Welcome to The Learning Curve.
If you are a non-native speaker of the English Language, and you are reading this blog, with a full understanding of what I am talking about, you already KNOW what The Learning Curve is all about.
The reason I bring this topic up TODAY, is because one of my most enthusiastic students, a middle-aged person who attends my classroom 3 times a week, told me something that was profoundly interesting for me.
This particular student has only been attending my classroom for one year.
Before he came to my classroom, he had attended a big name English Conversation School, in the city of Kitami for two years.
At that time, he wanted to study English as a hobby, because he was living alone, and had quite a bit of free time on his hands.
After 2 years of living and working in Kitami, he was transferred to Asahikawa, and he immediately starting looking for a new English Conversation School in Asahikawa 旭川英会話スクール.
It didn't take him long to find this website for my little ole school, right here on the WORLD WIDE WEB.
AKA the internet.
He called here and made an appointment for a free trial lesson 無料体験レッスン.
After that lesson, he immediately decided to sign up as a new member of this classroom, and has been coming here almost every week, and on average about 2 or 3 times a week, for a total of one year now.
At today's lesson he told me that he is so happy, that he can now speak English in a fluent and accurate manner, and he felt so good about IT, that he couldn't stop talking about IT.
I then explained to him in English, about the concept of a learning curve.
Please look at the graphic, above/left.
When a person, any person, first tries to learn something completely new, they START on the LEARNING CURVE.
At first, they must study very hard, and they do not make much progress.
But if they keep on trying for a long enough time, they will reach phase one.
At this point, they can feel that they have learned something new, but it is still not very useful in their daily lives.
If the student continues to study, they will make it to phase two and then phase three and up to phase four, where they notice a significant increase of their knowledge about the new study, but IT is still NOT QUITE ENOUGH to become very useful in their daily lives.
At this point, many people will have spent about 2 or 3 years studying this new knowledge and they all have a decision to make.
Should they continue their study, or should they quit?
Unfortunately, a lot of people get frustrated with their own slow progress, and give up at this point.
However, those students who keep on trying to learn more about their new knowledge, and DO NOT GIVE UP, have a very big surprise waiting for them, just around the corner.
After phase four, the amount of time spent studying begins to yield much bigger results in total learning achieved.
This is the point where critical mass has been achieved, and the return to the student for their time spent studying, INCREASES EXPONENTIALLY.
In other words, their total understanding of the knowledge at hand becomes greater and faster with each step they take towards that knowledge.
The student finally has enough pieces of the puzzle, to be able to SEE the BIGGER PICTURE of that knowledge base.
This is true for any type of LEARNING (knowledge acquisition).
It is a fundamental LAW of the COSMOS. IT never changes. IT just IS.
I KNOW FOR A FACT that this is true, because I have had many personal experiences, in my own 50 something years of humanoid EXISTENCE on this EARTH, that have taught me the true meaning of learning.
For example, learning how to play the guitar, the piano, the bass guitar, the Japanese Language, the teaching of languages, the learning of new languages, and the list goes on and on.
Don't be one of those people who give up when the going gets tough 三日坊主.
Hang in there and tough it out.
There are millions of sad stories about people who did their best, and then STOPPED ONLY 3 METERS AWAY FROM THE GOLD MINE.
Do not allow yourself to become one of them.
ROCK ON!
