It was only when I discovered the way I had been studying was actually interfering with my journey to fluency that I found the courage to oppose the standard method of teaching.
For the last 5 years, I have been doing NO vocabulary lists, NO drills, NO quizzes or testing, NO revision. I have noticed, and more importantly, others have also noticed, that my Arabic has come on in leaps and bounds. I feel more confident and don’t shun a challenge when a new video pops up on my feed in Arabic…actually, I relish it. I think I have finally found joy in using Arabic 😱😁
In my latest video, I discuss two opposing approaches- explicit learning which helps only accuracy, and implicit learning which builds fluency. This is important to understand as you start the #100DaysOfArabic challenge. If you are not used to dealing with uncertainty you may feel nervous when you don’t keep stopping to check you understand every word. But this is an important hurdle to overcome to be able to progress towards fluency.
