai people smile for many different reasons - and most aren't the "my life is awesome" kind of smile we usually think they are.

Here's a list of 13 known types of smiles in Thailand ("Yim" with a high tone in Thai):



Of the 13 smiles, 5 relate to either avoiding feeling bad or trying not to show others they feel bad. A further 4 come from the pleasure of feeling superior to somebody (Thailand is a very hierarchical society). And then there's the inappropriate smile is a miscellaneous catch all for that-thing-we-find-funny-that-we-shouldn't (same as in the west).

In fact, only 3 smiles (happy, admiration and feigned politeness) are a genuine sign of happiness or politeness.

That's a 15% chance the smile you're getting is what we westerners think is a "real" smile.

Of course you can learn to recognize these smiles. It just takes time. And really, isn't it nicer that the guy showing you attitude is doing it with a smile on his face?

Formal vs Informal Education

In my last post on standardization in education, I have said that I believe standardization has a role to play in society. In particular, it is good at training workers.

However it is not good at training leaders, inventors and innovators. And we need people to change the world as much as we need people to operate it.

We live in an environment that always changes. Rules that apply today might no longer apply 15 years from now. So we need to train people to be able to adapt to those changes.

But how do we do this? The entire process of education is different. And if we want societies with complete human beings, we need to think about this.

In formal education, we need a measure of right and wrong. We either know something or we don't. This binary form of learning applies itself to things like engineering and sciences. It requires we have a teacher of greater knowledge than us that directs us in structured segments, until we can reliably get the right answers on our own.

My first university experience was learning applied physics. This mostly consists of well established rules of mechanics and energy transfer that are right or wrong. Usually people who study physics end up working in some kind of engineering, for example aircraft engineering.

For that this system works very well. We need it. Imagine if an aircraft engineer designed an airplane you were on with a bit of trial and error? If they just tried something new to see if it would work? Some skills need this style of education.

However most things don't. Even things we like to think of as "right or wrong" subjects often aren't. Business, emergency services, even medicine involve ambiguous situations. And this is where creativity becomes important.

By creativity I don't just mean the arts. I mean the ability to do something new or unorthodox. To do something not directly taught. This comes from intuition. A businessman might decide to launch a new product even when it appears to be a bad idea (it took Otto Rohwedder 6 months and many banks to find one who would finance his product: sliced bread). Police need to use their intuition to asses a situation. And sometimes a doctor will just have to take their best guess to save a patients life.

Intuition can be reliable if it's forged through extensive experience. The key is how to get the right experience, and I believe this is where informal education plays a vital role.

Formal education thrives in a world of right or wrong, and with a teacher who passes his knowledge downwards to the student. Informal education thrives in an environment of ambiguity.

Informal education doesn't need teachers. It needs mentors. It isn't concerned with the teaching of specific materials. Rather it is concerned with the process of learning the material.

A mentor doesn't necessarily know what the student is learning, but they can try and help the student find out. They do this through collaboration, not dictation.

I refer often to business, because it's where my formal training comes from. In the degree, we have dozens of models thrown at us. How we market something, how we price something, how we minimize costs, etc, etc. We are told a lot of 'whats' but not a lot of 'whys'.

Some of these models will endure the test of time, and others will become obsolete as soon as the business environment changes. Already the forces of globalization have made many business models more than 20 years old obsolete.

Because of the formal education model, we have plenty of students that can recall models or charts from the book. I have a feeling that many would not know when they are appropriate to use them, though.

In an informal model, we could be given the requirements we need to meet (e.g. research product pricing methods) and then we have to find the information for ourselves.

This achieves a few things:
1. Students learn how to research business topics. This is a skill that can be used later in life if they change careers, or new theories about business become available.
2. Students gain the confidence that they can learn whatever knowledge they will need in the future, by themselves. This takes the student out of a cycle of dependence and towards becoming a capable and responsible member of society.
3. Students understand the reason for the current theory/concept/idea. This allows them to know the limitations of the theory. It also teaches them the environment that created the theory. They then know if that environment changes, so do the assumptions that support that theory.
4. Students may come into contact with new untested theories. This gets the student thinking about the future progression of the subject. It then becomes dynamic in the students mind, not just a static rule set in stone.
5. Students may come into contact with real life current examples of the theory. This would usually be in a form of something that interests the student, rather than a case study in a book that the author thought would interest all students reading that book.
6. Students may find something that interests them about the subject. Even if the student is not interested in the subject as a whole, they may find an aspect that appeals to them if they are allowed to explore. (For me, it was accounting. It doesn't interest me as a whole, but when I found IKEA was the worlds largest registered charity, I gained a new respect for accountants.)

This list is surely not complete. But even if it were, we have to think about what we are giving up when we try to apply formal education to every subject equally.

The cost of not providing an environment where informal education flourishes is giving up the opportunity for the people to learn:

• How to find information for themselves
• How to be confident in their knowledge and ability
• How to use knowledge in real life situations
• How to adapt knowledge as needed
• How to understand how past environment creates current knowledge, and how current environment creates future knowledge
• How to find what motivates the individual, finding their passions

Of course, these things can be learned in life from the self motivated learner. But experience shows that most people won't unless they have a good reason to.

Informal education allows us to provide an environment where this learning flourishes. By supporting the system, it encourages some people to develop personally that otherwise would not. It is a system of education we are starting to value less than formal education. But undervaluing this form of education would be a mistake. It could cost us a society of happy, confident, creative and strong people. I for one would prefer to live in that kind of society, than one full of technically skilled but miserable, insecure and nasty people.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For further ideas I have on how to run a business degree, see my entry in Brad West's Payap Blog on contingent pedagogy.

Diminishing marginal returns: getting life's initial sweet hits

I my last post on economics, I talked a little about how the science teaches us that moderation is the key to maximizing benefit. I thought I would provide examples of how I apply it in my life.

If in general the first time we do, experience, buy or learn something we get the most benefit, happiness or joy from it, moderation makes sense.

In my life, the two biggest resources I have are time and energy.

As a student, time is something I currently have a lot of. But I do run out of energy. Thus energy is my limited resource.

I always keep a running list of life projects in the back of my mind. Here are my current ones:

• Learn Korean
• Learn Mandarin Chinese
• Continue my meditation work
• Graduate from university
• Write this blog
• Improve fitness
• Self educate through reading

These consist of things I am currently doing. To some readers, this list may seem very ambitious. I appear to be doing a lot.

But the key to this is moderation. I only spend a few hours a week doing each activity (with the exception of schoolwork which I'll mention below). By dividing my time up, I keep variety in my activities. This means that for the first few hours, I actually enjoy what I'm doing. I'm focused on what I'm learning, and so I believe productive.

My schoolwork is an exception to this. And I believe it serves as a case for moderation. It's something those of us who have worked full time can relate to, I think.

When I'm studying at University, I take a full course load. 7 subjects per semester requires me to do a lot of textbook reading. So when I'm studying I rarely read anything else, whether for education or pleasure. I could use this effort to push through and force myself to read. Instead, I tend to go to the gym more. After using my brain for 6 hours a day, my motivation for doing something physical actually goes up. And by using this natural drive, I am maximizing the use of my energy.

Of course, I don't spend every waking second doing something productive. I like to relax and take things easy, so when I run out of energy here are some things I like to do:

• Watch movies
• Watch current affairs (yes, I actually enjoy this)
• Talk with friends
• Contact friends abroad
• Take day naps

What you can take from this list - apart from that I'm boring - is that I have a few options when I'm out of energy; I can pick and choose.

A day nap is nice every now and then, but sometimes I just want to talk, or maybe I want to shut the brain off and watch a mindless action flick.

If you don't have a few options about things you want to do for your future, and things you want to do for now, I highly recommend it. Just like that first bite of cake is sweeter than the 50th, that first hour talking with friends, or that first 20 minutes of power napping is where the joy comes from.