Welcome to school, I’d like you to memorize all those books in your bags by the end of the day. Thank you.
I’ve always been one of those people that doesn’t really like being told what to do. I’m not sure if it had something to do with how I was raised or my genes, but I just don’t like someone telling me how to do something.
I like being shown how to do something, and then going and trying to do it myself. This usually involves me failing, a lot, repeatedly actually.
Because I don’t like to be taught, I like to be shown. Which leads to a lot of failure, but, wait, that’s a good thing, let me explain.
The Old School Way of Teaching
It was once believed that the human brain is just a tabula rasa or blank slate. This blank slate was to be filled by scholars that had all the information in the old days. The idea was that they just kind of dumped it in there and then you would have knowledge and be smart and stuff.
You still see this same style of teaching in some schools. I think some language teachers just give up on trying to make the class engaging and instead dump rules on you about grammar and how to use the language. But, at least for me, this didn’t seem to be very useful. I kept forgetting the rules and having to look everything back up again.
Thankfully, a lot of teachers have started to turn away from this form of teaching. There is still a need for grammar rules and learning those rules, but there is a much better way to present those rules that doesn’t involve so much abstract thinking.
That is you can actually get your fingers dirty and try to figure out the grammar rules for yourself.
Showing not Teaching
Some textbooks will show you an example conversation or passages first to help you get an idea of how to use the grammar point. This is where you should be trying your best to extract the rules from these examples instead of just reading the rules.
One book that is setup well for this is the Minna No Nihongo series. They start off with an example dialog that you can read through to get an idea of what the grammar point is like. Then, you move on to practicing the grammar point and getting your hands dirty.
An online resource that does this well is trusty Japanese Pod 101. In each of their lessons, they start off with a dialog that presents the situation. Then, later, they go over the grammar point once you’ve had some exposure to it. The newer episodes have sections where they have you make sentences that you repeat back.
My Humble Attempts
A lot of you were really excited about the grammar guides that I released a few months ago. I got a couple of emails requesting that I keep them coming, so I wanted to put together something really cool that had good grammar guides plus some free content for everyone to enjoy and learn Japanese with.
The result is that I will be releasing grammar guides on a regular basis from now on. The cool part is that I’ll be releasing the grammar introduction videos on YouTube for absolutely free (and in totally awesome FullHD) so that you can learn along as you wish. For those that want a little something more, the premium site offers more practice with the grammar points, common mistakes, and JLPT-style questions as well as the JLPT Study Guide Kit.
What I really wanted to do with these videos is show you the grammar point instead of throwing up a bunch of grammar rules for you to digest. Each video gives you a situation that you can draw conclusions from. This should make it a lot easier to remember because you are learning in a more natural way.
This is method of teaching that I actually learned getting my CELTA (a standard English teaching certificate from Cambridge) and I feel like it is a more interesting and engaging way to learn. What I tried to do is translate that onto the web for everybody to benefit from.
But, I would love some feedback on these videos, the good and the bad. I really want to make it a great resource for everyone to learn from and your feedback makes that possible. So if you have any suggestions I’d love to hear them in the comments.
How About Your Favorite Way to Learn?
Do you like things being shown to you or would you prefer to learn by studying grammar rules? Let me know in the comments.
Photo by James
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I am enjoying studying with anki. Thank you so much
I used to use Anki every day as well, but when my computer crashed I ended up switching over to memrise because it was all online. Great program though!
I’m totally with you; I hate being told what to do; I just don’t get it. I’m watching a computer video on how to do something on Zoom, and I just see images and words go by like they were in alphabet soup. This is not my favorite way to learn. I’m an interactive learner and reader. Computer manuals drive me nuts because they often assume you know some basics and just skip over it as if you were an advanced geek. If I can’t ask a question of the teacher, I feel like a robot, and it takes me that much longer to learn something because I have questions come up in my mind while he/ she is telling me how to do something. Thanks for the opportunity to share a et peeve about computer learning.
I think some people are just really good natural teachers and can sense what people know / don’t know, but others have a much tougher time of it.