Beyond Language Learning Blog – Beyond Language Learning

Creating, Coaching, Consulting, and Continuing Beyond Language Learning: An Update

It’s been a while! The last time I posted to this blog was almost three years ago, back in July 2020.

I’ve been planning to start posting again, and I think it’s about time I shared an update. In this post, I’ll discuss:

Why I stopped posting: Discouragement, being busy, and taking action on what I’ve written about language acquisition
What I’ve been doing: My projects related to improving language learning: creating content, coaching, and consulting
Why I’ve decided to start posting again: Focusing on what I can do best, growing interest in topics on this blog, and responding to technological advances

Finally, I have a few words if you’ve tried to contact me before, have been in touch, or were thinking about reaching out.

Abundant Compelling Comprehensible Input: What We’re Aiming For, and How to Get There

There’s no shortage of compelling things to communicate in every language. The challenge is having people make them highly comprehensible even to those who don’t yet know their language at all.

In order to acquire new languages as effectively, efficiently, enjoyably, and effortlessly as possible, the most important thing is to have an abundance of compelling comprehensible input at every level.

Compelling comprehensible input means being able to hear the language you’re learning in ways that are both highly interesting and highly understandable to you.

Unfortunately, although we have both the technology and human resources to create it in abundance today, compelling comprehensible input remains needlessly scarce.

This is especially the case for total beginners, but it’s true for every level of learner, all the way up to advanced.

This blog, Beyond Language Learning, is about creating a world where compelling comprehensible input is available in abundance to every language learner.

You’re reading this, I hope, because you too are interested in the same kind of goal, thinking about how to get there, and perhaps even working already to build that world.

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Beyond Language Learning: Looking Forward in 2019

Beyond Language Learning 2019 As I look back on 2018 and look forward to this coming year, I realize that 2019 will mark ten years since I discovered the Automatic Language Growth approach in the course of researching how we as adults might learn new languages to very high levels of ability.

ALG suggests that adults can effortlessly acquire new languages and even approach native-like levels in them as young children appear to, given the same “childlike” approach of implicit learning without conscious study or practice, and the opportunities for interesting and understandable experiences with the language to support it.

Pursuing my interest in language acquisition and the ALG approach over the years has brought me down an exciting path that includes:

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Beyond Language Learning: Looking Back at 2018

New Year 2019 Fireworks Another year has come and gone!

R.I.P. 2018 (2018-2018), as a joke I think is old by now goes.

I’m eager to look forward to this new year, but first I want to share a few highlights from Beyond Language Learning over the past year.

Automatic Language Growth: The Explainer Video

Since Automatic Language Growth is the main approach I’ve been researching and have focused on in this blog, I decided to make an explainer video about it.

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What are you doing reading this blog?

Beyond Language Learning views Over the past year I’ve observed from the stats for Beyond Language Learning how people all over the world are visiting and reading this blog.

Not surprisingly, major English-speaking countries like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom top the list for number of views.

Many readers also come from Thailand, almost certainly because I write a lot about the unique AUA Thai Program and the Automatic Language Growth approach it uses to teach Thai.

South Korea stands out as another country that I get a lot of views from consistently.

Occasionally I will see many views from less expected and far-flung places like Angola or Uzbekistan.

Wherever you are reading this from, I wonder what brings you to this blog.

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Looking back and forward: One year of posts on Beyond Language Learning

I started this blog at the beginning of last year with the opinion based on my research and experiences that given the right kind of opportunities, adults might be able to effortlessly learn languages to very high or even native-like levels of ability.

I wrote that these learning opportunities could involve having a lot of fun and gaining other things at the same time, something I further envision in another post describing the possibilities of optimal language learning experiences.

The ALG approach

In many posts over this past year I have focused on the Automatic Language Growth approach to language learning, which I introduced early on as something that has greatly influenced my thinking in this area.

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