S4E24: “All the information’s on the task”
Full transcript:
Good morning, happy Thursday and welcome to the Language Confidence Project, the only daily podcast to help us get unstuck in our language learning and enjoy the process just a little bit more. And today, I want to offer some more wisdom from the British comedy scene which is my happy place, but also a place of a lot of unexpected life lessons.
On the British TV show Taskmaster, a panel of five comedians are given a whole load of weird and wonderful tasks to complete to impress a mercurial guy on a throne, called Greg Davies, and compete for a golden trophy of his head. They receive a single sheet of writing paper shut with a wax seal, and in typewritten font, they receive such tasks as:
Do the most preposterous thing with this chickpea.
Make the best snowman (and that one was on a day on which there was precisely no snow)
Get this camel through the smallest gap.
Impress this mayor.
And on many an occasion, the contestants have questions. Can I leave the room? Has the time started yet? Can I use stuff from the shed? And every time, they’re met with the same maddening response:
“All the information is on the task.”
And they’re like “well, it’s not, is it?!”
And it’s the same with language learning. You’ve been given this task with thousands upon thousands of possibilities. You’re suspicious that there are unwritten rules somewhere that you don’t know about yet but that are going to trip you up or leave you disqualified from the task or judged harshly, or failing.
It’s no wonder you have questions. And I get that it’s tough when either nobody can give you an answer, or everyone gives you an answer, and no two of those answers are the same. But that’s the problem… there really is that much freedom. As scary and frustrating as it can be, it’s also permission to do exactly what makes the most sense in the moment.
Sometimes, the comedians will find pretty similar solutions to the same problem. But other times, all five of them will do something wildly different in every imaginable way, from the way they interpreted the assignment to the equipment they used to the message they wanted to convey.
So if there’s one takeaway from today’s episode, it’s that your solution to language learning might look really different from everyone else’s you know, but that does not mean it isn’t valid. Don’t be afraid to make the task your own. Don’t be afraid to be creative and don’t worry too much about what everyone around you appears to be doing, because what they’re doing might be no more correct than what you wanted to do in the first place. And even if it feels like what you’re doing is so weird, so strange, and that in a room full of 100 people not one would be doing what you’re doing, that’s okay. It’s okay to use what’s around you and do whatever seems right to you.
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.