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Me and colleagues, Bishkek, 2009

An embarrassment of riches resources

I’m getting back to my roots here with a post dedicated to language learners.

First, a hypocrisy alert:

I didn’t email out my latest video post - I subscribe to you but that doesn’t mean I read you (sorry) – because I didn’t want to overload your inboxes. If you suffer from email/subscription overwhelm, you might find something useful in my message.

This post contains quite a few links but that’s only because I want to share a lot of juicy resources for you. As I’m sure you are aware, 17 January is officially “Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day,” the day, apparently, most people call it quits on their resolutions. If learning a language or improving your existing language ability is a goal for this year, then now is the time to remind you not to give up!

(Sorry/not sorry if I’m overloading you with yet more stuff, but this is done with the noblest of intentions.)

Let’s talk about four teachers, each with different strengths (and weaknesses?) and wildly different approaches. Each was effective or ineffective in their own way. Some catered to their student’s desires, others did their own thing. (I’m using the past tense here to include me for simplicity’s sake; I’m not necessarily done with teaching just yet.)

The first three are from Kyrgyzstan. The fourth is me.

After that, we’re going to talk about four more teachers, all with unique perspectives, resources, and ideas to offer.

January 2009 – Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

This was meant to be my last hurrah teaching English, and I was only trying to fill the time between then and September 2009, when I was due to start my postgraduate teaching certification in high school history in the US.

I took the classic ‘killing two birds with one stone’ approach: do a bit of extra teaching to keep myself busy, while improving my Russian.

My previous language learning attempts – which basically encompass most of my life from the age of 10 to 30 – proved futile. Now is not the time to get into that – an upcoming future post will be titled ‘Why I Suck at Learning Languages.’ (Believe me, I’ve got some damn good excuses, some involving other teachers, some my own lack of willpower, circumstances, need, motivation, etc.)

In Bishkek, I had two incredible teachers and one that I’m not so sure about.

And then there was me, the English teacher/lousy language learner.

Teacher 1: Janat

She was brilliant.

She was a taskmaster who insisted on making me do grammar even though I said I just wanted speaking and listening practice. She refused to do as I requested. You need some grammar, she told me.

She was right.

She did it in such a way that I immediately saw the value in it. She gave me ample time to speak while drip feeding me the necessary bits of grammar so I wouldn’t sound like a total neanderthal, despite my objections. She gained my trust because she so effortlessly adapted her approach just enough to give me what I wanted while also giving me the structure to come across as somewhat coherent.

At the end of the month, I was sorry to have to say goodbye. Our school had a policy of rotating teachers and their students every month.

Teacher 2: Jyldyz

At a colleague’s wedding

Another spectacular teacher, and completely different from Janat.

She let me do whatever I wanted. I asked for the same thing as before and she said fine.

So, it was just me blabbering about all sorts of nonsense while she laughed at my pathetic attempts to be funny in Russian. She corrected me occasionally and gave me the words I needed from time to time.

Obviously much depends on your goals as a language learner. Mine was to survive functionally using mainly transactional Russian, along with a few conversational pleasantries. Grammatical accuracy wasn’t a priority – I was more interested in enough vocabulary to get by, grammar be damned.

At the end of the month, I protested vociferously and the school acquiesced: they let me study with Jyldyz for another month.

Teacher 3: “Aigul”

This is not her real name. It’s not because I am going to say something negative (I am), but because I honestly and truly cannot remember.

Other learners who had studied with her loved her. I didn’t. She had a very hands-on, dogmatic approach where she threw texts at me and forced me to read and analyse them. They were way too difficult for me. I asked her if we could focus on speaking and listening (and vocabulary) and she refused. She was going for the deeply analytical approach, I guess, and it didn’t work for me.

Perhaps I was too impatient and not willing to work with my head. There was certainly value in what she was attempting to do, but what frustrated me was that she was so inflexible in her approach. Maybe some compromise? No – it was her way or the highway. Like I said, other students liked and benefited from her (one colleague loved her and didn’t like Jyldyz at all – to each their own, right?).

The thing is, these were 1-1 classes. Surely a teacher should adapt and customise their approach if their one and only student requests it, right?

By the time I left Kyrgyzstan in August of that year, my Russian was halfway decent (I think). I had no trouble communicating. When I returned to Ukraine in September 2010, just over a year later, my Russian was still adequate and I did okay with it. I even had a fellow regular speaking practise partner where we conversed half in Russian/half in English a few times a month and she was impressed. Or she just liked me, I wasn’t sure. Anyway…

Teacher 4: me

I have no idea how to teach anymore. I think some of my students over the years found me tolerable. I tried my best to cater to their needs and provide a language-rich environment, but what the hell do I know? I’m not sure if my teaching days are over but with all this AI stuff and the endless apps and resources, I don’t know if a dinosaur like me can hack it in the classroom anymore. My days are probably done. I’m slowly going the way of the dodo.

Exhibit A is this very Substack newsletter. I started it as a resource for language learners and it’s veered wildly in different directions. All I can say in my defence is that my insatiable curiosity, my penchant for polymathery,¹ and niche-free approach take my interests all over the place. As one of my favourite writers Morgan Housel puts it (the italics are mine):

“It might sound crazy, but once you understand the basic principles of your profession, you might gain more expertise by reading around your field than within your field. Connecting dots between fields helps you uncover the most powerful forces that guide how the world works, which can be so much more important than a little new detail that’s specific to your profession. And if you look hard enough, there are so many dots to connect.”

Little Ways the World Works, Morgan Housel

How is that connected to my current educational philosophy (or lack thereof)? I may not have many answers or great techniques, but I believe in exposing yourself to as much language as possible through authentic materials. That’s the primary reason I wrote my book, after all. And because I know not everyone has the time for or enjoys reading as much as I do, I’m starting to do more audio and video stuff. Regular, repeated exposure is so critical, but is that enough?

Maybe not, unless you’ve already reached a high level and are happy to maintain your skills and take things easy.

You might have missed this audio post from last October, Using the Feynman Technique/protégé effect to talk to a lobster, which I’ve received some positive feedback on. I’m eager to hear from more language learners (well, anybody, really) on whether you think this might help improve your fluency (learners) or understanding complex ideas (everyone else).

The author trying to explain something complex to Larry the Lobster - I believe he understood me loud and clear (that’s my daughter told me anyway)

For now, let’s meet 4 teachers who have a wealth of lovely resources at your disposal and can help you on your language journey.

Teachers, a simple request – I’m going to briefly introduce you and share one or two posts that I found interesting and/or useful. If you have anything you’d like to share, please add it in the comments below. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve barely cracked the surface of all the articles you’ve each written – there are plenty more I’m eager to get to.

With all of these writers, I’d encourage to have a look at their page and scroll through their posts. The titles will tell you plenty.

Meet your teachers

Teacher 1:

Gregory Garretson

, author of the excellent Living Elsewhere newsletter, where he talks about living abroad, cross-cultural communication, expat life, culture shock and so much else. He has a background as a linguist and is a brilliant, well-rounded writer and story-teller. In this post, Loving Learning Languages, Gregory expertly and succinctly conveys what it took me about 7 different rambling chapters to cover in my book. Here he shares his experiences as a language learner and what makes learning a language such a pleasure, along with lots of tips and insights.

Teacher 2:

Tamara Atanasoska

is a computer scientist and computational linguist, and author of Holophrase, where she writes about language, technology, culture/society and their intersections.

The posts on language learning that struck me the most and I think are so relevant to my audience are Setting realistic expectations for language learning and Learning a language when you don’t have the time

As a former teaching colleague friend of mine used to say, these posts do exactly what they say on the tin.

Teacher 3:

Tanya Mozias

from Friends with Words learnt 12 languages in 12 months. If that isn’t enough to get you reading, I don’t know what it is. She’s not only a writer, but a linguist and former language teacher, and her writing is infused with humour, wry insights into everyday life, and she covers a wide variety of topics, including having a need to learn the language, motivation, the problem with Duolingo (my problem: that nasty green little bastard of an owl who constantly nags you to do another lesson), how language learning should be fun, the joys of being multilingual and much more.

She drops in plenty of zingers like this that had me giggling – this is from her attempts to learn Finnish, and her post The One Thing You Need To Learn Any Language:

“With Finnish, my need came from the fact that I promised myself (and the whole world, i.e. all 87 of my FB friends) that I would be able to understand one episode of Peppa Pig by the end of the week. And then it came from actually being immersed in the episode and not understanding anything.

“And then later I signed up for a Finnish eBook app only to realize that all the books were too hard for me but the whole thing was in Finnish and I didn’t know which button meant ‘cancel.’ So this time the need to urgently improve my Finnish came from the desire not to have to pay 16 euros a month for a service I wasn’t using.”

Once again, her post titles will tell you plenty and you may want to check out this one (though apologies I’m sharing it so late – many of these deals may not be valid anymore): Black Friday deals on some of my favorite language learning apps

Teacher 4: Last, and certainly not least, is

Christina

author of Love to Lingo.

And wow, does she have a system that is tailor made to language learners. What she has to offer is impressive, very systematic, practical and hands-on, and even though we’re a bit late to this, she’s been posting a daily Fresh Foundations course from the start of 2025, with very clearly labelled posts that aim to improve your receptive and productive skills, practise your pronunciation (including one of my most recommended techniques, shadow reading), offer chances for reflection, compare graded v authentic material and much more. I recommend starting here: What to Include in a Language Learning Lifestyle.

I’ve only skimmed the surface of what these teachers have to offer - if you are at all serious about improving your language skills, you have to check them out.

Language learners, no more excuses!

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• For my language learning readers, do you want to see more content related to language learning?

• Or are you happy with my usual, somewhat unpredictable content?

• Don’t forget, there is a dedicated section where I put all of the specific language learning resources.

One of my loveliest classes in Bishkek. I swear I had more than just that pink shirt.

1. Not a real word, but hey, why not start using it? Other options: polymathic; polymathematics; polymathism; polymathematism; polyamory; rolypoly; pollypocket; pollywantacracker?