Virtual Reality Language Learning with Katie Pascoe

Hello and welcome back to another Actual Fluency Podcast episode. This is episode number 192. My name is Kris Broholm and I'm your host. It's been a while, and for those of you in the Actual Fluency email club, you you might have seen a couple of reasons and updates for this kind of extended break of the podcast publishing. But I wanted to keep it going. I've always wanted to keep it going. Um but recently, I've found the kind of energy and time necessary to revive the podcast. I can't promise you we'll go back to weekly episodes, that that is a lot. But I'm hoping to at least provide regular new episodes. So if you have anyone who you'd like to hear from or if you'd like to be on the podcast, just send me an email kris@actualfluency.com. That's kris@actualfluency.com.

Thank you, thank you for having me. It's really good to to see you and I'm excited.

Yeah, brand new series. So, do you want to give the listeners a little introduction to who you are, where you're from, and what your foreign language learning and traveling journey has been like?

Yeah, okay. So, um my name's Katie. I'm from the UK, and I've been learning languages uh suppose since really since secondary school, so since I was 11. But before that, um I was having piano lessons and my favorite bit about the piano lessons was actually learning all the Italian words for kind of fast, slow, loud, quiet, you know, all of that terminology. I really enjoyed and my dad really enjoyed helping me with kind of different ways of remembering them. So Allegro, he told me like, remember there's a row of legs running really quickly and things like that. I remember too He's always been quite into the figuring out the etymology of words. It's not his background or anything, he just um he really likes that kind of thing. And so, I suppose I've had an interest since I was probably in primary school then, but I didn't really realize it.

Yeah.

Um So it's quite an academic uh kind of focus in the beginning for you. Definitely up till that point, it was very very academic.

And then many people criticize the academic system, um you know, from within as well, saying that, you know, I have a degree in the language but really I couldn't have a an actual conversation in it, you know, I could read and translate probably most of the language, but, you know, go down to the pub and just have a normal conversation in the language. For many people I've talked to who who did mostly academic language learning, they say that that was a struggle, like they didn't speak much at all in their program. But I guess having that year abroad, um helped. Um so you could kind of contrast those two experiences, I guess.

It definitely helped. Um I'll never forget. It was like a month before it felt like it was a week, but looking back it probably was a month before our GCSE exams, right? In our German class, the teacher took aside, there was maybe six of us, four of us, the top the top ones in the class and said, right, exams are coming up. You guys are the top of the class. So I'm going to tell you now. There were these things in German called cases. And you know how I I've forgotten everything that I ever didn't And so this is what I I never I never got my head around it, even up to the point where I was graduating. Adjective endings, didn't stand a chance.

Oh.

Did not stand a chance. Like I I would cram at before any exam, I would cram into my mind the tables with the cases on and then as soon as I got in the exam, scribble them all on the back page so I could refer to it throughout because I had never absorbed it. And it put a lot of fear in me. Um about making mistakes with that, which now when I speak Spanish, I I don't care if I I don't know. I I speak Spanish quite well, I would say. I'm very conversational. I I speak it quite often. I don't get the past tenses right ever, I don't think. I I I never get it right.

The last thing. Right. Right.

Especially when it comes to ser and estar in the past tense. Sure. Don't stand a chance. And I tried for a while.

Sure.

To really focus and study, um the past tense. I actually did the Fluent in 3 Months. Um the challenge. Yeah. Yeah. And my focus for that was literally just the past tense in Spanish.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I I think I was better by the end of it, but I also was like, do you know what actually, I don't think it's impacting my ability to be understood. People know what I'm saying.

Yeah, exactly.

But in the academic but in the academic track, they don't or at least in my experience, I wasn't encouraged to just go for it anyway and just speak anyway.

No.

There wasn't much speaking involved for starters. At my university there was a lot less actual production of the language than there were at other universities. Um which surprised me when I found that out afterwards. Like we didn't have to write any of our essays in German apart from the ones that were for the specific German units. So most of it was written in English. Um So I think I have a lot of fear around the German language because I was trained to to make sure I got everything right.

Right. It makes sense.

And I think it was interesting at university, my friends who were doing Spanish, um they said their experience was at school, so before university, um German was way harder than Spanish. And then once they got to university, Spanish took over as the more difficult one because then they were doing stuff about the subjunctive and they were learning more of that that nuance. And actually, all the difficulty of German is really front-loaded. And once you've once you've learned all that, all the tables and everything, then it doesn't get much more complicated than that. So perhaps that is almost like an inbuilt issue with German for teaching it at school is that in order to say even the basic stuff, you need to know how to you you need more grammatical knowledge to get that simple sentence correct, but

Yeah.

Yeah. I I I do just I agree that it and maybe I don't know if it's unique to German. I don't know if Spanish people when they're at sorry, Spanish learners at secondary school are speaking more or if if that culture is still kind of there.

I don't think it's unique to German. I I think that most languages that you learn, you can have a a heavy focus on the grammar. However much grammar there might be, there might be less or more. But I think it's just a fundamental misunderstanding or at least a choice. You know, you can say, okay, in in uni if we're educating people to be experts at grammar or to be able to translate and read and all these kind of like maybe academic pursuits. Of course, you need to have a really good grammar understanding because if you're going to, you know, do translations for the EU or any kind of official uh government, you you need uh precision. But I think the problem is that how many people are actually doing that, you know? I think most people, and that's probably why we have this whole movement online of independent language learners who are learning just for the fun of it on their own time, they're just kind of shine away from grammar altogether because they understand that yeah, grammar, it's not that it's not important. It's just that you will kind of get the grammar through the rest of the language. You know, if if you work through sentences, you'll start to see the patterns naturally. I mean, that's how we learn as as babies, right? We just Yeah. We just say things and repeat things. And and so I really see it as that kind of two a split um world where you kind of have to choose in your first German class when you're just a a kid, you kind of have to choose, do you want to do academic German, you know, because some people obviously do and you know, they shouldn't be ignored. But I think for most people, they would benefit more from just having an extra language to communicate in.

Yeah.

Yeah. Not perfect.

Well, just a communicative approach.

Yeah, exactly. But but there's no such distinction in the academic system. It's like

You're right.

Yeah. It's assumed that and and with the time you spend in class, I would have thought you could do a little bit more of the communication, you know, whether it's primary school or or or uni.

No, that's it. That's that's all that's very true. And I think it wasn't until um a couple of years ago, so we did a project um for Dynamic Languages, the company that I've co-founded with my husband, um for Japanese where I no Japanese knowledge, no Japanese experience whatsoever, nothing. Um I had for two weeks, I think it was 10 days straight, every day for eight hours, maybe, maybe it was six hours of active learning, an intensive Japanese course taught by two teachers, and I was the only student because we were filming it. Um for our app. Um and I learned so much Japanese in that time that I still know today. I don't know anything about the grammar.

Wow. Right.

Not really. I mean, I I I I know obviously like a bit I've not looked into it myself. I've not studied it particularly outside of that course to deep dive into the grammar. I've looked more into different vocabulary that I could use to fit into the sentences I learned, but then I went to Japan for three months, um a few months after finishing that, and I could ask for recommendations in a in a restaurant. I could talk to people who stopped me and said, oh, who are you? Where are you from? What are you doing? I could tell them, we're driving from Tokyo to Kagoshima in a campervan. Um we're filming with a 360 camera. We're from I'm from the UK. You know, I could say all these things. I could check into a hotel. And I'd had so little.

Yeah.

Um time, really. I it was intense and it was a lot of time I felt in the moment, but realistically, it wasn't that much time at all. But it was so practical. All the unnecessary stuff in terms of being able to communicate was removed and it was so focused that I felt so um confident, I suppose. Uh to be able to communicate and yeah, it was amazing. It was just complete, so it was a complete flip of the of the German approach. Not the German, you know, the German experience in German.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, not entirely wrong either. The Germans do like their systems and, you know, going at it methodically. So that's not entirely wrong.

True. True.

It's just, yeah.

Um but that was that was really gave me opened my eyes to you know, it was a complete fresh start. You know, it was a it was a new language from literally from day one. As Benny said, I was speaking but in during that time I was able to make jokes. I even like made a made a pun. Like, how do you do that when you've had, you know, three Japanese lessons, but I did.

Yeah.

And I I think the Japanese do as well to be honest.

Right. True, true.

Um but that was But that was really gave me opened my eyes to you know, it was a complete fresh start. You know, it was a it was a new language from literally from day one. As Benny said, I was speaking, but during that time I was able to make jokes. I even like made a made a pun. Like, how do you do that when you've had, you know, three Japanese lessons, but I did.

But I don't understand why that couldn't be applied to primary school, like that entire approach, you know? Like I'm not saying you should have the students uh do like six, eight hours a day for any period of time, but why couldn't they just focus on the on the practical? First of all, and then like I said, like at least do some 50/50. Because now it's like 95, 96, you know, percent uh just uh the the grammar and the practical stuff. And and and it's because they consider subjects like math, you know, it's it's like, oh, how can we score your language skills? Yeah. Well, we can't really evaluate your speaking skills. you can, but it's very hard to objectively do that. So how what can we evaluate? Well, we can give you a a a a worksheet and see how well you know the endings, and then out of 100 we can give you a score. And that's how we can figure out what your German skills are. So I think that's just the problem that language uh subjects from the beginning were always considered or always built as if they were a scientific subject that had solutions for everything and measurable progress for everything. You know, you know if you can't do a theorem or not in math, but if I ask you to talk about Berlin, maybe you could talk a little bit about Berlin or a lot, or you could rehearse some, you know, it's impossible to evaluate somebody's skills based on just a brief interaction or or test. I think that's really the the problem. And and in some ways I I hope that things that we're doing in the community and the conferences and, you know, my my conference and this podcast as well, hopefully helps to move and eventually get to those uh educators that make those programs, because I think they could be so much better, you know?

Yeah.

Compared to what they are today.

And I think I think a big part of it as well is um kind of understanding why, like you've mentioned this before, why are you learning this language?

Yeah.

If you're learning it to be a translator and you're only going to work on paper, um or you know, a computer, then yeah, obviously it works because it is then just maths with words.

Yeah.

Yeah. Basically. But but if you if you're learning it to travel or to communicate with people, then, you know, nobody cares as much about the quality of what you're saying as they do about the content. Right. Of you know, what you're trying to express. And so I think Yeah, as you said, obviously, academically, you do need they do need some way of being able to quantify your ability. But at least in the UK, it's not inspirational at all, the way.

Right.

When I was at school, I can't speak for what it's like now. Um

I don't think it's changed much.

I don't imagine it's changed much. And actually emphasis has been moved away from learning foreign languages in this country as well. So, even more even more than it was before. Um That it's a tricky one though because I do every time I go abroad, which is often, um I feel incredibly grateful to have been basically born speaking English. Yeah. Um I know you're not born speaking a language. You know what I mean? And

Well, yeah.

I think I think it's um it's an incredible, you know, gift, privilege, whatever word you want to use for it. Um and so I'm very, very, very aware of that. It's a double-edged sword because it then means that we can as a as a population of native English speakers be incredibly lazy when we travel. Um most people don't have uh uh an understanding of what it means to speak a foreign language, which means that when you hear someone speaking English with a thick accent, um people don't appreciate the time and effort and energy that they've put into even being able to say that broken sentence. Um so I think it it it leads to um um maybe like a barrier in terms of cultural understanding and general appreciation of of the variety of humans on this planet. Um if if you're taking this English language for granted, I understand why people do because if you don't know what it's like and if you haven't traveled much, then you're not going to why would you be able to see that perspective if you've never been confronted with it, but Right. Speaking and learning foreign languages definitely makes me appreciate my native tongue more as well as um I think it's made me better at English. I remember at school, the one good thing about the the the focus on grammar is that I learned the words like past participle, which I'd never learned in English. I was like, what is that? And so through German, I was learning about English. Um which meant that when I then went on to teach English, um I never formally studied I I did a little bit at university, I did so I did some units on um TEFL or so, I know it didn't give the official qualification. I then did kind of another course. But, you know, this is all I'm not trained as a teacher. So, um but my experience teaching foreign languages has influenced my English teaching to the point where now I think I find it I would find it very interesting if there was an English teacher who'd never learned a foreign language and how they would approach it.

Well, probably according to the curriculum and the the recipe book, you know, for which would probably not be very effective. I think practical knowledge. But that I think for any subject that might be the case, like if you haven't if you haven't actively spent time learning it, especially on your own or used what you've learned in any kind of practical sense, I think the way you teach is it's going to be worse, isn't it? It's going to be kind of by the book entirely. Because you have to trust the you have to kind of trust the published works, not your own experience. So I I think for sure your your teaching is going to be better once you have some experience and maybe you lean more practical practical in in that case as well, not focusing so much on drilling tables or whatever.

I mean, I avoided that in my teaching as much as possible and I tried to when I was teaching, especially in Spain, um focus my lessons on being conversational because I through my experience of learning dabbling in maybe like five languages, I can tell you words that I've learned. I can tell you where I was and when I learned that word because so much of it is about the experience that I wanted to make my classes memorable and I wanted to be silly because languages are so strange and funny. Especially English is so bizarre. It's so random at times. That it's just like you just have to laugh. Like, oh yeah, I'm expecting you to be able to know that where you put the emphasis on a word in a language where there are no real rules about it. You just have to feel it. Um so we'd laugh a lot because I think yeah, the experience around the learning is so important about making sure things go in, making connections, making the memories, so that you remember, yeah, so you remember the word. Um for sure.

But it's more important than that because if you give kids that experience at age I don't know, six to eight or something, you get them excited in the in in a foreign language. And you get them started on a path of maybe curiosity or, you know, whatever they want to they want to maybe travel more or whatever. But if you give them this kind of recipe of, oh, you have to memorize all the tables, like you, I can remember verbatim songs we sang in German class, uh 30 years ago. Yeah. I remember those songs, you know? And because we had fun, you know, and in English class as well, we would sing as well in the in in the small in the in the young classes. And and I think that's what gives you that interest as a kid. Because if you get up to age I don't know, 10, 12, and you've only had that experience with foreign languages, when you get the chance to pick more or invest more or pick a new language, who's going to do that if that's been your experience? And I think that's the bad experience that kind of like, you know, it continues.

Yeah. And I think for adults as well, even if this is your, you know, even if you approach your first, say say you learn a bit at school, but it wasn't really enforced or you didn't really engage with it. So you don't really count it. And and at 30, 40, 50, whatever age, you come to your first foreign language. You like want to learn for the first time. I seriously want to learn Spanish or Japanese or whatever. You still need to have that fun because you're even more in your head once you once you get to adult age. It the the barrier between getting it from in your head to out of your mouth is even bigger because you know who you are. You know what your personality's like. You know you're funny or you're smart or you're very eloquent. And then you're in a position where you sound like a two-year-old at best. And you're like, but this isn't who I am. Um so you need to be able to have fun with it and get just get the sounds coming out of your mouth as early as possible, I think. So that even if they don't make sense, even if it's just a song where it's just you know, vocab, you're just chanting vocabulary but in a song, um it gives you confidence and it makes it fun. And that is Right. coming back to this Japanese um project. That is something we we included in in that course that that we think is is really powerful. And I sometimes still sing the songs to myself at night when I'm not sleep.

Yeah. But that could be a difference between the L1 and L2. Yeah, I think that might be it because you have more it's like you have a little bit more leeway when it's a non-native language. Because would a Spanish person in Mexico, would they stop with the and start saying so I doubt it because Well, that's what I would do because I feel like it would help me be understood better, but yeah, like what would.

Yeah, I think you're right. I think just practice and and getting used to the feeling of being nervous or sounding silly or not.

It's okay.

That's fine. And just learning to accept that feeling. And feel fear and do it anyway. Um yeah.

It's very tough. But yeah, that's the way you get get over it and I'd love to talk to you about uh travel as well and what kind of ways, you know, knowing language has has kind of upgraded those travels compared to, you know, typical, maybe going abroad, you know. But uh one thing I just uh I wanted to just touch on before we go into that was you mentioning like picking your accent and I that's something that I've talked about in the past as well. Oh yeah. That was very interesting because with English, it's even like you're talking about the German accents that I mean, it would be strange for an English person learning German to sound like an Austrian person, you know? That's a very unusual German accent. Of course, if you're from Austria, but you know, for the kind of the rest of the world and I've actually found that with English, it's very tricky because you know, if you're not from an English-speaking country, then what what what accent are you supposed to use? You know, it's a good question. And I think well, I don't know what what was your did you make an active decision about whether to lean more American or British or did you consider Australian?

Well, I don't know. What what was your did you make an active decision about whether to lean more American or British or did you consider Australian?

Well, this is actually my I for some reason I never considered Australian. And if I have some Australians listening, I apologize, but I always thought it a little bit goofy and, you know. Um so that was never a consideration. And and Scottish was never a consideration, you know, Canadian probably not a consideration. So really in in Denmark when we grew up, you have these America versus Britain kind of uh discussions. And I would say most kids are watching mostly American anything really. And so their accent is probably more towards the American. Um I spent some time in the UK. Also, I was a contrarian as a kid, maybe still to some degree I am. So I I I initially picked uh British English. I really like the sound of it, the Queen's English. Uh one of my favorite shows growing up was um Keeping Up Appearances. Brilliant show, very obscure reference for 90% of people watching this or listening to this, I'm sure. But it's a a great fun show. Um but that was the kind of English that I was like, you know, this is amazing. But then I faced some pushback because it was it sounded over the top for you know, the the the people I was talking to. Uh and actually students in my high school class would make fun of me for the way I said certain words like uh I was saying like water, you know. So water. So So that was kind of annoying and I think that eventually just got me and I also I spent so much time speaking to people from different countries like Americans and, you know, English people, Australians, New Zealand, uh everywhere. And then it it kind of forms this weird I don't know what to call it, you know, it's it's so I think I just give I don't know. It's like an in-between thing. Some words I say probably more American, some words I say more British, but sometimes I wonder if there's some kind of identity crisis going on there.

Well, probably, yeah. But you know, they had probably.

I mean, it's not just the accent, yeah. But my question was um, you know, before all that ramble was, did you how conscious was that decision for you in a kind of, let's say sentence by sentence or, you know, conversation by conversation, because obviously you probably made a conscious decision of what you'd like to sound like or what you'd like to imitate. But did you feel like when you were actually speaking that you had to be quite conscious about how you said certain words or was it kind of in your subconscious and you kind of.

Oh yeah. It's not just the accent. Yeah. My question was um, you know, before all that ramble was, did you how conscious was that decision for you in a kind of, let's say sentence by sentence or, you know, conversation by conversation, because obviously you probably made a conscious decision of what you'd like to sound like or what you'd like to imitate. But did you feel like when you were actually speaking that you had to be quite conscious about how you said certain words or was it kind of in your subconscious and you kind of. I think it was mostly subconscious to be honest. I do remember the word for I. So ish, ich, ik. Like it has quite a lot of pronunciations. Um probably even more than that. Um and I I think because it was just about not changing from what I was already doing when I arrived, I think that that was what I was conscious of. I I was obviously wanted to improve my pronunciation and my accent while there, but if I was already pronouncing it, ish, ish. I can't even remember anymore. Ish. Then I didn't want to start changing a word that I knew I already pronounced. Right. Um So I don't remember it being I don't remember making conscious decisions. I just remember um being conscious of especially because in Austria, there was different vocabulary for some words as well, like fruits and vegetables had different names. Um so I was already becoming more accustomed to calling um certain foods or whatever by different words. I also then I was saying those with that accent rather than with the German accent because I'd never heard a German say it. So it wasn't like I wasn't concerned about it or conscious of it. I just um was I suppose aware of it and curious about it more than anything. I mean, we used to play a game at at uni where we'd try and speak German but with like a French accent or a scouse accent or a Scottish accent or whatever. So we could have made a fortune if uh Tik Tok was around then. But So it was always just fun. It was just a fun thing to play with, I think, rather than um be concerned about and with Spanish for example, I lived in Spain for over three years, but actually most of the Spanish I've ever spoken has been um online with um someone in Venezuela. So but but I still speak with the Spanish pronunciation. Um because while I was learning from her, I was living in Spain. So I needed to say cinco, not cinco. Um that's been a choice, I suppose. Although I I wouldn't mind switching. I I'm not and I always told my students not to worry about their accents. People get quite I think people get quite focused on accent. And I think once you reach a certain level, then say you're like at a C1 C2 level, then yeah, fine, you've run out of vocabulary to learn. Cool, work on your accent, but as long as it's not causing issues with with um being understood, then I don't mind if a Spanish person is saying espagueti instead of spaghetti. It doesn't Right. I I would really encourage my students not to don't worry about that because we're still going to understand you. make sure you know the word. And pronounce it as best you can and as long as you're being understood, then that's fine. You're never going to don't aspire to have no accent because that's rare. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But also what what accent does that mean? Because you know, I I've gone to uh South America as well and I would say I I was in Spain first. So I also my I would be more inclined to use the the Iberian Spanish. Um, but I thought it was strange when I was there to use it with the locals because I knew kind of how to do both. So Yeah, that's true. I'd say mostly I would just try to adapt. Yeah. But in that case, obviously, I couldn't, I couldn't even be close to one accent because I'm in between two anyway and Right. You know, so, so I I for to me that was a little strange because it I had this, of course, when you're in Spain, there's no problem because that's what they all speak like. But then when you go and and same with Brazilian and and European Portuguese. I kind of a similar problem. You know, when I'm speaking with Brazilians, do I try to change what I know is different, or do I put that on them to kind of understand. That's an interesting. It's funny Dave actually speaks Spanish with a Brazilian accent because he learned Portuguese first. when we live for when we lived in Brazil. And then later he like converted his Portuguese into Spanish. Um, but still speaks quite like sometimes he just says.

No, you're good, you're good. But I think it's interesting to see how modern technology is is changing language learning as well. Of course, everyone's talking about AI these days. But VR is also very new. And just so I I've I've never really had any kind of VR equipment or anything. Just so everyone is is on board, the only kind of thing you need with this would be uh a VR headset. Yes. Specifically, a Meta Quest headset. Okay. So that that's like a few big brands and and Meta is one of the biggest ones, right? Yes. So that's the that's like Facebook's Facebook's one. Um yeah, in an ideal world, we'll be making this available on all headsets, but it's actually not that easy. Um so so for the moment. But yeah, that's all you would need. And then you can download the app off the Meta store. Um you can try everything out for free because um we've made at least one example if not several examples of everything available um for free. You can also see um our stuff just on YouTube. Obviously in the headset it's better, but if you just wanted to get a taste of what it was like. Sure. Um I would recommend having a look at the Japanese history episode we've just released. So Dave made a 15-episode documentary about Japanese history from like the myth origin, what do you call it? The myths of origin. Creation myth. That's what I'm trying to say. From the creation myth all the way up until modern day. Um so as you're learning about all the history and you can do this in English where you will just learn some Japanese keywords or you can do this in kind of intermediate level Japanese as well, where you'll be asked comprehension questions. Um traveling around Japan, seeing beautiful scenes of Japan, obviously relevant to the story being told, as you're learning about the history. So, this battle took place at this castle, you're at the castle, looking 360 degrees all around you. Modern day, obviously, not during the battle, but helps paint the picture. And then again, it's giving context to what you're learning. It's making it all a little bit less academic and a little bit more Yeah. real, I think.