Contextual Language Acquisition Philosophy

Let me start this post with a request to my readers. Please don't expect a one-size-fits-all language-learning "method" here. I don't believe that exists. What I am presenting is a one-size-fits-all "philosophy", i.e., a way of thinking. I call this CLAP, for Contextual Language Acquisition Philosophy. All methods and tricks that have been applied by myself or by my parents in raising me (which I will present in later posts) are all based on CLAP.



According to CLAP, language learning is most time-efficient, money-efficient, and effort-efficient, and, as a result, motivating and effective when you let CONTEXT drive your learning.

So there.

Simple, right? Too-good-to-be-true kind'a simple? Deceived? Well, people often have the illusion that complicated things, expensive things, difficult things, etc. are better. But CLAP is a simple philosophy. Just like "buy low, sell high". However, successfully applying "buy low, sell high" requires deep knowledge and training in finance before being able to seek out good investment opportunities, whereas applying CLAP only requires you to become conscious of your inside and of the world outside, i.e., your context. So what is important here is not about developing a difficult and complex skill or knowledge set, but rather, a simple habit, a way of thinking about what you want or like to do and what is the environment or situation you live in. And once you can master CLAP, you will see the countless language learning opportunities that surround you.

So what I'm saying is do this. Try to find opportunities to align what you do on a daily basis with language learning. Everyday, you go to school, you go to work, you interact with family, friends, colleagues, you eat, drink, you drive a car, take the train or bus, you have hobbies, watch movies, TV, surf the net, etc. etc. etc. Essentially, for all things that you either "have to do" or "like to do", see if you can add an element of language learning in there. For example, if you like to surf the web, you can browse sites that are in the language you are learning (and if you're learning Japanese, then you could push yourself to first read the Japanese part of each post, and then read the English part to see if you understood well). Perhap you like to listen to podcasts for news. Why not listen to it in your target language? Make friends in your target language. Reread your favorite book in your target language. Even when you have nothing, you can think of something. Your mind is the limit. Speaking of mind, while learning Spanish, anytime I was alone or in the shower or toilet, I would talk to myself in my head in Spanish! Wacky conversations indeed.

So as you can see, the list can go on and on and on and on. But of course, the specific activity has to be tailored to your level, your interest, your resources, etc. But the basic idea is still to do something that you're going to do anyway, but using your target language. And most likely, not one method alone will make you fluent, but the best combination of many of them will. Much of the remainder of this blog will be filled with examples of how this was actively applied in my own life.

But before that, in the next few posts, I will tell you about 3 CLAP requisites:
1) Purpose
2) Attitude
3) Hard (but smart) work

Until then!