Reaching for Words

Rob chats with old friend Jo Sayers – a language learner, teacher, and technologist:

• Traits of good language learners (from a teacher’s perspective)
• Technology: does it help us or hinder us?
• Pros and cons of language learning apps, and where they best fit in for a language learner

Language learning should be a joy, but can sometimes be a drag. We’ve all experienced that feeling of impatience and boredom that learning a language can sometimes be.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way! Rob talks with Katie Harris (from joyoflanguages.com) about ways to inject the joy back into your language learning process.

We chat with Lindsay Williams (from lindsaydoeslanguages.com) about how to carve your own, independent path in your language learning:

• How to create structure in your approach
• How to plan your learning
• Dealing with motivation and discipline
• Most effective activities for solo learning

Rob talks with polyglot Olly Richards about the role of memorization in language learning:

• Do memory champions make the best language learners?
• Is memorization really important?
• Active vs passive memorization
• Memorization tips and techniques for language learning

We chat with Shannon Kennedy, a polyglot who has learned 8 languages, about how to approach a new language:

• 3 do’s and don’ts when starting a language
• The role of grammar at the beginner stages of language learning
• Motivation vs discipline – which is more important?
• How to build your language learning routine

In our first episode, we chat with Luca Lampariello, a renowned polyglot who has achieved high levels of fluency in 13 languages. We discuss:

• Preparing to speak
• Keys to fluency
• Practising speaking
• Speaking as a performance
• The mindset of fluency