S4E19: “You can learn anything with the internet”

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Thursday and welcome to the Language Confidence Project, the only daily podcast to get unstuck us in our language learning and enjoy the process just a little bit more. So today, I want to talk about something that I hear a lot at the moment. And that is the phrase, or some variation of, “you can learn anything with the internet nowadays”.

And it’s not that the statement is wrong. We have never had better access to videos, forums, workshops, and networking opportunities that can help us to pick up new and often quite niche skills. Far from being restricted to what our local night school can offer us, as was the case not even half a century ago, we can enrol in courses being hosted almost anywhere in the world.

And yes, you can Google pretty much anything.

The trouble is, that can make us feel like we should be able to become experts in almost  anything really, really quickly. If all the information is out there, what’s stopping us?

But here’s the thing. Learning something, especially something like a language, isn’t just like filling a cup with knowledge. So yes, all the information is probably out there. But you can’t expect to understand it all straight away. And wanting it to be different is only going to encourage us to pile more pressure on, and to raise our expectations even further beyond what’s realistic or fair to ourselves.

Having all the information and all the possibilities too quickly, doesn’t help. It’s overwhelming, and quite often you don’t know how to sift through it to find what you actually need.

Learning how to learn is a process. You have to learn what to ask. You need the right words to put to the concepts so you can formulate those questions and understand the answers. You have to have isolated your difficulties correctly to know what you’re trying to remedy in the first place.

Yes, all the information you need probably is out there. But that doesn’t mean it’ll all make sense in a day. So be patient with yourselves, language learners. You’ve been given this epic task and you don’t have to know what it all means from the get-go. You are not going too slowly. You are not on the wrong track. Give yourself time and space to figure it out. 

And if you like what I do, please support me! The Language Confidence project is growing and all sorts of exciting things are happening in the next few months, and I need your help to make all of this happen. There are so many ways that you could lend a hand right now. If you know someone who would benefit from listening to this podcast, send them a quick message with the episode attached. If you work in or know someone in a language school or a university language department, please suggest this podcast for both them and their students. If you can and you want to, support me on Patreon, because I have a Patreon now, and the link is in my bio! And finally, if you’re new around here or I haven’t met you yet, or come and talk to me! Leave a comment on today’s episode on a positit on Instagram, send me a DM, or even better, book a call as part of the 100 Conversations Project with me! The link to that is also in my Instagram bio at @teawithemily. I would love to hear from you.

Have a wonderful day, and I will see you tomorrow.