Cognitive distortions in mastering the “tenses” of the English language, or Who's stopping us, will help us

* The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon , or Frequency Illusion, is cognitive distortion, in which recently learned information, which reappears after a short period of time, is perceived as unusually frequent.

Around the "bugs" ...

“Soft” of each of us is stuffed with “bugs” - cognitive distortions .

The question arises: how can a person perceive the reality without a person? Can human consciousness, in principle, be free from systematic deviations in perception? How would human society and the world change if everyone was free from them?

While there are no answers to these questions, and so far none of us are free from them, this “Achilles heel” of human perception is successfully used by marketers, advertisers and other practitioners of behavioral economics . They managed to create manipulative techniques, successfully exploiting our cognitive distortions to, for example, achieve corporate business goals.

The author has found a working application of cognitive distortions in another area - teaching foreign languages.

Psychological inertia of the native language in the study of a foreign language

As a specialist working with people's minds, the author knows very well how painful and ineffective the struggle with the psychological inertia of the native language is in learning English.

Cognitive science has revealed that, even if a person is well aware of the presence of cognitive distortion, this knowledge in no way gives a person immunity from falling into them. When learning a language, the goal is to master the language as a tool, and not to combat the inevitable cognitive distortions that impede the achievement of this goal. At the same time, collisions with cognitive distortions in the process of mastering a foreign are inevitable.

Unfortunately, the current popular technologies and methods of teaching foreign languages ​​on a systematic level do not take into account the natural resistance of the psyche to the integration of incomprehensible language constructs, and, in fact, are rather long-term projects for penetrating the doors against the forehead than accompanied by the pleasure of feeling the growth of skill and profitability of intellectual, temporal and financial investments.

In the process of teaching practice, the author learned one truth: to struggle with perceptual distortions while learning a language is as unproductive as struggling with Jung's own Shadows, which can only be overcome by revealing, realizing and accepting in yourself. When the repressed Shadow is integrated back into the personality, this shadow becomes a powerful resource.

From this conclusion, the idea was born of “saddling” the inertia of cognitive distortions, controlling the consciousness in a controlled way so that the distortions would help, and not prevent, the rapid absorption of the material.

Method 12 (profile link) was born - a heuristic method of “loading” the system of “times” of English grammar. The process in which some of our cognitive distortions, usually obstacles, act as our allies, providing, paradoxically, the awareness and comfort of the learning process, a significant saving of time and finances - in general, a rather simple, algorithmized, and entertaining shortcut to goals

“Who's stopping us will help us!”

Method 12 incorporates the principle of aikido into the system for mastering twelve English forms of temporary forms: “He who interferes with us will help us!”

Indeed, why invest in an exhausting fight against cognitive distortions, if they can be used as powerful allies, on whose back it is much easier to triumphantly enter a new skill?

What are these cognitive distortions that help us master the material in the space of Method 12, and with which traditional approaches to learning interact so irrationally?

To begin with, with any traditional approach to mastering a language, it is learned from the outside as an already existing phenomenon. The prospect of further integration of this alien system into the arsenal of one’s own consciousness appears to the student as shaky as taking the fortress wall in a jump. There is me, and there is a giant English, and I need to eat and digest this elephant, for a long, long time cutting off small pieces from it.

On guard for the moment when this eaten elephant becomes an integrated part of your consciousness, there is a cognitive distortion, referred to as “ IKEA Effect ” (with which the “ Syndrome“ is not invented by me ”is associated). Method 12 takes into account this phenomenon of the psyche, as well as the similar “ Generation Effect, or Manifestation ” (which is an objective property of the psyche, and not cognitive distortion), building an educational space on their inertia.

These two phenomena, one of which is cognitive distortion, are the pillars on which two of the four (symmetrical first and third) stages of Method 12 are built, where the construction of the system of English forms of time forms is revealed.

The triumph of the owl and the globe

Further, Method 12 successfully overcomes the perennial problem of students “putting the Russian owl on the English globe”, about which the author has already written earlier.

It appears that this cognitive distortion is derived from the distortions “ Confirmation bias ”, “ Semelweiss effect ” and “ Clustering illusion ”. They are united by the tendency of our psyche to search or interpret new information in such a way that it integrates into the paradigm that already exists in consciousness. In the case of studying English - the phenomenon of persistent search for Russian cognitive logic in a foreign language, which of course is almost absent there.

Instead of arguing with a powerful force, that, against our will, begins to “pull” the new material, which is outside the paradigm of the native Russian language, to this very paradigm, instead of driving into the elemental process of nailing the rules and snapping the whip and correcting endless mistakes in speech and exercises, we, as a wise psychiatrist, kindly agree with the recalcitrant mind. “Yes, dear. Do you want it like that? Of course, my good, let it be as you want. ”And we set up the right direction for the elements.

The comforted mind ceases to stress and panic from the fact that it is impossible to "shove nevpihuemoe." In the meantime, we gently offer him a display of the system of types of temporal forms, encoded into the system of the usual for him, consciousness, “peaceful” realities and symbols - “facts”, “processes”, “deadlines”, “perfect facts”, etc. . This auxiliary symbolic construction is arranged in such a way that it is identical to the system of the twelve English active voice days. Over several hours of training, the consciousness smoothly imposes an auxiliary 3D construction on the English Tenses system, and naturally integrates into itself the once hated and incomprehensible Present Perfect Simple and Future Perfect Progressive. It is possible to draw an analogy with the situation when it is necessary to deliver medicine to the blood of a sick animal. The pure beast will refuse to eat the tablet, and, instead of losing time on its resistance and aggression, the owner simply adds the pill to the treat. Voila

As a result, we allowed our consciousness to “stretch” for our own pleasure, but slightly corrected this process: the “owl” became English, and the “globe” became Russian. That is, under the strict guidance of a teacher, consciousness ceased to look for English in Russian cognitive logic, but, on the contrary, found elements of cognitive logic of English in Russian and built up these common for both languages ​​elements into a system model identical to the system of time forms of English language. We painlessly and comfortably overcame the resistance of consciousness, avoided fruitless struggle with it, using the mechanisms of the aforementioned cognitive distortions to the benefit of a better and deeper interiorization of the skill.

Moreover, in developing the internal terminology of Method 12, we use the natural inertia of the effect of familiarity with the object and accessibility heuristics , conventionally coding some cognitive constructions that are most difficult for Russian-speaking perception, using common folk phrases, such as: , walked, walked, found a pie, sat down, ate, went further, ”“ scissors ”,“ pins ”,“ pieces ”. Now that we have such capacious memes in our arsenal, we have mercifully unloaded our consciousness: now, in order to embed the formidable Past Perfect into our Russian-language paradigm, we don’t need furious definitions such as in English Enough with a conspiratorial look to hint: “whose sneakers”?

It does not sound so scientifically, I agree. But without cognitive distortion and reduced to a logical system, simple and reliable, like a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Taken out of the context of the built system, this “pragmatterminology” loses all meaning.

It is worth mentioning that the course is built in cycles, in the best traditions of the Effect of Level Processing and Interval Repetition . The material of the first stage is processed on a new, deeper, turn on the third, the second stage is mirrored to the “enriched” fourth. And then - the sky is the limit ... A strong "skeleton" of English grammar is implanted in the student's head. Further, it is possible to build on it relief “muscles” and polish other linguistic beauty as much as the student wants and needs.

Ominous sin of the teacher

We thought a lot about the students. And the teacher? He is also a man with his own distortions. What does a teacher overcome in teaching by Method 12? Distortion of perception with the ominous title “ Curse of knowledge ”: “one of the cognitive distortions in a person’s thinking is that it is extremely difficult for more informed people to view a problem from a less informed point of view”. Having such a transparent technology in work, the teacher does not have a chance to unwittingly confuse the student’s head. It is likely that, teaching in Method 12, as in that joke, “while I explained it, I understood it myself”, the teacher, explaining the material, can sometimes see in it something that he had not seen before.

I would like to know what difficulties of perception faced when studying languages, those who read this text. And a big request to those who do not have cognitive distortions - minus stones in the Method, if possible, not to throw. The author tried.