by Bruce Balmer | Apr 9, 2021 | Accelerated Learning, French, German, Italian, Languages, Motivation, Spanish, Thai, Time
Humans are prone to exhortation, not just of others but also to themselves. “Don’t be nervous!”, “Don’t blush!”, “be more disciplined”. Who do we think we are talking to at these times and why do we believe that person is listening any more than a teenager is...
by Bruce Balmer | Apr 5, 2021 | Accelerated Learning, Motivation
How can this idea be applied in the context of learning a language? Well, part of us likes to succeed and part of us just likes to live in the moment and have fun. Often there is a battle between these two parts and in order for one to win the other must lose. For...
by Bruce Balmer | Mar 29, 2021 | Accelerated Learning, Motivation
What is learning? It is the process of going from not knowing something to knowing it. If you can recall it one second after it was said to you, then you have completed the learning process. What is memorisation? It is the process of moving information from short...
by Bruce Balmer | Mar 22, 2021 | Accelerated Learning, Motivation, Time
It’s worth thinking through how you will maintain your languages once you have them. For instance, you maintain your English by using it every day. Other languages often demand a more deliberate approach. I am now maintaining French, German, Spanish, Thai and...
by Bruce Balmer | Mar 15, 2021 | Accelerated Learning, Motivation
After being educated in England between the ages of 5 and 18 I found I had developed an unfortunate passivity that is the natural product of our education system. I thought the teacher’s job was to teach me. How absurd! Can you teach a chair? Learning is something...
by Bruce Balmer | Mar 1, 2021 | Motivation, Statistics
As chance would have it, I was recently asked to read another educational psychologist’s repot on another student. The report (expensive) stated that, among his many other problems, the student in question has “poor impulse control.” As I read it it...
