Third CLAP requisite: Hard (but smart) work

"The combination of hard work and smart work is efficient work."-Robert Half

In CLAP there are three requisites. And after PURPOSE and ATTITUDE, here's the third and last CLAP requisite: Hard (but smart) work.



Working hard is a prerequisite for success in anything. And I have no doubt that this is precisely what most passionate language learners do. They work their asses off. But although it is a prerequisite for success, hard work clearly does not guarantee success, as witnessed by the disgustingly low success rate of typical language learners. I believe this is because most people so firmly depend on traditional thinking and are not creative enough to come up with other ways to learn languages than following language teachers and going through grammar books and exercises. Again, I'm not saying that you should not do that. I'm just saying that there are more ways. Many many more! So the other part of the message, i.e., working smart, is that it will allow you to accomplish your goals set forth, when you clarified your PURPOSE, faster and with higher success rate than those who "only" work hard. So look at it this way. If you've worked extremely hard and yet achieved a miserable success rate, then why not let go of the traditional learning methods for now, and release your imaginative powers! Hey, you can't do much worst right?

And of course, my hope is that reading this blog can give you some inspirations. Beginning from the next posts, I will start describing many concrete examples of things that I did or my parents did that allowed me to achieve fluency in the various languages I speak today. And based on CLAP, given everyone's different language learning contexts, some exercises will suit you, whereas others will simply be hell-on-earth for you. Do pick the former.

Now although "like or dislike" is of course an important criteria for picking your language learning activities, in this post I want to also share with you two other important criteria. The first one comes from one of my all time favorite books "The 4-hour work week" by Tim Ferris (which I've recommended to many friends, all of whom loved it! (see Amazon link at the bottom)). This guy is absolutely amazing and is truly a living superman AND an amazing linguist as well. I'll talk about him and his book in the context of language learning in another post, but here I just want to mention one awesome insight regarding "stress" that I learned from his book.

"Distress" vs "Eustress"

Distress is easy. It is "stress" as we usually know it. The negative kind. That yucky feeling you get when you do something you don't like. But eustress on the other hand is positive stress. Positive stress?! Yes, the kind that is healthy and gives one a feeling of fulfillment or other positive feelings. One way to maximize eustress in language learning (or any learning actually) is to try to make your learning FUN. For example, you may hate reading a long text in a foreign language (or even in your own language!), say for a homework, but if you do the same long winded reading on a topic that interests you, a hobby perhaps, then the same stress is instantly changed into eustress. It is still stressful because you are reading a long text in a foreign language. But because you now really want to understand the contents, you can overcome the linguistic barrier. The "obstacle" is now turned into a "challenge". Very different psychology.

Another way to increase eustress is to set short-term goals, a near-term PURPOSE. I used to go to the gym six days a week when I was at the university, training like a maniac in hopes of making the university ice hockey team at the next training camp. Picturing myself playing for the Ottawa Gee-Gees drove me to lift weights like I had never done before (or after for that matter...). And after every session, I felt like I had accomplished great things. Now, to really make this an inspiring story, I would have made the team... but helas...that was not the case. But hey, I did end up getting myself a body that all the chicks drooled over...which of course I still keep today (ahem...).

In terms of learning languages, setting short-term goals could be for example to set a date for a language proficiency test in a few months. Set an achievable target score, and give yourself a little reward if you score higher. Have a little healthy competition with a friend who's also learning the same language and see who can score higher (maybe loser can buy winner a nice dinner). You get the idea right? During the time you give yourself, you should have tremendous motivation to learn your target language.

All this to say that the same stress can be "eustress" in one situation (when I was motivated to train), but "distress" any other day (because I'm just not naturally inclined to lift dumbells). This of course also holds true between individuals, i.e., any given activity can be "eustress" to one person, but "distress" to another. And the message here is to be creative in converting distress into eustress, for yourself or for your child, which will allow you to enjoy your learning process much more and to naturally exert your maximum efforts efficiently. Speaking of efficiency, here's the other criteria for picking your language learning activities.

"Efficiency" vs "Effectiveness"

I hesitated before putting up the Robert Half quote at the top, because "efficiency", which although is usually good in and of itself, is not the only thing we should thrive for. Most of us, myself included, have been conditioned by society to focus on "efficiency", which is defined as "doing things in the most economical way (good input to output ratio)". For example, a worker who can produce more units of a given product in a given unit of time is considered to be more efficient and more valuable to the company. And in terms of learning languages, you might say that an efficient student will aim to go through as many grammar books and exercises in the shortest time as it is humanly possible. But the question is what if you don't need to know that much grammar to begin with? In other words, if your PURPOSE is to be able to speak fluently and make foreign friends, then spending all that energy in learning grammar to high levels is pointless. You may have been efficient in learning grammar, but you were not effective in accomplishing your purpose. So, to be effective, you need to do the "right" things, i.e., set the right targets according to your purpose, which here could be a mid-level understanding of grammar, but a high level of spoken fluency. In this case, the same energy and time that you spend on learning grammar should be spent on exercises that enable more speaking.

Now, a final message is that when one method doesn’t work, don’t continue banging your head against the wall… Not being overly persistent can sometimes mean being smart. There are many different methods to choose and mix to suit your context.

Remember, increase eustress, think effectiveness, and have FUN!

So there you go, enough with the theory. Now for concrete examples from Tetsu's life-long language learning experience!