The Psychology of Language Learning 
and TLC Solution

By Simon Buckland

Simon is the original author of the TLC Language Institute method and currently works with TLC International on new educational projects.

Learning English as an adult is exciting, but also quite challenging(1), and in the next three editions of the eNewsletter, Simon will look at the reasons why this is so.

The first of three articles highlights the psychology of the adult language learning process. The next edition of the eNewsletter will present TLC Language Institute ’s approach to the language learning process and why students successfully learn English at the TLC Language Institute . The final article will look at the TLC Language Institute ’s language learning method within our Centers and why a positive student learning experience is our main goal.




First of all, we need to understand the characteristics of the language learning process, as compared for instance with learning to drive a car, or learning about economics. Driving a car is above all a practical skill, while a would-be(2) expert on economics needs to assimilate(3) a large amount of information. Practical skills, obviously, are mostly acquired through practice, while information can be obtained from books, computers and human experts.

Learning English is a mixture of these two: there is information to be memorized (vocabulary lists, grammar rules etc.), but it also takes a lot of practice to become a fluent listener and speaker. That’s why at Wall Street we give you plenty of opportunities to practice speaking and listening to English, both in the Speaking Center and in the Encounters and Complementary Classes with teachers.

However, there are two other important features of language learning which we need to take into account(4). The first of these is neurological(5): human beings, unlike most other animals, are born with their brains only partially developed. Large numbers of neuronal (nerve) connections are only laid down in the first few years of life, including those connected with our first language. To use a term taken from computer science, our mother tongue is hard-wired(6) into our brains when we are children – that’s how its use becomes totally instinctive(7).

Round about the age of eight this phase of development comes to an end. A certain amount of neurological flexibility continues until we are about twenty, by when our basic ‘brain maps’ are fully formed. Of course, the ability to learn languages and anything else remains with us throughout life, but when we’re adults the process is conscious and deliberate(8), and much of it takes place in a different area of the brain from the area used for the first language.

And the other difference? Not for nothing do we speak of our ‘mother language’: as well as being nurtured(9) by our mothers in our native language, the language itself nurtured us as children, and still nurtures us now. It speaks to our deepest nature, our sense of rootedness(10) in our homeland, and in our very selves.

So when we try to learn to speak a foreign language, we are challenging ourselves not only intellectually - by stepping outside the familiar neurological pathways, as it were(11) - but also emotionally, by letting go of our mother language, and using another language which has no such familiar and reassuring(12) associations. What can we do - and how does WSI help us - to maximize our chances of success in this daring enterprise(13)?

The traditional answer is: ‘work very hard’: Of course, there’s some truth in this: the only success in life open to people unwilling to make any effort is in the lottery(14). But hard work alone won’t do it – in any case, the intelligent learner wants to get the maximum results for the work they put into study.

  1 challenging - demanding all one’s abilities
  2 a would-be doctor - someone who wants to
  3 assimilate - to absorb into one’s mind
  4 to take into account - to consider, to take into consideration
  5 neurological - related to the nervous system
  6 hard-wired - built into a computer system so that it can’t be changed
  7 instinctive - done spontaneously
  8 deliberate - with intention
  9 to nurture - to feed and nourish, physically and emotionally rooted
    (in a place)
  10 rootedness - the sense or quality of being rooted (in a place)
  11 as it were - so as to say
  12 reassuring - comforting, taking away one’s fears
  13 enterprise - task, project
  14 lottery - a kind of competition where one buys a ticket, hoping to
    win a large prize