Crashen called it the Affective Filter. We all know Anxiety messes with our brain. This is how it messes things up when it comes to learning languages.
I want to introduce you to a student of mine. Her name is Xiali. She is 45 years old and she is from Asia. Xia reminds me of the students I used to have when I was a ski instructor at Park City Mountain Resort. I specialized in the women who came to learn to ski because their husbands and boyfriends wanted them to learn so they could ski together. These women were scared. Some of them wouldn’t have admitted it, but they were not there with a mindset of “this is fun.” They were there because they were doing it for someone else. Their fear kept them from loving it. Or maybe the fact that they were not doing it for themselves kept them from loving it and because they didn’t love it, they feared it.
Xia is very much like this executive’s wife.. She is here to support her child who is studying in the states. Her husband and younger child are back home. She is not here for herself and she misses more than she enjoys. My job, as her teacher, is to help her find the joy.
Love it! This is a key to learning and retention of anything. When we LOVE IT and we choose it for ourselves, we are more likely to embrace it rather than fight against it.
Xia is fighting against it. She is holding on so tightly to needing the control of a language experience that she blocks her own brain from the language coming in. She wants to translate and understand every word. Just like that executive’s wife in the early nineties on the ski-hill wanted to understand each muscle and edge. The theory got in the way. They used the theory to block themselves from the joy.
Xia is not unusual. I have met many English language learners who struggle because they fight against the unknown and want control that they can’t have right now.
Xia wants to do it perfectly. She wants to understand everything. She gets in her own way.
How do I help Xia?
I try to gently take the translator away during class. I try to gently listen as she speaks. I really listen and try to understand all she means behind the two or three words she is able to remember through her anxiety. I praise her. And, I do two more things. They may seem like opposites at first, but they are not.
I listen to music with her. I give her the lyrics to read and I tell her to sing along. She wants to translate every word. I sit with her and sing and point so she can’t translate.
I do this so she can start to get the rhythm of the language.
I encourage her to underline the words she knows and I tell her not to worry about what she doesn’t know.
I want her to feel the music, enjoy it and have an enjoyable English experience.
I want the pressure off of her.
I help her focus on the known. When she listens, I want her to recognize what she knows and not what she doesn’t know.
I ask her to underline what she knows.
I help her see that she knows a lot
I praise her for knowing so much.
I stay away from what she doesn’t know.
I trust that these gentle tactics well help her overcome her anxiety. Learning anything is impossible if our anxiety is too high. I learned this while ski instructing but it is true for all learning.
Finally, I speak slower. Crashen called it I+1. What is understandable is real. What is not, might as well have not been said. If they don’t understand it…I didn’t say it. I remember that and I help Xia focus on what she understood. I want her to
Build confidence in what she knows
Trust her own listening.
I’m not completely sure of all Xia is coming to class with. I know she is coming with a full life. I want to help her unlock it in English. I have to get her out of her head first.

Informative! The Teacher is cognizant of Xia's needs. I enjoyed reading this student's progress!