5 Psychological Obstacles Standing Between You and FluencybyJohn FotheringhamI spend lots ofmy time learning and writing about psychology. Most of my favoritelanguage bloggers do the same. But why? Isnt all thispsychology stuff just a bunch of touchy-feely mumbo jumbo? Isnt the only important thing in language learning how much you study? Time on task isindeed paramount to success, butthequantityof learning (although important) matters far less than thequality.And what determines the impactof your language learning time? Your psychology: Your confidence in yourability to learn. Your feelingsabout the language and culture. Your willingness to try things out. Your ability to learn from (and laugh at!) mistakes. Your tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity.Here now are five of the most insidious psychological obstacles standing between you and fluency:1) Negative Beliefs About Your Ability to Learn the LanguageThe most commonand arguably most destructivepsychological obstacle in language learning is the belief that you are not good at learning languages.Okay, maybe you didnt do sowell in high school or college Spanish class. But guess what? Its probably not your fault. In most cases, poor performance in language classesis a reflection not of your inability to learn a language, but rather: How ineffective the standard academic approach to language learning tends to be for most people.A small percentage of learnerswith high linguistic intelligence manage to pick up languages in school, but most people do far better using more natural, immersion-based approaches that leveragemultiple intelligences(visual-spatial intelligence, musical intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, etc.). Some teachers do indeed tryto integrate such methods, but the limitations imposed by large class sizes and standardized testing make the task all but impossible. How few chances you likely had to use the language in fun, meaningful, personally relevant contexts.Your language teacher may have planned some skits and culture days, but these are a far cry from the exciting, messy, real world interaction you need to reach conversationalfluency. The fact you wererequiredto learn a language, especially one you didnt get to choose.Language learning should be optional. Or at the very least, students should get to choosewhichlanguage they learn. And I dont just mean achoice between Spanish and French.There are roughly 6,500 languages spoken in the world today; learners should be able to choose from a larger pool than just 2 or 3 Romance languages. If a particular language isnt offered at ones school, why not allow learners to develop a self-study program monitored by a faculty member or parent? The more power an individual has to choose, the more likely they are to take ownership of the learning process and put in the time and effort needed to make tangible progress.2) Negative Beliefs About the Language & CultureLooking back at my former English students, the ones who made the most progress tended to be those who loved American culture, watched American movies, listened to American music, ate American food, anddreamt about traveling toor living inthe United States. Those that had little interest in Americana (or the cultures of other English speaking countries) made far less progress no matter how important the English language may have been for their academic or professional careers.In mycase, my deep love and respect for Japanese culture gave me the extra fuel needed to continue putting one foot in front of the other even on days I really didnt feel like studying.3) The Wait Until Im Ready DelusionMany learners (especially those with perfectionistic tendencies) spendmany years diligently preparing to use a language, flipping flashcard after flashcard, watching foreign films, listening to language podcasts, etc. All of this is well and good, but focusing only on input leads to an imbalancedlanguage acquisition diet. You need to mix in healthy servings of output, too. Speaking and writing areby far the most efficient ways to solidify what youve previously learned, identify gaps in your vocabulary and grammar, and remind yourself why you started learning the language in the first place.Look, I know its scary. There are so manythings you want to say but dont yet know how. So manyunknown words and structures that fly right over your head. But so what? No matter how long you study, you will eventually have to go through this messy, two-way interaction. Why put off the inevitable? Why let fear stand between you and fluency? Regardless of your level,you can always try tocommunicatesomethingtoday. If you only know five words,usethose five words. If you dont knowanywords yet, use gestures, drawings, inference, etc. to get your meaning across, paying close attention to what words and structures you hear as you go.Imagine, for example, that you are at a market in Taiwan and want an apple. You dont know the word yet, so you just point at one. There are many fruits on the table, so the merchant confirms which one by pointing at the pile of apples: png gu()? Boom, you now know the word for apple in Mandarin! He then asks you how many you want, but you dont understand him. So he asks, y g ()? and holds out the universal gesture for the number one. You now know the number one in Mandarin, or more accurately, the phrasefor one thing. Not bad for 10seconds of person to person interaction! Had you tried to learn these words alone at your desk, you would miss out on the opportunity to: Eat the delicious apple! Mimic properpronunciation. Encode words in a far more robust, multi-sensory way.4) Fear of Making Mistakes & Looking Stupid in Front of OthersThe Wait Until Youre Ready delusion above is largely fueled by fear. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear of not understanding others. Fear of making embarrassing mistakes. Fear of ordering the wrong food. Fear of getting on the wrong train. Fear of accidentally saying youre pregnant in Spanish when you meant to say you are embarrassed! This fear is not completely unjustified. Youwillindeed make mistakes. Heaps of them. You will order the wrong food and get on the wrong train. You will accidentally insult someone when trying to express praise. But in the vast majority of cases, the only real victim isyour pride. And theego can only be bruised if you let your sense of worth be tied to your perceived ability in the language. Tie your pride instead to your willingness to try things out and laugh off mistakes, not how perfectly (or imperfectly) you can use a language.As Viktor E. Frankl says inMans Search for Meaning:Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.When you say the wrong word, butcher a sentence, misunderstand someones question, or make a cultural faux pas, you have a choice about how you respond to the potential embarrassment. Do you get frustrated or have a good chuckle? Doyou letthe gaffe serve as proof that you suck at the language or interpret it as an opportunity for growth? The choice is yours.5)Frustration With Not Understanding Everything You Hear & ReadJust as most learners put off speaking and writing practice out of fear of making mistakes, many avoid powerful listening and reading opportunities because they grow frustrated with ambiguity and uncertainty. Theystop watching anun-subitled foreign film half way through because theydont know exactly whats happening in the story. Theylimit theirreading to bilingual books. Theyonly talk with native speakers who also speak English, allowing themto always fall back ontheirnative tongue when confusion arises.While it is indeed ideal to choose materials just above onescurrent level of understanding, and bilingual speakers do offer someadvantages over their monolingual counterparts, dont let a pursuit of the perfect resource or tutor stop you from getting valuable linguisticexposureright nowwith whatever and whomever happen to be around. The pursuit of perfection usually just leads toprocrastination.