Category: skills

Listen to the Silence and Appreciate It

listening , persuasion , self-confidence , self-improvement , silence

Yuhakko's avatarYuhakko　语학子

Our lives are filled with sounds. We are always surrounded with music, noises from the streets, sounds we make, etc.

For this reason we have all become unease with silence. We despise it, try to avoid it like the pest, and often end up filling it in whatever way possible to make it stop.

Why do we push it away so much though?

I believe the reason behind this is simply that it is a common habit we all have.

Habits can be great tools for improving ourselves but it can also be the cause of great troubles. Being an alcoholic is having a habit of drinking too regularly, smoking is a habit that can cause cancer, eating unhealthy food is a habit that can provoke many health-related problems.

In a similar way, not being comfortable with silence is a habit that causes troubles. Contrary to the above examples…

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Fostering Collaboration Across Cultures

leadership, thoughts

Josepha Haden Chomphosy's avatarShedding Light not heat

Diversity doesn’t come without tension. The key is to know how to make it into jazz and not discordant noise.

Stereotypes are shortcuts our brains use to make fast decisions (especially when there is too much information or potential unknowns). We tend to infer a lot about others based on our past experiences, whether it’s accurate to do so or not. As the world becomes more connected and our interactions more immediate, we interact with people unlike us every day without even realizing it.

Our brains, being the prediction machines that they are, take these stereotypes and form an idea of how interactions will go.

Illustration: Design vs Development

As a quick example let’s look at the work-centric, cross-cultural environment between Design and Development.

A stereotypical concept of a Designer might be that they are:

  • untidy
  • unencumbered by deadlines
  • value form over function
  • generally “right-brained”

A stereotypical concept of a…

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The Disconnect Between Speaking, Reading, and Writing

Language, Language classes, Language fluency, Language learning, Language skills, Speaking tests

NiaaAnderson's avatarTips from a Language Lover

One problem I noticed early on in my language learning career was that I was always better and more comfortable reading than writing and especially speaking.

One problem I noticed early on in my language learning career was that I was
always better and more comfortable reading and writing than speaking.

I never really had much trouble writing short paragraphs and reading comprehension
exercises were fairly easy. Heck, when I had to write a research paper, my only
real concern was getting close to the required length.

But speaking was a completely different monster. Most times when I was asked
a question in class, I would respond with my go-to phrase “je ne sais
pas” (I don’t know). Listening exercises were a special torture
because I was so used to hearing my classmates slowly pronounce every single
syllable with a weak to non-existent accent that hearing a native…

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How To Think In A Different Language

Advice, Language learning, Target Language, Thinking, Thinking in a different language

Yuhakko's avatarYuhakko　语학子

One of the most noticeable aspects of getting better at a language is starting to notice your thought-process switching to your target language.

This evolution doesn’t come all of a sudden but rather slowly after months of study in said language.

Yet, some people cannot seem to think in their target language despite learning it for years. Why is that?

I believe there are a few reasons behind this but luckily, those can be arranged and fixed with just a bit of work on yourself. I recommend start with the below 3 actions:

1. Listen to dailytopics

Your life is full of daily actions, repeated over and over. From getting your coffee in the morning, to taking the train, to being annoyed at a certain mail you get, to being happy for a small action, all the way to getting ready to go to bed at night.

Most…

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syntactic priming

syntactic priming

danielmartin67's avatarKeep It Simple Activities

Syntactic priming is the process that takes place when we make predictions upon hearing certain grammatical patterns which guide us to guess the string of words that are more likely to be uttered next based on our previous encounters with those patterns. Basically we are constantly building sentences based on what we hear, which are next confirmed or then reformulated. We hypothesise. We fill gaps. This is one of the reasons why listening -far from being a receptive process- is very much an active skill.

A very productive activity for any language level is to have students engaged in some “syntactiv priming” from a reading passage or the transcript of a listening extract from the textbook after it has been read or listened to and they have done some work around it.

Here is an extract from a reading passage from Sure Intermediate, Student’s Book, Helbling English. Free sample from…

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Why no one will ever listen

Attention, Comfort, Comforter, God, Helper, Listening, Lonely, People, Sincere

Daughter of Christ's avatarWorthy

Have you ever felt that you are unheard?

Have you ever tried to express yourself but no one seems to be listening or paying attention?

Have you ever felt that you are talking to a wall?

Have you ever felt that you are screaming at the top of your lungs but everyone is simply busy doing what they are always doing and not paying the slightest attention to your screams?

If you answered yes to any of the questions here, I have some good news for you! You are human!

Yes, you are human. Humans seem have invented this idea of a “listening ear” as though we can actually genuinely sit there and listen to someone else and really understand what that person is feeling or going through. We say things like, “I just wanted to vent.” or “I was just letting out some laundry.” or anything else to say…

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