-=Ramblings on learning=-

Lately, I've spent some time playing around with all sorts of accelerated learning-related techniques.  It surprises me to see that some of these techniques are ridiculously simple, yet were never taught in school.

I just got my hands on Secrets of Mental Math, after having seen a youtube video of someone reviewing the book (several weeks ago).  While I haven't read all of it, I'm surprised to see how easy it is to do all sorts of mental arithmetic, and I'm not even referring to the 'genius abilities' that skills abacus users have (like in this video).  Basically, this book shows that there are tricks to doing more efficient calculations, and I still wonder:  Why wasn't I taught how to do these things?

For example:  25 x 11 = 275

Here's a quick way to do it:

1) Add 2 and 5, which is 7
2) Stick the seven inbetween 25, which is 275

Here's another example: 53 x 11 = 583

1) 5+3=8
2) 583

Here's a slightly trickier one:

57x11=627

1)  5+7=12
2)  5127

The answer is 627.  So the way to think of this is 50+12, which is 62.  Thus, 627.

Of course, this 'formula' doesn't work for all numbers, but there's all sorts of tricks that this book teaches.  It also has a short section on mnemonics.

On a similar vein, I watched some youtube videos on speedreading just today, and I decided to put them to practice.  I'm no genius speedreader, but I can tell that they work.  I will admit that I've known about some speed reading techniques for quite some time, but again I wonder:  Why wasn't I taught how to do this in school?

Several days, I purchased a book on speedreading by a relatively unknown author, since he was inspired by a guy who applied speed reading to language learning.  I was itching to get this gentleman's book (i.e. the one who applied it to language learning), but sadly, it's long out of print.  This gentleman apparently wanted schools to start teaching it, but it seems a lot of schools are against it, even though it's highly efficient.  The problem stems from the fact that kids would finish a semester too quickly, and there would be nothing left to teach the kids.  This highly suggests that there's something wrong with the school systems if they do not want children to learn faster.  It seems to me that many of these educational institutions are not really interested in educating, since a radical change in teaching methods could potentially mean a change in status quo, which would jeopardize their future jobs.  The fact that quota systems exist is more than enough proof for me that many schools are not interested in educating, since they do not give grades that students rightfully deserve.  Here in Korea, it's even worse.  Moreover, I was surprised to discover that James Asher's TPR did not make much headway until some of his senior professors had retired. 

Interestingly, this is precisely the type of thing that educators trained in accelerated learning have been saying for years.  I can't help but think to myself, "Why would a school not be interested in using teaching methods that are far more efficient for learning?" Speedreading has been around for 100 years already.  Mnemonics date back to the ancient greeks.  Why is it that I was taught to spell words by phonetically sounding them out?  Even the word 'phonetic' doesn't have an 'F'.  Friend is, oddly enough, spelled with an 'i', otherwise it would be 'frend', yet 'trend' is never spelt as 'triend'.  And I suppose that means since 'tomb' rhymes with 'boom' it should be spelt as 'toom'?

I find it so ridiculous how my school teachers gave spelling tests without ever teaching how to actually spell correctly.  I was fortunate since I was naturally doing what good spellers do -  imagining letters (but, I never knew why I was good at spelling until 2 years ago when I consciously noticed what I had been doing in my mind).  Had some of my elementary school classmates been better spellers, they would have gotten into better classes in high school, which would have led to potentially better chances at going to a better university.

The way I see it, the education system in both the States and Korea need some radical reform, especially the way they teach languages.  My 4 semesters of Chinese at Rutgers did very little for me.  A few months in China were far better, which tells me that in itself shows that there is something seriously wrong with university language classes.  Additionally, I'm appalled by the fact that there are so many unqualified English teachers here in Korea, many of which have taught in Korea for several years by using inefficient methods.  Upon closer investigation, I discovered many of these experienced-teachers are not here to truly educate, since they're only in it for the benefits that the jobs provide.  Perhaps I'm a little too critical. 

After having taken my TESOL classes, I had thought that the communicative approach to language teaching was the ideal method, since it was the method I was trained to use, but now I'm convinced that this method, for the most part, is detrimental towards language learning, despite some of the claims of peer-review journals.  After all, students who speak incorrectly will reinforce these errors to the other students, and teachers cannot possibly correct every single one.  Even if they did correct students mistakes, this generally destroys student's confidence.  When used in appropriate times, it could be extremely useful, but by itself, I find the approach highly inefficient for both teachers and students.

This problem with the communicative approach leads me to believe that languages can in fact be learned unconsciously (though not entirely).  My experiences at work prove this to be true.  This also leads me to think that grammar should be never be the focus of language learning.  The fact that babies can learn languages rapidly without learning grammar is enough proof that we can learn languages quite rapidly without grammar.  I'm entertaining the idea that language learning should be done like the way speed reading is done:  By focusing on the whole, not the parts.  Based on the split-brain theory, I'm referring to a right-brain approach, which focuses on the forest, while the left-brain focuses on individual trees.  Clearly, both are very important, but the current education system seems to neglect the right side.

Interestingly, imagining, memorizing, and speedreading are all based on the right brain.  In fact the youtube videos of babies reading are all based on the early use of the right brain.  I think I'm on to something.  Perhaps using the right brain could make language learning much more efficient.