Calm & Activate
Much has been said about the key ingredients to a successful learning process. Being disciplined and constant is essential to learning, implementing and following a routine around the language that combines your goals and your time and that works for you is a very important step to reach those goals.
So, you set aside a certain amount of time, with a certain regularity and then you show up. Good. Vere important.
Once you have that learning time, there is the question of, “what to do during the learning time?”. What are good activities, apps, books, teachers… that would lead you to your goals? The way you spend your learning time is also very important: drills, conversations, reading, listening, actual lessons…
All these contribute to learning, of course, but what if I told you that you are not making the best use of that time if you don’t prepare mindfully and purposefully for it?
Unfortunately, less is said about how to optimise for that language learning time.
One of the most hindering situations for learning is nerves. Stress (short or long term stress), anxiety, fear, nerves… impair learning.
Jumping from one task to the other is not ideal because a couple of reasons: your mind is not ready and you might be carrying nerves from the previous task or bringing stress.
It is very important to PREPARE yourself: your mind and brain to optimise that learning time.
How to optimise your Language learning time
Calm
- Breathing
It’s sometimes hard to believe how a couple of deep breaths could change your mindset. Breathing is a powerful tool to relax and to transition from one thing to the other.
- Meditation
I have created some guided meditations to prepare you for learning. Three minutes of a guided meditation that grounds you in the moment, is enough to prepare you for what’s to come.
Activate your brain
HERVAT Method belongs to the neuroeducational
- Hydrate: give a sip of water to your brain!
Why? Drinking just a ship of water improves attention, short-term memory, psychomotor response and conceptual speed. - Breathing: Few deep breaths improve attention, reduce stress and oxygenate your brain.
- Balance exercises: 2 minutes of different balancing exercises favour attention and alertness.
- Visual stimulation: Eye movement without moving your head helps with attention and spatial localization. It helps mostly with reading activities.
- Listening stimulation: Keep your eyes open or closed and listen to discriminating sound activities for a minute. This is particularly beneficial for language learning and it improves visual short memory.
- Touch stimulation: Alone or with a partner. One minute of touch stimulation activities help with attention and accelerates learning.
For ideas of activities for each of these steps, you can watch the video below.
If you want to receive guided meditations oriented to Spanish learning.
I recently started resurrecting the Spanish I first started learning as a child of 7. My parents and I were on a 3 month business trip in Salinas, Ecuador and have used to some degree all of my life. Salinas was a small fishing town of a few thousand then.
After watching your YT video about this technique I found your website and read this. After that I looked for more about HERVAT online.
Imagine my shock when the only reference I could get a little of the gist of was a study of 8th graders using it in La Libertad, Ecuador. La Libertad was the next town up the coast and much smaller. We went over a few times to go to a shop owned by a Chinese couple from Hong Kong who missed English.
Thanks for introducing me to it, I’m going to give it a try.
Thanks for your comment, Tori! I was fascinated about the HERVAT method and I’m so happy you find it useful too!