Learning the natural way

What means "learning the natural way"? Motivation, games, activities...

We can read on newspapers about this:

Here is a counterintuitive piece on what we consider the “natural” way to learn, from cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham. He is a professor and director of graduate studies in psychology at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His latest book is “When Can You Trust The Experts? How to tell good science from bad in education.” This appeared on his Science and Education blog.

I have trouble to understand what the psychologists say. For me, interest!, for me this is the main, the first thing to achieve real learning. We only learn what we have interest. For achieve students's interest, we can play games, sing, catch attention, make an effort..., but if we don't get interested students, there won't be learning.

Sometimes in the class, students make how if apparently they learned and teachers make how if apparently they taught and sometimes students and teachers can believe it, but usually is a lie.

Now you can watching two videos about learning languages:

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He woke in the cottage, although at first he did not know where he was. He lay still for a moment. It was very dark and he could not see much. He knew wher he was only by the smells, the smell of the dried earth they burn in the fireplaces in the west of Ireland and the smell of the sheets, fresh from drying outside in the wind. But it was still difficult to see. There were no street lights on the island, no lights from street advertisements, no car lights going past. There was a darkness and a silence that you never get in the town. It was one of the things that Johm loved about the island.

But as he woke now, he did not feel comfortable. He did not like the darkness of the room where he lay. It made him feel nervous. He felt something was not quite right. Slowly, from the darkness, he began to recognise shapes: the lighter-coloured walls and the dark shapes of the heavy furniture in the cottage _ the large wardrobe at the end of the bed where they put their clothes and where they could have put twice as many clothes, the painting on the wall of the two men on the beach pushing their little boat into the high waves of the Atlantic.

As he began torealise where he was he also knew that something was very wrong. The room was quiet. Quieter than it should be. he could hear only the outside noises of the sea and a wind that whispered through the windows of the cottage. There were no noises from inside the cottage. He reached over in the bed towards Rachel, but knew already before his hand touched the cold sheets that she was not there. He sat up in bed and tried to say her name but nothing came out. He tried to shout but nothing came. His breathing was fast and very loud. He pulled the sheets back and threw them off the bed and ran to the window and pulled back the curtains. He looked out into the darkness, pushing his face against the cold wet window and silently called Rachel's name. He could see no-one outside. He turned to the little bed where Patrick lay and tried to scream again as he saw that that bed was empty too.

He ran to the living room, pushing and kicking and the furniture that got in his way. He screamed her name and this time it came out; from the bottom of his stomach the name came and he put his hands to his ears to stop it. It hurt so mudh to hear her name when she was not there, when she had gone.

He ran to the front door and pulled at it but it did not move. The key was in the lock and he turned it. But it simply turned and turned and the lock did not move. He ran back to the bedroom and stopped suddenly as he saw that the wardrobe door was opening. It opened slowly and someone stepped out. It was someone in black. The white of the face was the only light in the room. It was impossible to see if it was a man or a woman. It was carrying something. It spoke. The voice was the man's from the boat.

"The baby's fine. Don't worry." And John saw that the man was holding Patrick.

John tried to speak but his mouth was dry and he could not porduce any words but he heard the questions as if someone else was asking them.

"What are you ... who are you? What are you doing with my son? Where is...?"

"The boy is fine," the man said. It's all right. He'll be OK now. They don't really die, you know, they come back. The little ones who go before their time. They come back from the other side. They always come bac to us. They always come back."

"What! What are you talking about? What do you mean come back? What other side? What are you talking about? You mean death? My son is fine. He's not dead! Are you mad? And ..." John looked around the room again. "And... where is my wife? What have you done to my wife?"

John was trying to look into the man's face but it was still difficult to see anything. He noticed that the man's hair was very short but that was all he could see. The man spoke again. He spoke with a voice that was gentle and soft.

"Her work is done now. She can go back to the other side. You can let her go now. She has done very well. Look at the boy, the boy is fine. A lovely child."

John looked at Patrick asleep in the man's arms and reached out to take him but as the put out his arms he felt himself start to fall backwards. Slowly at first, very slowly. The man was still speaking. His mouth formed the words but Johm could no longer hear the words. And now John felt as if he was falling faster and faster. but the man still stood there and did not seem any further away. With his whole body John knew that he was falling, even though nothing around him moved. He reached out again with his arms. The man too was reaching otu his hand. Although John was still falling the hand came closer and closer, and finally it touched the side of his face. Everything stopped, then suddenly everything went dark.