January '09 Newsletter (4)
 
Hello to everyone Out There and welcome to our new members and newsletter subscribers...
 
I hope your January is...still going, despite the 'economic slowdown'.
 
This is what I have for you today:
 
Elementary exercise (with Spanish instructions) - the price of stuff (naturally)
Video feedback from English Out There students
Email debate with someone with a big website
Member gets member marketing - earn some money (naturally)
STOP PRESS - Languages Out There book - self-funding advertising campaign
Favourite Credit Crunch headline of the month
 
Okay, this is a graphic from one of our Self-study Elementary lessons with Spanish instructions (we have 'em in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian too), the subject...the cost of stuff, i.e. money, naturally (please don't think we're obsessed about money at this time of year or in the current 'slowdown'):
 

 
 
A while ago we took some video of English Out There students in London both before and after they did their short courses. I have edited the 'well, what did you think if it?' replies into one short film and put it on the homepage of the site, listen to what they think, I could even leave the answers in to the question 'what was the worst thing about the course?'  Brave eh?  I know, no emails or offers of marriage , please.  Check out Florent's reply about the worst thing about the course, go to the homepage and watch it:
 
www.languagesoutthere.com
 
I am always having email discussions with interesting people in English teaching, learning technology, linguistics etc.  I just like asking questions and being nosey.  Often something stirs me and the words flow, like this week when I was talking to someone who runs a very big English teaching website and is a language learner themselves, ready for it? Here goes (sorry to the low level readers!)...
 
Big webmaster: My language learning experiences are probably as complex as anybody else's, and mylanguageexhange has only played a bit-part role in that complexity, albeit I've preferred it to schools in the last 3 or 4 years. There are so many issues involved in language learning, I wish I had the time to go into a bit of detail here! It's probably enough to say for now that I like your approach and wish you luck with it.

Me: Thanks a lot!  True, many many issues. Everyone, at a micro level, is different, we all have our own systems, learning styles etc. Language is part of everyone, we've all learnt at least one language and that can contain the seeds of knowledge for how we learn another. The program in Bangkok I mentioned (http://www.algworld.com/programs.php - I have no connection, nor does Krashen but i have recorded an interview with an English bloke who learned fluent Thai in under two years and will publish it soon on my site)  asks people to effectively regress (without hypnosis, don't worry!), throw off the self-referential image and appearance concerns and relax and not worry, just listen and try to understand the meanings.  If the meanings are vivid and interesting enough they stick. Pinker's metaphor stuff is amazing because as he explains it you realise that a lot of language we know and use in our first language is rooted in a deeper understanding of the complex situational and physical meanings of words and phrases that, to a non-native speaker, are easily misunderstood or seem to have the same meanings.  The connection between tangible or physical experience of the language in a memorable way and deeper learning or acquisition is really beginning to take shape I think.  That's why the academic director of a global chain of schools told someone I know who worked there in confidence that he was always embarrased come certificate time, as those who had studiously attended every classroom based lesson of their super intensive course were much less able to communicate effectively than the ones who had done a less intensive course and some work experience.  That must be one major reason why work experience took off. The learners realised it worked much better.  The key word being 'experience'.  Our stuff makes every lesson an experience based around the language studied but publishing, being what it is at its core, about selling paper and being run by businessmen who pay academics and commission them to give them their legitimacy and some cash to live on, is not terribly interested in promoting something that takes the learner out of the space they control, the classroom, even if it doesn't actually work as well as other techniques.  Oh god, I've done it again, bored for England and St George..sorry, you seem like a really nice switched on bloke with the best of intentions and here I am giving you a lecture.... :-)  I don't expect things to change much soon, but I think it is coming, like it has for the music biz, and the tools and the technology to inform are getting much more powerful, as you know.
 
Member gets member marketing - Did you know that if sign up to our website and bring just four (4) friends who also sign up...your membership is effectively FREE! So make sure you email us and ask for a member affiliate link, click here for more info (He's on about money...again! It's shocking.)
 
STOP PRESS - a big London ad agency have written a 'Languages Out There' book and are going to use it to demontrate to the world how an innovative self-funding advertising campaign works!  Announcement soon.
 
So, as I've said before, the opportunities are there, they are real and they are increasing. You really don't need to do what you have always done, change is in the air, even these guys made a little something to keep them in beer and fags during these tough times!
 
If what I have written above interests you and you think it might interest some of your friends, do please forward this newsletter to them.
 
Favourite credit crunch headline of the month:
 
"More people could go blind as credit crunch causes people to avoid eye tests"
- The Daily Mail.
 
(money, again!)
 
Until next time...
Cheers
Jason