Why 99% of language students fail
- and what you should do instead

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SHALL WE INFUSE YOU WITH A NEW LANGUAGE?

Why 99% of language students fail -
and what you should do instead

A personal message from language coach, 
Dr. Reimar Vetne, about how to speak a new language fast - even if you don't like grammar and have a bad memory

A personal message from language coach Reimar Vetne (PhD) about how to speak a new language fast - even if you don't like grammar and have a bad memory

Reimar Vetne (PhD)

Zoom forward 18 years and I had just completed a PhD in Michigan in the U.S., and got a  job as an assistant professor at a university... in Mexico!

Not knowing much more than "sí" and "hola" in Spanish, but desperate for a job, my family (which now included 3 children) and I moved down south. I was allowed to teach my classes in English, with students translating for me to the rest of the class. I had to quickly learn to read Spanish to grade assignments and tests, so it was a race against the clock.

They put me straight away in a Spanish class, together with a bunch of young foreign undergraduate students (from the Carribean, Asia, and other non-latino parts of the world).

Now remember, I had already for many years coached people back in Europe on learning a language efficiently using various digital tools, but I wanted to do an experiment on myself on how a classroom course would work. Maybe it would be more useful than I thought?

The classroom teacher was as good as they come. She was funny, knew exactly how to teach grammar so it was understandable, she spoke mostly Spanish (and not English) in class, which is important. I enjoyed myself. 

Except that my progress with Spanish was relatively slow. When the undergrad students went back to their dormities and used their poor (but rapidly improving) Spanish with Mexican friends, I went to my office and prepared my English slides and class notes for my own upcoming classes.

I got lots of grammar, and some vocabulary training, in class. They got lots of Spanish practice outside the classroom. My progress was steady but slow. Theirs was fast. Yet we sat in on the same classes with the same teacher.

Are you picking up on this? What made the difference? Yes, exactly. 
They listened and practiced actual Spanish a lot more.

A professor in California put a name on the obvious some decades ago. He revolutionized the understanding of foreign language education for those who listened. Unfortunately, many classroom teachers, app-developers and textbook-writers have not.

His name is Prof. Stephen Krashen, and the key lesson that he observed analyzing language students he called "comprehensible input". Let me tell you about him on the next page, and how you can benefit from his discovery.

Hi, I'm Reimar Vetne (PhD).

I've been running group coaching for language learners for decades. 

As a language coach I don't do the actual language teaching itself. There are digital tools and resources that do that more effective than even the best human teachers. I have instead coached and guided language learners from the sideline as they used the best tools.

So I have seen up close what works, and what doesn't. I have studied the patterns. I have experimented with how much people are able to study each day, how slow or fast progress is possible.

As a result, I have seen which factors actually help people learn to speak and read a new language, and what are mostly a waste of time.

Let me tell you a few stories about how people either failed or managed to learn a foreign language, and see if you can spot some common patterns.

English was not my mother tongue. I grew up in Norway, and had English in school from primary school (4th grade). When I went to England to take a B.A. degree right after high school, we were 10 or more Norwegians enrolling at the same time.

It's crazy, but it's true: Did you know that over 99% of people who attempt to learn a new language never achieve fluency?

In one study, only 0,7% of students who studied a foreign language in school achieved fluency. Many classroom courses overfocus on grammar and talking about the language, and not enough on actually using the language. (I'll cover later why that is a big problem.)

So maybe smartphone apps are better than classroom courses?

Well, according to one source the success rate for one of the most popular apps on the market varied from 0,24% completion-rate in one language to only 0,01% for a popular language like Spanish. Only 1 out of 10,000 completed the course!

These are terrible odds against you ever learning the language you dream about speaking - if you attend a classroom course or use one of the popular apps on the market.

No wonder lots of language learners feel frustrated with slow progress, feel like they have a bad memory and quickly forget what they learn, and hate the endless amount of grammar they are told to learn and memorize.

With approaches to language learning where more than 99% give up before reaching fluency, the odds are stacked against you before you even begin.

You deserve better.

So if you have bad experiences with language learning apps, courses or textbooks, get ready for a game-changer. 

On this and the following pages I will reveal why so much of foreign language education is ineffective, and what actually works to reach fluency. One of the keys is what researchers call 'comprehensible input', and that I call tapping into your 'language intuition').

We all had to take an English proficiency exam, to determine if we needed supplemental English language classes besides our undergraduate courses. I did not have to. Everyone else did.

What made the difference in our English proficiency? We had all had English classes in school since we were kids. But I had started with computers and gaming quite early (which are all in English), and I grew up with parents who were rabid readers. Lots of English books on the shelves. I was deep into international politics in my teenage years, and subscribed to Newsweek magazine while in high school.

Yes, a pretty nerdy childhood, now that I reflect back on it, ha ha. But it all gave me a language edge. Lots of reading and listening to English turned out to make me fluent - who knew!

Today's young people, around the world, are a lot more fluent in English than most of my generation were (I'm Gen X), not to mention generations further back. It's not that classroom English teachers have suddenly become pedagogical geniuses, or that English textbooks around the world have got magic powers.

It's that the young today grow up using English a lot more than previous generations. Lots more reading, listening, writing, and speaking it. (Are you taking notes so far?)

Campus buildings from the idyllic college I attended, in the heart of England. I actually started dating (and later marrying) someone from this girls' dormity. Got a lot for my tuition payments!

Next: Part 2 (of 6): Grammar vs. Language Intuition