Because if the distraction is related to the language, then that's different.
Hi, Steve Kaufmann here and today, I want to talk about distractions
and how we deal with distractions.
We live in an age where there are lots of distractions.
Um, the multiplicity of media, uh, has made it easy to be distracted from
whatever task we are engaged with it.
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So it's very easy, I mean, I do a lot of my studying on the iPad, uh, right now,
in fact, I'm going through some material from a podcast in Persian called bplus
where he provides sort of concise reviews of books, a lot of self-help books, one
of which was Deep Work by Cal Newport.
And the other one was, uh, Focus by a gentleman called Goelman.
And this is kind of what triggered this idea in my mind of how
do we cope with distractions.
So I think when I sit now I'm going through these in Persian, I
listen to them and then I read the, I read them and I look up words.
And it's tremendously tempting to just check my Twitter feed and see
what's happened, what's the latest news is from Ukraine or, or to check
my email or check, uh, all of a sudden there's a message from someone.
And so how do I deal with this?
Now to the extent that, um, you know, I understand the Deep Work book, a lot
of the advice given there is pretty standard, like set certain times of day
aside for doing certain things, uh, set yourself goals, deadlines, uh, but one
of the more interesting concepts there is the idea that if it's, if it's, um,
kind of rewarding to go and see what sort of message has come in or check
your Twitter feed, then every time you do that, you are rewarding yourself
and therefore building up a habit.
Um, checking your Twitter feed instead of staying with the task of reading here in
Persian and looking up words and so forth.
So you have to train yourself.
So the more you can resist that temptation.
So if this is a 10 minute audio lesson with the corresponding number
of pages of text that I have to read through and look up words.
And I maybe I'm reading it for the third or fourth or fifth time.
So I'm again, going over yellow words that I don't yet know, uh, if I'm able to stay
with it and perhaps a 10 minute audio file will take me 30 minutes to go through.
Um, if I do manage to stay on task for 30 minutes, whenever I do that,
I feel that I've achieved something.
The brain is rewarded according to Newport if I understand him in Persian
translation, um, then I'm training my brain just as we train a muscle.
Uh, if you do certain things and repeat certain activities,
you'll build up that strength.
So similarly, every time I succumbed to the temptation to look up my
Twitter feed I'm weakening my brain.
When I resist that for 30 minutes, then I'm strengthening my brain.
I think that's an interesting concept because of course we
want to build up habits, not only language habits, but study habits.
Now, another thing is one of the things about being distracted is, and sort of
being focused I think I like to make a distinction between being distracted by
things that don't relate to the language you're learning because you have the
distraction is related to the language then that's different because I think
one of the concepts in Goleman's book about, uh, focus is that that, um, you
know, to some extent we should be open to new ideas, open to new stimulus and
not constantly responding to the sort of, if I understand the book again via the
Persian, the sort of more basic instincts of ours that make us afraid of this or
nervous about that, or want to know about.
And so that keeps us in a sort of a established routine in a way we
should be more open to new things.
So the distractions might be quite positive.
For example, if my wife is watching a Netflix series in Egyptian, which she
was doing a couple of weeks ago, that's a distraction and all of a sudden, wow, I
want to do more Egyptian Arabic, Arabic.
In other words, the distraction can be a source of stimulus.
And I think when we're we're language learning, we're kind of, um, you know,
vagabonds, we want to wander around and sample some of this sample some of
that, uh, it's not like we sort of sit down and ok for the next hour I'm going
to try to nail this vocabulary list.
That's not very effective.
If we allow ourselves to be distracted a bit by um, that can bring a lot of reward
and maybe makes our brains more open because after all, when we're learning a
language, we're trying to get this newest thing, this new way of seeing things
of expressing things into our brain.
And I think we need to be flexible for that to happen.
We need to be open to new ways of saying things and this sort of flexibility
in our attitude uh, I think it's a big part of what makes some people
better language learners than others.
So it may just be, and I have no research to just...
to support this, but it may be that a certain degree of openness, um,
ability to willingness to be distracted, willingness to enjoy the distraction,
um, can be beneficial while at the same time, if that is a distraction that
takes you away from the language learning tasks, then that's not a good thing.
And so in that sense, for example, I often feel that, you know, if I could
read better in Arabic or Persian, I would love to read actual paper books because
then there's even less distraction, less likelihood of going to my Twitter feed.
Um, and I've found that, uh, say for Czech or for, even for Polish, uh, or
even Russian, Ukrainian, where I can read those languages more easily then
reading and a paper book is again, a way of getting more deeply into the language.
Whereas reading on my iPad and I'm looking at words and I'm listening
to the text to speech, those are kinds of distractions from the
actual task of absorbing the content.
And of course, when we read and when we absorb the content, we are getting
our brains used to the language.
So I guess what I'm saying is that you have to have a strategy which allows
you to be distracted, uh, when you are good enough to read paper books,
I definitely recommend doing so.
On the other hand, if, as in the case of my Arabic and Persian, they're
just so many words that I don't really quite know how to pronounce.
And I really don't know the meaning of them that is simply too
frustrating to read a paper book.
So I read on my iPad, but my objective eventually is to be able to read, you
know, paper material in those languages.
So leave yourself open-minded to distractions, but try to suppress those
distractions that take you away from the language entirely, uh, and doing
that you can develop some good habits, just like muscles, which will make you
effective more effective language learner.
That is all based on the distraction of me reading these,
uh, Persian language summaries of these two English language books.
Uh, again, I throw this out there as a distraction, as a stimulus, ideas and
you can make of this, whatever you want.
Thank you for listening.
Bye for now.