Topic 233 : "Ups & Downs Of Language Learning"

Topic 233 Ups & Downs Of Language Learning 30 January 2026

[find us: Myer Basement Food Court. Look for a furry animal toy on the table. Myer Basement Food Court is fairly quiet at 6:30 pm every second Friday evening when we meet there. This makes talking easy and relaxed. Each time there is a different topic with 10 talking points to help with ideas. For more details see the Facebook group at . The organizer is Thor May, [email protected] . See you soon :) ]

Talking Points

1. Can you remember a time or times when you felt that you had reached a plateau in language learning? Somehow you were not able to progress to the next level?

2. When you think you have understood, but are not quite sure you have understood a speaker in your new language, what do you do?

3. Tell us about the moment, if you can remember it, when you first spoke a new language in real communication, and someone actually understood you.

4. What are some times when you became completely fed up trying to explain something in your new language, and desperately wanted to fall back on your mother tongue? One Chinese girl told me she felt that her IQ had dropped about 20 points when she spoke English!

5. Native speakers of a language may speak about a need, or a comment, or a topic. They rarely stop to think about the language they are using. Most of them will not appreciate your struggle to say what you mean in their language. They may even be hostile. Have you ever felt depressed or angry at the indifference of native speakers?

6. In language learning for most people there might be days when it all seems easy, but on other days the words just won’t come. They seem to forget everything. Have you had this experience? What do you do then?

7. Australia is now a multicultural country, and most of us are used to hearing different accents. It wasn’t always that way. In many countries a different accent will invite discrimination or even danger (e.g. in the Northern Irish conflict a different Irish accent could get you killed). Are you satisfied with your accent, or do you try to change it?

8. Above intermediate level you can experiment with different learning “methods” and probably still learn something from any of them. At beginner level you might wander from method to method and become discouraged. Or maybe you tried one method and became completely discouraged. What actually worked for you? What did you try but then walked away from?

9. I wrote a PhD about teaching. After I finished, my final supervisor in Australia (there had been several) sent me a complete lecturing program which he wanted me to use for training teachers in China. It was pretty standard, but something was missing. Why, I asked, did the program say nothing about MEMORY. He sent an angry email which said “Memory has got nothing to do with language learning”. Why do I think he was an idiot?

10. Well over 95% of English speakers who enrol for foreign language courses never actually learn to speak another language. Why is this? How would you encourage them?

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