Are language students naïve, or what?.. - On the overloaded student's mind

Alina Kolanczyk with Hanna Kryszewska

Teachers of languages can observe that their students are very often open, extremely open, to put things bluntly: can't lie, and confess to their teachers intimate problems and secrets, when speaking foreign language during lessons. Because of such straightforward student behavior manifested repeatedly over a lesson, a teacher without realizing or wanting it takes a special, influential position, which surpasses average expectations.

Mysterious and delicate tools are accessible to the teacher of a language. These are neither proverbial carrots nor sticks, but tools mostly used beyond teacher's control and depend only on his/her intuition and emotional maturity. They offer a surprising opportunity for controlling students' minds when they are not able to control them themselves. Why should self-control weaken especially during language lessons? To the best of psychological knowledge, it could be the consequence of a limitation of mind's space or capacity while practicing language. Working memory (analogous to temporary, operating memory in the computer) is overloaded by "a new world", in this case a foreign language.

A person speaking a foreign language is also practicing a novel mode of thinking. That activity takes up a huge space, especially of a beginner's mind; a space usually and mainly assigned for the control of purposive actions and self-control. Adult people read, write and speak native language automatically, without reflection. Second language among others demands control of word sequence, choice of grammar, proper use of a context for the word and involves search for the most adequate meanings. Self-control consumes most of the mind's resources, so that monitoring of language rules results in an Ego depletion effect. Students with overloaded minds could behave more spontaneously, express their emotions, thoughts, so they could look more childish and naïve than they normally are. They are so busy controlling the language that they cannot control the content.

Paradoxically, the described effect increases due to the power of control. It is expected that a real controller will more saliently exhibit unwanted, intimate information. The mechanism described by Wegner as paradoxical effect of control could explain it. Wegner was interested in, for example, why people could not sleep, particularly when they want it and are nervous. In experimental conditions he asked his subjects to suppress the thought about fictive "white bear", i.e. "Don't think of the white bear", which reinforces the chance of the white bear intrusions to the stream of thinking, especially in case of stressed subjects. Stress also takes working memory resources, needed for action control (not to think about white bear). As a consequence, controlled (suppressed) meanings are more accessible. When stressed, the more you don't want to use a wrong form, the more probable its use is. The more you are ashamed of something (and keep it hidden), the easier you talk about it spontaneously.

Considering that stress also takes the capacity for self-control, in extremely difficult circumstances there is no room for both. So, we can expect a stronger Ego-depletion effect which manifests itself in excessive openness, confessions and "stupid" behavior in a case of scared or stressed student. Limitations of mind power obviously increase with age. Older students should theoretically exhaust their operational capacity more easily, which means quicker loss of control. Very intelligent people are protected by God or providence against a weakness like that. As suggeested by an old professor of neuroscience - intellectually active people grow in wisdom to the late years, with an insignificant decline in working memory capacity.

Every teacher sensitive and able to exercise empathy feels uncomfortable in relationships with scared students, and usually tries to relax them, without having information about the limited resources of their minds. A helpful attitude towards a scared person could potentially evoke intensification of student's need for expressing an experienced emotion or thought, particularly after some difficult tasks. If a low self-esteem student were scared trying to answer questions, he/she could look for safe background - a warm and supportive teacher.
Fear withdrawal makes people less reflexive, and prone to confide a secret.

Social psychologist, Darek Dolinski studied the phenomenon in natural circumstances, on jay-walkers. When participants of an experiment (unaware of manipulation) had crossed the street and were in the middle of the road they heard the sound of a police whistle and reflexively turned their heads toward the sound. To their surprise there were no policemen on the sidewalk behind him/her. They experienced sudden relief. There was also control participants who crossed the street undisturbed. All participants were next spoken to by a confederate who asked them to fill in a psychological questionnaire and announced it would take only 10 minutes. It should be noted that the experiment was conducted on a cold autumn day. Those participants who experienced fear followed by relief more frequently agreed to fill in the questionnaire than the participants of the control group.

There is an emotional see-saw: from fear to safety, the most efficient rule of interrogations, as in the "good cop-bad cop" procedure. "As presented in crime literature and films, the subject is first brutally mistreated by one policeman-threatened with death, yelled at, and humiliated. Then all of a sudden everything changes. A telephone rings and the "bad" policeman leaves the room. Another policeman comes in - he is calm and pleasant, suggests having coffee and a cigarette, and leads a relatively normal conversation. In films and books, most often the subject, so far having refused to cooperate, starts to reveal everything and everyone. The police interrogation case is only a specific example of a more general rule. Perhaps the sudden withdrawal of fear makes people more compliant to various requests and suggestions" ¹. That state of mind lasting between two different emotions has been named 'mindlessness'. Mindlessness could also manifest itself as the mentioned need for sharing personal problems. A nice teacher of a scared student without any effort transforms into the confessor, which could even embarrass him/her. If a teacher seeks good rapport with students, maintenance of their attention on a lesson topic could be not easy to deal with, especially when a temptation for gossiping arises.

Therefore, it a new challenge for teachers comes into view: how to use the special and powerful position of teachers which unfortunately depends more on a student's overload than on the student's reflective mind.

Alina Kolanczyk, PhD. Professor, dean of Sopot Faculty at Warsaw School of Social Psychology. She researched defence mechanisms of the Self, creative intuition and recently: the role of affect, mood and emotions in information processing. She is the editor and main author of currently published book: "The heart in reason. Affective basis of orientation in the surroundings".

Hanna Kryszewska - senior lecturer at the University of Gdansk, Poland. Pilgrims teacher trainer. Author of EFL books.

¹Dolinski D. (2001), Emotional seesaw, compliance, and mindlessness. European Psychologist, Vol. 6, No. 3, 194-203