Teaching Proves Your Second Language Abilities

How you can leverage your knowledge during your second language acquisition

Welcome, aspiring polyglot! Age brings with it a certain understanding of clichés and aphorisms that is otherwise nonexistent. Whether or not you choose to leverage this fact does not change the veracity of the statement. With that in mind, today's focus will be on the idea that teaching something is the best way to assure you understand it. It is impossible to teach something you do not know.

Working through these exercises will give you the opportunity to put your knowledge and language skills to the test. It will be difficult, at first, but you will find it easier and easier with over time. As always, keeping a record in written language will make all of these things more likely to stick.

Teaching is the best way to learn

It can be tempting to jump straight into your target language and immediately start using all of the words you know to try and lay out some instructions. Ultimately this will be counterproductive, though. You will want to start by writing out instructions in your native language. At first it may seem like a waste of time, but go through the exercise and test yourself.

Giving proper instructions can be more difficult than many people know. If you have never tried the peanut butter and jelly sandwich exercise, that is a phenomenal place to start. In short, write out explicit instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Once you are done, follow those instructions. Do not allow yourself to do anything that is not explicitly written down.

For example, if you neglected to write that you needed to retrieve a knife before making the sandwich, you must now make it without a knife. If you forgot to explain the necessity of removing the lids, you must find a way to get the peanut butter and jelly without opening the containers. These are just two of the hundreds of pitfalls you may encounter when running through this exercise.

That is good! You do not have to be perfect the first time. Go back and reiterate, over and over, as often as possible. Eventually you will get it perfect, then it is time to move on to something more complex. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich is just an example, you can do anything, but if you cannot come up with any ideas, the sandwich is perfect.

Once you have it down in your native language it is time to jump into your target language. The advantage of having done it already in your first language is that you can now use what you have written when you get stuck. Even if you start with direct translation, you will be making incredible progress simply by using the second language. Not only that, but this is one of the best ways to teach yourself to say anything, even with a limited vocabulary. Describing things you know using the words you know is the best way to advance. Suddenly you will realize that you do not need to be perfect, you simply need to be resourceful.

Written language is the best way to apply your new language to your working memory. Doing things will always be the best way to learn. Second language studies would be incomplete without writing, but writing alone is not enough. At first you may struggle making sense of grammar structures and vocabulary. Taking the time to go back and check your work, make corrections, and improve on the precision is a high return on investment activity. Correcting your own mistakes will reveal to you the opportunities you have for improvement.

Foreign languages are unique in that you can use your first language to improve your proficiency, but it can also come back to bite you. The better you know your native language the more seamless second language acquisition will be for you. For a better idea of what that looks like, be sure to check out this article:

The step by step approach

This is what the step by step process looks like, this should give you a little breathing room when you sit down to undertake this endeavor. While there are levels to this, the only thing that really matters is that you work on upping your language output and developing your own comprehensible input.

You will have ample time to consume content. Most people work more on their listening skills than anything else. In all likelihood you will listen to your target language for hundreds of hours more than you speak it. Do everything you can to fight for time to speak and think and translate and write. First, though, you will need to choose what you want to discuss.

1. Choose what you want to try and explain

This is rather self explanatory. Choose something you know well, or something you are interested, and get to writing down every step you want to be able to explain to someone.

2. Write out the steps in your native language

Part of the learning process is assuring you can do this in your first language. If you cannot, you will struggle to do it in your target language. Take the time and go through the exercise twice. At the end of the language learning process you will realize that twice was only just the beginning. As you fight to develop your communication skills you will realize that you are doing this all the time and running through it once in your first language was well worth it.

3. Follow the steps and see if you are as accurate as you thought you would be

Now it is time to put your knowledge to the test. It is easy to underestimate how difficult it is to correctly write instructions. The first time you do it you will likely make more mistakes than you anticipated. That is okay. In all likelihood the same thing will happen when you are speaking your new language. Mistakes are not inherently bad, just do not let them put an end to your second language acquisition.

4. Reiterate and make any necessary corrections

After following your own instructions, take the time to make necessary corrections. Pay attention to the things you seem to get wrong repeatedly so that you know where you will make the most progress next time you sit down to work on your language skills. Reiterate and make sure that your instructions are as clear and precise as possible. Once you have done it two or three times in your first language, at least enough to feel comfortable with the exercise, it is time to up the difficulty level.

5. Do it again, in your target language

This part is pretty self explanatory. Ideally you will not use your instructions from the above portion to make this happen. However, if you want to or need to translate the first few times that is more than acceptable. Eventually you will want to reach a point where you do not have to think of the instructions in English first, but it will not happen over night. You will have to repeat and improve over and over until you break down every last language barrier in your way.

6. Repeat steps 4 & 5 until you are satisfied

Something many people will likely overlook in this section is that it is not necessary to do all of this in the same day. In fact, you may find it more beneficial to step away for a day, come back, and see it with renewed eyes. Not only that, but you can come back to one of these after weeks just to see how much your thought process, vocabulary base, and understanding of grammatical structures has changed. Writing out the instructions the first time can be frustrating. Going back and correcting them can have the opposite effect if done correctly.

7. Pick a new topic and try again

Once you feel you have mastered one set of instructions and that there is nothing further you can do to improve them, start over with something new. If you plan to use your target language to communicate with people, and you should, explaining things is going to be part of the game. Most of the time this will not involve writing. Consequently you will not have the luxury of time when explaining something in person. The more often you do it behind the scenes the easier it will be when it is game time. Remember, you will play how you practice.

Ways to add layers of efficacy and stack wins

One of the things most language teachers do not do is teach productive language skills. Mainstream classrooms are designed to help people pass tests, not help them develop effective communication skills. If you learn something new, try explaining it to yourself or teaching it to someone else in your target language.

Should you be successful, you will know that you truly understand what you have learned. Ideally you will be able to verify all of this with native speakers. That is why writing everything down is so important. For more on the benefits of writing, check out this article:

Once you have everything written down, start reading it out loud. The power in writing and speaking is that these two components force you to think in your target language. All of the rest is usually you translating from your target language to your native language. When you read the things you write aloud you are learning to speak the way you think. There is little that is more valuable than that in your second language acquisition journey. That is what this exercise is all about, teaching yourself to think in your second language the same way you think in your first language.

Conclusion

Teaching something is the best way to ensure you have a complete grasp on it. Most second language strategies are focused on things you can consume, but without creating you will forever be stuck in consumption mode.

The more time you spend creating the more time you will spend thinking in the language you are learning. At first you may find it frustrating as there are hundreds of ways to say the same things and hundreds of ways to accomplish the same task. Fortunately, you will be able to return to the things you have written and make corrections.

When you do this, check your grammar structures, dive deep into your vocabulary to ensure it is as precise as possible, and do not be afraid to go through this exercise in multiple ways. It is more than likely that you will find something to nitpick every time you look at your work.

This is merely an indication that you have learned more and improved your competency. In turn, this should result in a little breathing room next time you run through the exercise. Your first iteration still will not be perfect, but as your language skills develop you should need fewer iterations to reach a point where you are satisfied.

Whether you think grammar or vocabulary is more important, you need to focus on both throughout your language learning experience if you want to develop your language skills to be well rounded. Learning a foreign language is no easy feat, it will be difficult irrespective of how you approach it. But you can do difficult things and be great, so continue to do difficult things and be great. I will be here by your side endeavoring to do the same.

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