They say “learn from mistakes”. I agree with that. I had always been for this approach but a few days ago I realized something that changed completely my paradigm. It was kind of AHA-moment! I see it now differently and if it is true, it has significant implications. So, I told myself that I must share it with you.

Look at the sentence itself, and look attentively - “LEARN FROM MISTAKES”

Can you see it? The answer is there… and is in the middle. The answer is “FROM”. I realized it in the morning, before being fully awaken. Still in my bed. I realize that maybe better would be to say “learn AWAY FROM mistakes”. What I want to say? I want to say: do not pay so big attention to your mistakes. If you are aware of your mistake, OK, but go forward. If you speak, for example, continue, do not stop, do not return to that mistake. Focus yourself to activity itself, do not waste energy, go ahead. There will be a lot of mistakes and a lot of opportunities to say it right way. Later.

I see those mistakes just like some stepping stones we use for moving to the higher levels. If you are running upstairs you would not turn back all the time. This way you would either significantly slow down your pace or you would finish your activity quickly with an accident.

Imagine yourself that you are a small boy or girl and you have a new bike. You are learning to use it, to ride it. It is not easy in the beginning. Maybe you have fallen. It was an error. Will you focus on that error so much, all the time, to be afraid to fall again, to think how not to fall, why you fell…? With this attitude you would probably never learn how to bike at all. I think that children (fortunately) have a little bit different approach. The child can see a friend biking and do it the same way, do what works, and after some difficulties, gets skills to do it quite right. There is no need to analyze initial troubles too much. This way the children learn naturally. The same it is with learning to walk or to speak their mother tongue.

At school it is somehow else. The teacher marks errors by red color and all attention (energy) is focused on them. It is so big problem! But I see it now as an artificial problem. It is not a problem of the student but a big problem of the school system itself! The focus in on a bad side, the negative side. The side where the energy is wasted like in some “black hole”.

What I would suggest? I would suggest even to use different terms for those mistakes or errors – maybe something like “nearly right”, “half right”, “partially right”... After all this is a process of learning and it will improve gradually and automatically. Look at small children. Do we correct them this way too when they learn their mother tongue? What they (and we learners) need are only right models to imitate and those mistakes gradually disappear (on its own accord).

The obsession with the “correctness” leads only to lack of fluency and destroys natural zest for language. It creates in us the notion that the language learning is something difficult, unpleasant and probably even beyond our possibilities. It prevents us from using the language with joy and without using it we cannot actually learn it well.

They say that nobody is PERFECT and hardly anybody is PRESENT. And actually there is somebody who fulfills both these two criteria perfectly and it is our dear Mr. PRESENT PERFECT. Yes, it is true that “he” seems to be a little bit TENSE, I would even say rather SENTENCE. So let's look at „him“ closer.

I found this video, which maybe some of you have seen already, very instrumental. Plus I created a sophisticated Mind Map of this phenomenon but oops! Nothing is perfect and my software is not any exception – something went wrong, so after about 2 hours of work I have only this picture (see down). That „sophisticated“ Mind Map will be some other day (note of the author-already ready to use:-) ) . But I have an excuse ;-) for not to do it again – I have swum 2 km in pool and now I need to go to the bed (take, please, into consideration that it is half past 1 a. m.) So, as you can see, the human mind can always find some „more or less relevant“ excuse for everything and to use the present perfect at the same time, at this time (is it correct?)

So, at least this way. Enjoy this instrumental video:

And here is the promissed Mind Map (note of the author - repaired next day):

I see it quite relevant to learning languages now. Everybody agrees that children are super effective language learners (especially in comparison with adults). Why is it this way?

I would start by clarifying that I am not a believer and on the other hand I am not any unbeliever in God. I think that both are the same, but from other side – one believe in existence of God and the others believe in non-existence of God. But is not the topic of my post - So, what Jesus wanted to say to us? And how it is connected with our inability to learn effectively foreign languages?

From my perspective, Jesus sees children as innocent beings, still free of stuff we (adults) put on them, free of conditioning, prejudices and judgments … They are spontaneous beings, they have a courage and vitality (maybe because they do not carry all of that mentioned stuff with them). They overflow with activity, they are able to play and experiment, they are willing to make mistakes and learn from them without any gilt or shame, they are very flexible ... to name just a few. Such attributes are unfortunately lacking in us as adults (partially or completely) and it strongly influences our learning processes (language learning included) and needless to say that the influence is negative.

First of all, we are conditioned to speak with some language already (our mother language) and it is not easy to get rid of it (to give it away form our head) while using the other language we are learning.

Second, we are afraid to make mistakes and teachers support us in such approach. If you make a lot of mistakes, you are considered to be a bad student and you are “punished” by bad grades, of course… In such situation could be better not to be very initiative. The children, on the contrary, are eager to do things, to speak, they make mistakes, fall down while learning to walk, but they jump on their feet again and are able to learn very quickly this way :-)

Spontaneity was lost – we think to much before using our language - even our native language - but in case of the foreign languages it is even worse – we have grammar rules* on top of it! In his post on my blog, Jarne from Finland said that we should had special language kinder-gardens for adults (similar to those for children, where they learn foreign languages very early, before school) Would it be helpful? Would not it be kind of business meeting there anyway? Long faces and uneasy silence most of the time.

We somehow lost a fantasy, we tend to do things repeatedly over and over again, once learned. We fight against new approaches, ideas. And we struggle, because, everything is changing anyway. The lack of openness, tolerance and acceptance keeps us stuck on spot. No progress means no joy and it leads to quiting such an activity very quickly – in our case the language learning activity.

To say just a few.

So, was Jesus right? Did Jesus know the truth? I think so. He also used to say: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free”

  Let's break free! :-)

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*We think that children do not learn the grammar rules because they are too small to understand them – and we are not. We think that we, as adults, should learn simple sentences like children first. Isn't it perplexed a bit? We are adults, we do not need to learn such simple sentences, and at the same time we do not need to learn those complex grammar rules as children do not learn them explicitly. Yes, we can, but later - children learn them later too. (Excuse me for this, if you are a „Grammar Lover“ - you can do it
now ;-) Everybody is unique)

I do not think that the grammar as such is a bad thing. If you like it and if you "use" it in a proper way and time ... why not. Maybe, I could (I do not say intentionally "I SHOULD") start to pay more attention to it. NOW - after some years of neglecting it (=and being rather happy without it at the same time :-)  )

Today a little detour around writing about English and learning process. I was slightly surprised that people (you) read my BLOG in such a big amount. At the same time I got some contradictory reactions which I must at least shortly comment.

Most of you supports me, the others say that my writings are full of mistakes, riddled by grammar errors… I am grateful to ALL of you. I was thinking about it and I must say (or better to say “write”) something explicitly about it: I AM NOT NATIVE SPEAKER and I LEARN AS I WRITE. English is my second language (ESL), I am one of you. I learn with you. The majority of us, speakers of English all over the World are non-native speakers of English. I am one of them, one of you. I write here my experiences, my points of view and my knowledge I gained during the process called the LIFE. Small part of this process was an acquiring the ability to use languages (my native Czech, and then Russian, English, German, Spanish, Esperanto - some of them only very VERY slightly!) And this ability as far as English is concerned is not perfect at all, actually it is rather average till low average. To improve I need to write (everybody needs to practise) and I do it. And I do my best (as Don Miguel Ruiz says: ”Always do your best” :-) which is, I think, “his” Fourth Agreement).

First group of you (who supports me and say that I am doing a good job) encourages me to continue and second group (those who do not like my mistakes) helps me to learn from them. But YOU, dear reader, learn English from somebody else, please, preferably from native speakers. From my writings get just the MESSAGE. Or maybe you can notice those mistakes and learn from them too with me. Maybe you can start writing too (comment my posts :-) ) We are in the same process. So, this is my DISCLAIMER. These texts are not proof-read or anyhow corrected by anybody competent. Be aware of it and read all these writings with this notion in your mind. Thank you very much! :-)

Next time it will be to the topic. I promise! ;-)

Sometimes I think of my English and I know that it is not perfect at all. I am not very confident, especially as far as the grammar is concerned. When I was younger, I had studied this language at school. We combined our mother Czech with English, it was a lot of grammar, theory, exercises. Yes, I understood them, but only that particular hour, next was another grammar rule and it was the same. Gradually I realized that I have a big mess in my head. An it has not changed to this day :-) Maybe, fortunately for me, I started few years ago looking at English from a little different perspective and maybe because of it I was able to continue to learn and actually I love this language today. What happen? I realized that all of that is nonsense. I realized that I do not need all this knowledge ABOUT the language, I need USE this language, understand it, be able to speak and write... NO grammar rules too much needed. I realized that when I was a little boy I did not learn any grammar too. Yes, at school it started and actually it does not helped me to be more FLUENT in my mother tongue – Czech. Maybe to the contrary :-( While speaking I do not have time to think about any grammar rules, I need to focus my attention to the topic I am saying, to the message I am delivering and to my partner in communication. I found that it is better to make mistakes, but to be fluent and natural than NOT TO BE ABLE to communicate at all. By the way, most of the time I speak with not-native speakers and they “do not now” too, and if with native ones – they are tolerant :-) So, I follow the rule: "Always Do Your Best" what is, I think, the 4-th agreement by Migual Ruiz. Hopefully the right grammar will come later too! With my Czech it was the case after all. What about you?