The Psychology of Learning: Putting the fun back into ESL.
Learning is naturally fun and healthy. It’s growing and that is one of the greatest feelings in life!! But what happened to your natural love for learning? Remember the eager child that you were? Always wanting to learn about this or that. Curious about everything. Right?
One Answer:
Negative Teachers or Teaching Styles ’caused you to have a bad attitude about “learning and studying”. Or being forced to study in particular way, when the teacher himself had no enthusiasm or passion for the subect matter.
Getting in touch with yourself and rediscovering your true desire to learn and opening up to good, talented teachers, that really want to help you learn is your key. I’ve been helping people open up to learning and ESL for several years now. That’s what the “Bondaygee” (번데기) concept is all about. Below are the dictionary definitions of bondaygee, which essentially means ‘cocoon’ in Korean. I like to think of it as the potential to transform and to grow. Or maybe even rebirth. Isn’t that positive?
번데기:
1 pupa, chrysalis 2 beondegi, steamed silkworm chrysalis1. [곤충의 애벌레] pupa[] ([복수형] pupae, pupas); chrysalis[]]
번데기 상태에 있다
be in the pupal stage
2. [식용의 누에고치] beondegi; steamed silkworm chrysalis
2. [식용의 누에고치]
번데기 앞에서 주름 잡는 격이다
It’s like teaching a fish how to swim. / [사적(informal)일 때] You can’t hold a candle to the sun.
번데기 상태에 있다
be in the pupal stage
2. [식용의 누에고치] beondegi; steamed silkworm chrysalis
2. [식용의 누에고치]
번데기 앞에서 주름 잡는 격이다
It’s like teaching a fish how to swim. / [사적(informal)일 때] You can’t hold a candle to the sun.
Humans are Multi-dimensional Beings!
If there’s one thing that needs to be understood and appreciated it’s the fact the humans are multi-dimensional beings. If you ignore the heart and soul of any student or anybody you will kill the spirit and create a “dead student”. You have probably heard of “Ying and Yang”. Those are two basic parts of the human total being. Only teaching the intellectual, rational side of students will create dull, empty people. You don’t believe me? Take a reading of Charles Dickens famous classic, “Hard Times”. Here’s a brief description of the story of disaster.
Charles Dickens’ 1854 novel opens with the philosophy of education espoused by the eminently practical Mr. Gradgrind, who prizes “facts and calculations.” He raises his children, most prominently Louisa and Tom, to eschew imagination and emotion and embrace order and reason. The results are disastrous: Louisa marries out of duty to the supposed self-made man Mr. Bounderby, while Tom grows up dissolute, ultimately commits theft and blames it on an unfortunate laborer, Stephen Blackpool. Set in the fictional Coketown, a mill town in the north of England, Dickens’ novel satirizes capitalism, social mobility, class stratification, and Utilitarianism. https://librivox.org/hard-times-dramatic-reading-by-charles-dickens/
To be perfectly honest, true genius is found in the heart and soul and not the mind. When you engage in the various art forms, you’re connecting to the higher dimensions of the human experience. This is exactly why the arts are so important! When it comes to learning, natural learning is the best. Take your lessons outside for a walk. Play games, sing songs and have fun because this is the natural path to higher education and the by engaging the soul you have the ability to fly at the speed of light!
