In my book, English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work, I talk about what researchers have identified as some of the key qualities of a successful language learner: intrinsically motivated, a sense of self-efficacy, willingness to take risks, willingness to learn from mistakes, and a willingness to teach others. I have many references listed in the book, and I’m not going to take up the time or space here to list them.
In another book that I wrote (with my colleague, Katie Hull), we included a lesson plan talking about this qualities with students. As part of that lesson, I’ve been trying to identify good, short video clips that might illustrate those listed qualities.
(Also, check out Interactive Quiz — Are You A Good Language Learner)
The first thing I’ve done, though, is modify how I talk with students about them. To them, I list the qualities as:
An appetite for learning, perseverance
Being willing to take risks
Being willing to make mistakes and learn from them
Wants to help and teach others
These are the videos I’ve found so far. I’m not done exploring all the suggestions people offered to me last week when I asked for help. I hope that people can keep contributing more ideas, and I’ll continue to add them here. And thanks especially to David Deubelbeiss for pointing me to some of them.
Here are my choices for The Best Videos Illustrating Qualities Of A Successful Language Learner:
An appetite for learning and/or perseverance:
This polar bear cub knows all about perseverance and how it pays off:
As does this boy who wants a soccer ball:
Helen Keller is another great example. The first video is one of her and Mary Ann Sullivan demonstrating how she learned to communicate. The second one is a video clip from a film version of The Miracle Worker:
And we all need to be like Gus!
In this video, Willow The Dog demonstrates the value of perseverance:
This dog does, too:
Here’s a video of someone who wanted to become a professional skier, but broke his back on the slopes while doing a backflip and became a paraplegic. Eight years later he became the first person to perform a backflip on snow in a Sit Ski.
Here’s one definitely demonstrating an “appetite for learning”:
LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.
Basketball star Steve Nash talks about “You Gotta’ Practice”:
The eagle in this video certainly illustrates an example of perseverance:
This baby giraffe shows she has perseverance:
Perseverance and intrinsic motivation are qualities researchers have found critical for being a successful language learner.
The New York Times has a great article about a young and physically short basketball player who demonstrates both. Here’s a video of him in action:
Being Willing To Take Risks:
This penguin knows what risk-taking is all about:
And these ducklings know, too:
As does this pony:
This pony working up the courage to jump this tiny step is everything. pic.twitter.com/cTS30cN99S
— Naomi Kyle (@NaomiKyle) January 24, 2018
Being willing to make mistakes and learn from them:
I don’t know if anything beats this famous Michael Jordan commercial:
Here’s the transcript to the Jordan video:
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot…and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Wants to help and teach others:
This is a great scene from “The Color Purple”:
This next resource is not a video, but is a related resource:
A questionnaire on Language Ego by Douglas H Brown that I intend to adpat for my students to start a conversation for learning with them on their self-perceptions, attitudes and preferences. pic.twitter.com/fKxcSm4kT4
— Dr Gianfranco Conti (@gianfrancocont9) January 13, 2018
Contributions are welcome, along with any kind of feedback.
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Larry,
I had my adult students get into 5 small groups to talk about 1) their problems with Englishand 2) the characteristics of good language learners. Just before they reported back, I gave each one one of your characteristics (adding “those who practice a lot). They each reported back, and then we watched some of your videos and they identified which corresponded to which video. They really loved it.
Thank you very much.Laura
Can you share the video links?
Laura,
Sounds like a great lesson! I’m not sure what you mean about the “video links.” They’re in each video in the post.
Larry