can learning be a lost cause

This was initially a topic for teachers but it could be even more useful to have students' input too.
We all know that some people are lucky enough to learn a second language more easily than others and that some situations are more favourable (it 'should' be easier if you are living in an L2 environment that if you are studying on a course for a couple of hours a week in your own country). Nonetheless, now and again we come across students who just seem to get almost nowhere despite their commitment and our best efforts. Do you think there are such things as 'hopeless cases'?
As a student, have you ever experienced a learning approach that seemed to make a genuine difference after previous failed attempts (not judging achievement in terms of performance in class but in real-life situations)?

Well, I would say several different factors can affect the learning ability, for instance:

* teacher - student relationship
* student's background (thinking it's difficult before even starting)
* student's personal life
* trying too hard

I believe that it's actually harder to learn something when you're trying by all means to learn it and focus too much. It's better to relax and have fun, also have multiple interests. You learn more when you're not thinking about it.

I've also heard of people who don't seem to be learning things and then, suddenly, it "clicks" and they realize how much they actually know already. It's like the info needs to set down first.
Think I'm one of those people, my brain just works things by itself, lol.

So no, there aren't lost causes, it's just that it takes longer for some people than others.

There are some people who really can't learn no matter what they do. You have to look at it on a case-by-case basis and not just assume that everyone is capable.

It's not called helpless situation. I've been experienced with studying of an english two times per week for few months. Behind that I bought tapes to listen english and I got translated any single word which I needed to know. I've got some articles which I was reading several times. It was not hopeless situalion at all. I put too many efforts in studiyng. I badly wanted to know english. That was so important for me as nothing else. I can tell you when the situation is helpless you have to concentrate at studying more. At the end of my studying I found Antimoon and I came here tryng to read and to interract with 'real' english people. Finally I went to US and I found how less I know. The real situation was completely diferent from evrything what I know. But I didn't lose my hope. I started with small converations, shopping , reading some magazines. It tooks me ages and still I cannot say 'I know english', I just can say, I can understand others, they can understand me. That's good enough for me.

This will again flood my posts with socio-economic-political overtones... I don't really think foreign language education is on a decline. Rather, it's the time when people have the chance to explore more about language, and many younger ones today start with English. That people complain about possible language shifts only mean we have more lost causes but have gained more excuses.

If you don't meet Anglophones at all, what's the xxxking point of learning English? No one would care what the xxxx I say in English, and no matter how atrocious my accent is, it'll be forever a lost cause if I just can't use English at all, even in a city where English is official for historical reasons. What cause do I have? None, actually. I'll either be in a permanent bottleneck or go very far, perhaps ending up marrying an Anglophone, if I could be that lucky. Mastering English means I have to (force myself, or not, or somehow) learn the whole hell of idioms and words, for whatever register and subject, just for the hell of it.

I'd say personal life has more to do with lost causes, if there should be any. It's been years since I've been in ideological exile, while staying physically in the same culture. In short, I'm here to practice my writing, and practice my ways of thinking, just to get a life. :)

Mac, I don't believe there are lost causes. Even as a native speaker of English, I recognize that there are some people who are more gifted or talented than I. Please don't take this as a political statement, but listen to the current US President, George Bush speak and then listen to former UK PM Tony Blair, or former US President Bill Clinton. Clinton and Blair are outstanding communicaters and have an ability to express themselves in English that eludes others.

So the bottom line is some people, even those born into an English speaking family in an English-speaking country, will speak better than others. As a person learning English, you'll go through times when you see a lot of improvement and other times when you seem to reach a plateau... At other times, depending on the situation, you may find you don't understand anything the speak (of English) is saying.

I do think that 'lost causes' exist. Some people just don't have the cognitive capacity to develop certain skills such as maths, manual dexterity and languages beyond a certain level.

My English friend in Brazil could not tell you what his name was or where he was from in Portuguese after four weeks of studying for four hours a day.

Without meaning to sound negative, I believe these people should appreciate their aptitudinal abilities (both good and bad) and concentrate on what they are best on.

Even so; the greatest denominator is the desire to learn.

<<My English friend in Brazil could not tell you what his name was or where he was from in Portuguese after four weeks of studying for four hours a day. >>

What?? That's very hard to believe. Any regular person could say that in the first class!

>>Even as a native speaker of English, I recognize that there are some people who are more gifted or talented than I.

I think in your country education plays a very important role in raising talented people like such. Your country offers some kinds of the best university programs I'd love to die for. Again, it's not about world politics, but the basic, simple fact, or something I think to be a fact, that Anglophone countries, being filled with immigrants from anywhere, have been leading in the education field.

I think you may know or think of some sort of brain drain in your country, but that isn't quite comparable to, for example, the brain GAIN. In that sense, English may never have been a lost cause, because no matter how bad people speak, they HAVE to learn it for educational reasons. As long as it remains the language of education - for elites like some of my mates, and probably someone nearing it, like me - then you see its importance.

It must sound more like language politics and socioling., but this has been in my adventure, too. We don't have newspeak thanks to the balance of power, but when English has become sort of a super gold standard for most second language students... yes, many ESL learners do know the existence of other languages, but they would most likely not bother to learn them unless for very interesting reasons. I'm not very concerned about the exact worries that even Anglophones have, namely the gradual decline of even the strongest national langs, for reasons I've given somewhere else.

I'd just say the phenomenon now is about the status of English in a glass ceiling and in relation to... as I term it, Euro/Sinocentrism. The former is a socioling. topic, but I'd skip it for now. As for the latter, as I've written somehow... people now have greater freedom to learn many other languages, now that the internet is very convenient to use, but very often they have to pay the cost, i.e. learning English, before they can do a lot with it. I can't criticize others for "misusing" the freedom and whine about conjugations, since the motivated student would theoretically always acquire a language while most others won't. However, the Anglophone view of languages, or the European view in general (many Anglophones share part of its culture, regardless of race and language), would certainly have some influence on the student.

In many instances, I have to remind myself not to be too skeptical of anything Chinese - like the quality of language books in its language. I have to fight against too many thoughts against my culture - which is exactly a very common symptom among many students and young people. I can't say this problem is absolute, but osmosis does affect how people think. There could be the tyranny of freedom, though I'm not sure. Cultural views are subjective; most likely, I can be quite sure that I have to take a grain of salt when I read anything, esp. in lang. politics. My imaginative tyranny is indeed claiming its victims already.

Let me skip most irrelevant examples... but one of them is quite vivid. When Chinese is analytic, and English is also fairly analytic, most Chinese students would feel that highly-inflected languages are inherently more difficult than some others, when they have a combined Chinese and Anglophone view. Those who can think better would of course know that is not true, because we are unavoidably more familiar with English, but when the majority can't think at all, you can see the problem. When most of us have been indoctrinated in English, most of us, even so remote from the Western world on Chinese soil, would believe without questioning that Russian and German are more difficult because we (and the Anglophones) think so, without considering that English is also darn difficult with NO single words similar to any that we know all our life.

For similar Euro/Sinocentric reasons, (lazy) people in the Anglosphere would very probably believe without questioning that Chinese is darn difficult, and probably the most, for not having a single letter, abjad, or syllabary. NO, I didn't even learn my native language with pinyin, and I still think it's 10 times easier than English because it's exactly my native. But of course, I can't stop people from sticking on their Euro/Sinocentric views.

Xie, come again? Where do you come up with this random stuff with no relation whatsoever to the subject? Are you on drugs?

Why not? I'm still sticking on the topic. Take it or leave it. I don't intend to be understood by specific individuals. I'm not paid to write here, so I'd write whatever I want, and I'll follow the rules as long as I can. You wouldn't normally read so much discourse from a Chinese perspective, now that the education system has been dumbed down fairly much that many cannot think at all.

Whose education system, the Chinese one?

My guess is that Xie is pretty damn well educated. I would not be able to express myself in any Chinese language beyond "Nihem pyaulyang"

<My guess is that Xie is pretty damn well educated> Right on!!

Nice piece Xie!

<<I would not be able to express myself in any Chinese language beyond "Nihem pyaulyang" >>

You're a lot better off than me -- I can't say much of anything in any language (other than English).