Language Learning Lessons from Guitar Zero

Last weekend as I was doing some Saturday morning chores around the house I found NPR on the ipod and it was like spending time with an old friend.  Living in Turkey, I have forgone some of my favorite programs like A Prairie Home Companion and This American Life.  Occasionally though I’ll find Morning Edition or All Things Considered on the NPR website to get a little update on the state of the news in the States.  Today in fact I discovered that there is a presidential election coming up this fall! – just kidding, I’m not that out of touch.  I actually listened to Science Friday as I scrubbed toilets and washed dishes and was excited to hear an interview with Gary Marcus, the author of Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning.

Marcus is a professor of psychology at New York University and studied language acquisition as a graduate student.  The premise of the book is his quest to learn guitar as a nearly 40 year old adult and his documentation and research of the process.  Professor Marcus was interested in learning about how we learn as adults and as I listened I realized that there were loads of connections between what he was saying and language learning.

Here is how the book begins:

Are musicians born or made? All my life I wanted to become musical, but I always assumed that I never had a chance. My ears are dodgy, my fingers too clumsy. I have no natural sense of rhythm and a lousy sense of pitch. I have always loved music but could never sing, let alone play an instrument; in school I came to believe that I was destined to be a spectator, rather than a participant, no matter how hard I tried.

It seems a fitting way to begin looking at Guitar Zero because I so often hear people talk about not having a ‘natural talent’ or not being ‘good’ at learning languages.  They may never have read about the ‘critical period hypothesis’ but somehow they have come to believe it.  And so while Professor Marcus uses language learning as a springboard for discussing learning to play guitar as an adult, I’d like to try to extrapolate back to language learning some of the comments he made in the interview on Science Friday.

I have only just begun to read the book and so I want to comment on a few of the things said in the interview and see what applications we can make from them as everyday language learners.  (click here to listen to the NPR interview)

One main theme discussed in the interview is this idea that kids somehow have a greater ability to learn new things than adults, that a certain point comes around puberty where the human brains sort of locks up and new learning becomes more difficult if not impossible.  In second language acquisition theory this is known as the critical period hypothesis.  Marcus points out that this theory’s argument is getting weaker and weaker as more and more research is done.  He does point out two factors that make it seem like kids do better.  But of course these aren’t related to any sort of critical period, but rather to kids being kids and adults, unfortunately, being adults.

Patience

Kids seem unfazed watching the same Barney cartoon a hundred times.  Give a kid and instrument and they will patiently play it for hours with no real concern that they are unable to play a tune yet.  This allows kids more repetition than adults who have little patience to stick with something in which an immediate sense of accomplishment is lacking.

I often encourage language learners to listen, watch or read the same stories repeatedly.  Many find this a difficult task.  To learners driven by ideas of productivity and outcomes, watching the same movie twice can seem a maddening idea.

Inhibition

Kids don’t care.  They don’t care if they sound bad. They don’t care if they can’t keep a beat.  They don’t care what others think because they haven’t yet figured out that what others think is somehow important.  And so kids just let it go, they have fun, they make noise and speak jibberish.  If you are reading this though, you are probably an adult who understands intimately the feeling of fear or embarrassment that prevents you from speaking or stepping up to the mic or picking up your guitar to play for a group even though you are still learning.

I was once told to “get used to the idea that you are going to be the town clown” as a beginning language learner.  In my free guide to motivation and commitment I encourage language learners to “check their ego at the door.”  Our inhibitions only slow our progress down.

Time, Effectiveness and Talent

Professor Marcus discusses several other ideas in between the stories and examples he shares during the course of the interview.  He also parses out some great advice for adults who want to begin to learn something new.

Malcolm Gladwell’s idea of the 10,000 hour rule comes up and Marcus agrees with the assessment that to truly master a complex skill, 10,000 hours seems to be a close equivalent to the time needed to really become great at something. He does add a few important additions though.  First, skills are different.  Learning to play the guitar might require more hours to master than learning to play the bongo drum.  Learning to speak a new language will take more time to master than learning to paint a house.  But time – and lots of it – is a requirement for anyone to learn anything well.

He does add as well that the kind of practice we put in is important.  Those who progress fastest and furthest seem to continually target their weaknesses while maintaining their strengths and finding the most effective strategies for learning.

And finally he adds that natural talent does exist – that is, some people are born with a special talent for a certain skill.  Bach was a world class musician because he put in the time, but also because he did have some natural talent beyond what most of us have.  In language learning too, some may have a natural talent that makes learning a language seem easy.  But Marcus’ point in this is to point out that none of us is born with an inability to learn and develop a certain skill.  Everyone is born with the ability to learn another language – in that sense we are all the same.  Some few just have a little extra in the language learning department.  But as adults, we also have cognitive abilities to figure things out that kids don’t have yet.

Guitar Zero Words of Advice

As I listened to Gary tell the stories of his journey and share the research, he also came to the point of sharing a few words of advice with those who called in and to the general audience as well.  His advice was focused at adults wanting to get started learning to play music, but it seems good advice as well for language learners.  A few specific words of advice were:

1. Don’t expect overnight success.
2. Target your weaknesses.
3. Don’t be afraid to switch teachers if it’s not working for you.
4. Focus on good technique.

I look forward to reading the book in the next few weeks and hope to pull more lessons for everyday language learners from its contents. For now, I’ll leave you with the above and hope that there is some encouragement to be found in knowing that we adults have all the necessary ability to learn another language and to learn it well.

If any of you have read Guitar Zero, I’d love to hear your thoughts and other lessons that we as language learners can learn from it.

Check out: Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning [affiliate link]

And be sure and visit Gary Marcus online.

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