Tips for staying motivated when learning a language in lockdown

Are you motivated enough to motivate yourself to keep learning and growing? That’s the real question we should be asking, in my humble teacher’s opinion. 

I’m an expat, happily living in Germany for years now, feeling my way through the jungle that education can be, and this is meant very seriously. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy teaching my clients and students, delivering information into their brains - it’s all in a day’s work. It’s what we sign up for. But I can also safely say that, without a bit of effort on the student’s part, my role is redundant. We’re getting nowhere. That’s why self-motivation is key. 

Not that the teacher can’t be instrumental in helping the student to get there. As a teacher and educator with more than eight years of experience, I’m well-practised at lighting that “want to learn” fire and keeping it burning until the student leaves my classroom and starts walking their own path to discovery. 

But what about now - how do we stay motivated to keep learning when language classes have, at best, all been moved over to Zoom or, at worst, been cancelled or foregone altogether? No longer an opportunity to get out of one’s home for some face-to-face social interaction, language lessons via video chat can quickly become yet another painful hour spent glued to the laptop screen - in short, a chore. 

Keep the fire burning

We are finding ourselves “in media res” (to use a fancy Latin word) - directly in the middle of one of the most chaotic situations modern humanity has ever had to face. If you google the words “motivation” and “pandemic”, you’ll land on a good few dozen hits, nicely-written pieces by people who really want to help. But I also believe that we should associate “motivation” and “pandemic” with “burnout” and “exhaustion”. Put these words together in the search bar and you won’t find as much joy or #positivevibes. 

You see, the main hurdle I face during online classes that I teach is not, say, issues with my students’ internet providers, or their kids screaming in the background, Instead, it’s being able to keep their attention focused on me for the whole duration of the class. This is sometimes a Herculean task, and I am not exaggerating. 

So, I am going to try to come with a more quirky and original tip for keeping motivation levels up during these challenging times - and still progress in learning a foreign language. Here we go. 

Active learning

Have you heard of the concept of “brainstorming together alone”? 

Basically, this works best when done together with another person (or group of people) who also wish to learn or improve their language skills. So find yourself a language buddy or two, and get practising. It’s worth noting that this method works best outside of classrooms, because it focuses on active learning (and in classroom environments students tend to be more passive participants, expecting the teacher to deliver knowledge into their heads like a DHL delivery guy!)

It works like this: 

Step 1: Idea & Concept

Take one basic word that you know and give the same word to your buddy or group. Give yourselves a time limit and see how many other words you can find that are related to that word, without consulting a dictionary (because what would be the point of that!) 

If you’re on your own, write the word down in your target language and either mind-map around it with connecting concepts (nouns, adjectives, verbs), or see if this word brings up other words that you didn’t know were buried in your brain. The idea of this exercise is to bring up all of your hidden passive knowledge - the “black swan” - see how many words you actually know! 

The advantage of doing this exercise in a group is that your partners might know other words you do not - and vice versa - and suddenly you have all learnt some new pieces of vocabulary. 

Step 2: Be playful

Play with words. Try to see if you can transform your basic word into a family with the same root. For instance, take “garden”. You can maybe also add to that family the words, “gardening” and “gardener” … do you see where I’m going with this? Suddenly, you’re playing a game, but you’re also learning with it, too. 

If learning is no fun, it turns into a chore. And heaven knows we’re already overloaded with those. We are all stuck in a very strange time slot but that doesn’t mean we can’t make time work in our favour. It is a question of pure motivation. As pure as those summer mornings spent watching the sunrise. 

Motivation and positivity are never an accident. They are always the "result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort," to quote Paul K. Meyer, an American entrepreneur. 

So playfulness, games, activities, personal challenges - they all tie up nicely with your inner account who works for the "self-accountability" department. Learning is like going on an adventure, testing your limits and learning to know yourself better. You've got nothing but winning to do. Go on, shock everyone, make it happen!

Step 3: Motivation versus discipline

Learning a foreign language has so many documented benefits. To name just a couple: it enhances your decision-making skills and also help to sharpen your native language, all while making sure that your brain’s power is boosted. 

I’d like to touch on just one last aspect: I’m a big comics fan. So I’ve just rewatched Marvel’s Captain Marvel and realised how much her story of failing is a story about all learners. It sounds cheesy, but we are all the heroes of our own narrative and we get to choose how many times we get up after we fall. Sometimes, people lay insane expectations on us - like telling you that you need to achieve a certain level of your target language in the same amount of time as other people - but how crazy is that? Everyone moves at their own pace. 

I’m here to tell you that what others think you can do doesn’t really matter, as long as you are aware of your own powers. 

We fail, we fall, we dust ourselves off, and we start again. Language learning is no exception.