Would you like to know more about the girl behind this whole program?
Hi, my name is Diana Pettit.
I've had the privilege of being a language teacher for the past 25 years. I've taught all kinds of students, from the witty-bitty babies to college students. I've worked at universities, day-cares, international schools, and even the headquarters of Samsung. (You know... the people that make your phones.). If there is a type of language student out there, c
And during the past 25 years, if there's one thing I've learned.... it's that there aren't many good language teachers out there.
Here are the 3 main types of language teachers you'll run into during your language journey.
The Book Busters: These are the one's that'll expect you to learn language the way they did.
These guys do everything by the book, and you can usually find them in traditional language classrooms everywhere. They're the guys that'll make you write your vocab words 10 times each. Then you'll have to study grammar until you're blue in the face for the test that's inevitably coming.
These "book busters" are everywhere. It's how I learned Spanish when I was in high school and college, and it's probably how you learned your first foreign language too.
The reason why peoples teach like this is because it's the way language learning has always been done. But there's a problem with learning a language like this.
You never get to actually practice speaking the language. So you end up with a lot of knowledge about the language, but you still can use it.
The Immersion Freaks: They'll expect you to learn from osmosis.
If there's anything worse than the Book Busters, it's the Immersion Freaks. Here's the deal, in the 1980's scientists started studying language learning. They found out that it's actually really hard to learn language from a book. (Shocker, right?)
The result is that all of these "Immersion Freaks" started coming out of the woodwork. Their whole thing, is that you should be able to learn a language, just by having someone talk to you in that language. Just like how babies learn their first language.
And while this type of learning works in theory, it's incredibly stressful for the language learner. That's why you see toddlers having meltdowns all of the time. They aren't able to communicate their needs and wants, so they just lose it everyday.
So if you enjoy being confused all the time, then immersion is great. But I don't recommend it personally.
The Tech Advocates: These people will want you to learn language from an app.
So we were stuck with the "Book Busters" until the 90's, then we had to deal with the "Immersion Freaks" for the next 20 years. Now we're with a new type of language teacher. And this language teacher isn't actually a teacher at all. It's a corporation.
Corporations do not have your best interests in mind when they create products. They want to make money. They will provide a basic understanding of the language, and they will package in the most intriguing way possible. They're good at that.
But I've never met anyone that became fluent in a language by using tech. I'll let you know if I do.
Here are the things I know for sure.....
Language should never be learned in a classroom.
When you're in a classroom, you usually have a language book with new grammar and new words. And then you'll have a teacher explaining to you what those word mean in your mother tongue.
But this style of learning is not at all effective.
And if you've ever taken a language course, then you probably have to look no further than yourself to find evidence of that.
You've got to learn language in REAL LIFE.
My third language is Korean. I moved to Korea when I was in my mid-twenties, and surprisingly I speak Korean reasonably well. But it's a little surprising.
Because I haven't really studied Korean, and I haven't really been immersed in Korean either. After all, I spent the majority my days for the past two decades teaching English and raising my kids.
Why does learning a language even matter?
I mean... can't you just pull out your phone and translate what the other person is saying?
No. Not really.
During my time as a teacher, I've traveled to places like: Mexico, Italy, Greece, France, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau, China, Japan, Guam, and Mongolia.
And I've never been able to just pull out my phone to communicate with another person on the fly. And here are the reasons for that.
So if you need to learn a new language, or maybe you want to teach English and travel the world like I did, then I want to help you.
Look around this site. See if anything speaks out to you. And if you have any questions, sign up for my free newsletter below, and just reply to any of the emails you receive.
