Link Things

In the wacky world of Lancaster University, where the weather plays hide and seek like a mischievous imp, I find myself embarking on another week of my MA programme. Let me tell you something, the weather here is like an advent calendar – you never know what you’re gonna get! So there I was, strolling to my Corpus Linguistics lecture. My mind was momentarily teleported to the first lecture last week. I was bored to death!

Ever since I was introduced to corpus linguistics through some fascinating contrastive linguistics papers, my passion for this field has grown immensely. I have eagerly delved into books, papers, and open lectures, as well as actively participating in seminars focused on corpus methods. This captivating discipline has captured my attention to such an extent that I have devoted a considerable amount of time, approximately a year, to immersing myself in two corpus-based discourse studies. Sadly, last week, in the first lecture, I literally just sat through an hour. The content was repeated to me, to the point that I could immediately recite the books and authors, from whom my professor cited the ideas. Many parts of the reading list for this module are very familiar to me, some in depth and others on the surface. Paul, if you somehow happen to read this, you don’t need to question your lecturing ability. It is on me who has decided to take so many CL classes. Rest assured, this happened only with the introduction lecture. 

What does learning mean or consist of?

This is probably a question that goes with endless debates. Sure, if we check the dictionary, we can easily find the meanings of learn as a verb. If we turn to Cambridge Online Dictionary for example, there are at least 4 different meanings of learn. Evidently, only one dictionary entry can provide us with more than one meaning, rather than one fixed definition. Who knows if there are more meanings to come when society develops and language changes? 

In reality, I believe, our interpretations are even more diverse than what the dictionaries offer. Let’s take language learning as a case in point. I was not aware of how diverse it can be until I started to go deeper into it. For example, while cognitive SLA sees second language acquisition as “a result of input that activates universal cognitive processes”, social SLA considers it “not a mental phenomenon but a social and collaborative one” (Ellis, 2010, p. 29). This example is cited only for illustrating how diverse learning is. There is more about language learning if you do further research on this.

Given the wide spectrum of learning, it is not pleasant and informative for me to hear something like “I have already learned that” or “this is nothing new to me” since such statements are very vague and can barely reflect anything about the learning journey of those who make them. Therefore, I would see myself more helpful to those who can clearly outline what they have read, listened to and discussed, and the extent to which they have understood a concept. If one comes to us with such statements above, I believe we would be very confused as to how and what to teach or support. 

If the content is somehow familiar, what makes a lesson new?

This question may sound a bit weird. Who on Earth wants to learn a lesson again and again? Hold on, take a second to think about ways you can get information these days. Given the rise of social media and the internet, we are clearly bombarded with information every minute and we learn new concepts even when we are not prepared mentally and physically to learn. I have picked up so many scientific lessons just by surfing Facebook, TikTok and what was formerly known as Twitter. Sometimes, we may come to class and realise that we have probably heard or read the concepts somewhere. Then, shall we just skip the class? Well, it depends on what we associate with learning.

I admit that I orient most of my professional and academic activities towards the focus on processes (as opposed to products). That is to say, I give more energy to the journey I go towards a goal, rather than the goal itself. As a result, I focus more on the learning process when I learn than the learning outcomes or transcripts I can get at the end of the day. Luckily, such an attitude towards learning hasn’t caused me much trouble during my exams and assignments, which have reinforced my belief that once I put enough effort along the way, the destination would never disappoint me. Indeed, I would lovely attribute the sheer absence of pressure in my study to this attitude.

So, how is this relevant? Clearly, as we see learning more as a process, we can pay closer attention to new things that happen around our learning environment. Remember my story at the beginning about the first lecture of the Corpus Linguistics module? Yes, it was boring but it was not totally nothing-new to me. The main messages about corpus linguistics in general could be the same as those I’ve read and taken notes of before. The ways my professor explained them, however, triggered new thoughts. Also, the interactions with peers (only to a minimum because it was a lecture) contributed to my new learning experience. As I fully embrace the variations between learning environments, I can most of the time (if not always) see the upcoming classes as enjoyable and worth learning, even though some may share the names or reference materials with what I have taken before.

What if we keep telling ourselves that we have already known or learned about the subject matter?

During my learning and more recently teaching experience, I have observed how differently two types of people – those who believe they have sufficiently learned about the subject matter and those who believe there is more to learn – behave and achieve. Note that here, I am not referring to those who have actually learned and those who have not been exposed to the problem beforehand. I am distinguishing people based on what they believe. In my own experience, those who fit into the second type enjoy the class more and contribute more effectively to the discussion.

I have been, frankly speaking, annoyed by those students who think they have fully acquired what the teacher is going to bring up. Firstly, they can make the teacher assume that everyone else is also familiar with the concepts like them, which is very dangerous to other students. Secondly, their attention is normally given to something else while everyone else is learning, which may cause a lot of distractions (e.g. they may chat or do homework of other subjects during the class). Outside the classroom, their discourse on learning may somehow demotivate other students. Imagine hearing some classmates say “This is so similar to what I’ve learned!” or “You haven’t learned these before?”, when you are actually struggling to understand the newly introduced concepts. Finally, from the perspective of a teacher, I feel strongly demotivated by these students because it seems to me that my lessons are not worth learning. In some cases, when I could not control my emotions, the class could experience something terrible actually. It happened once, to be honest. Therefore, being open to learning not only benefits us but also makes the situations easy and comfortable for those who learn with us.

That’s the case when we really have learned about the subject matter. I assume the situation and consequences would get worse if we firmly believed that we have learned something when we actually haven’t. This happened to me sometimes, when I heard or saw some familiar concepts. Later, however, it turned out that I hadn’t really grasped the concepts, I had just only known their existence. Clearly, “experiencing that something exists doesn’t tell us what it is” (Aquinas, as cited in Cory, 2014). To illustrate, knowing that people can use corpus methods to study language is not equal to being able to consider or apply corpus methods in your own studies of language. To wrap up this question, I would borrow Cory’s words one more time.

Learning about a thing’s nature requires a long process of gathering evidence and drawing conclusions, and even then we may never fully understand it

Therese Scarpelli Cory, in writing about Aquinas and Human Self-Knowledge

Neil deGrasse Tyson, an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator, once said in a promotional video: “One of the great challenges in this world is knowing enough about a subject to think you’re right, but not enough about the subject to know you’re wrong”. A friend of mine, who I have long admired as a life-long learner, brought this quote up in one of our conversations about how someone we know perceive and talk about learning. Conversations like these between me and my friends are not rare… but I have never been so inspired to sit down and write up something about learning. To all my fellows and students, please be freaking open to learning!

References:

Cory, T. S. (2014, January 28). Thomas Aquinas – Toward a Deeper Sense of Self. Fifteen Eighty Four. https://www.cambridgeblog.org/2014/01/thomas-aquinas-toward-a-deeper-sense-of-self/

Ellis, R. (2010). Theoretical Pluralism in SLA: Is There a Way Forward?. In P. Seedhouse, S. Walsh, C. Jenks (Eds.), Conceptualising ‘Learning’ in Applied Linguistics. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289772_3