Metaphor for language learning number 431 of 1073

If you really want to get to know a town, there is no substitute for walking randomly and getting lost, and putting in that effort will help you train yourself to find your way around other towns too.If you rely too much on a map or following others all the time you might never get to really know your way around. However, even people who think they know everything about a town could probably learn something from a map, and for people who don’t really aim at having a thorough knowledge a map is of course essential- providing they know how to use one, of course. If not, whether training on how to use a map is worth it or not also depends on how long they have got, but also on how having to learn how to use a map can kill the fun of being a new place even more than being forced to use one.

All these things depend a lot on personality and previous experience, however. Some people will always get more confused by seeing a map, and others are always better off seeing one from the start.

And the metaphor is:
a map = grammar and other conscious instruction

learning how to read a map = instruction on how to learn a language

no map = just picking it up

Seeing how I moved to Seoul two days ago, can anyone can guess how that metaphor sprang to mind…?

Tags: Living abroad, Metaphors

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Good language learners, Grammar, Language learning tips, Linguistics, applied linguistics and SLA, Teaching English Abroad, Teaching English in Asia, Teaching English in Korea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.