S9E3: Coaching Language Learners to Success

Founder of Fluent Language, Kerstin Cable, discusses the difference between teaching and coaching. Kerstin walks through key elements of her language habit system, which focuses on a cycle of planning, tracking, reviewing, and goal setting to set learners up for success.

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Key talking points

Defining Coaching:

• Coaching focuses on understanding the learner's goals and empowering them to find their own solutions.

• Kerstin emphasises the importance of autonomy in the coaching process, allowing learners to make decisions and take ownership of their learning journey.

The Power of Habits:

• Kerstin discusses the significance of habits in language learning, drawing from Gretchen Rubin's framework.

• She highlights the effectiveness of small, consistent actions over grand, unsustainable efforts.

• Kerstin shares her experience developing a language habit system and its evolution.

Flexibility and Adaptability:

• The habit system allows for flexibility and adjustment based on individual needs and preferences.

• Kerstin emphasises the importance of understanding one's motivations and adjusting habits accordingly.

Applicability Across Contexts:

• Laura reflects on her own language learning journey and the shift from traditional methods to a habit-based approach.

• Kerstin explains how the habit system can be tailored to various goals and contexts, whether for citizenship exams or personal enjoyment.

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About Kerstin

Kerstin Cable is a language learning coach, speaker, and podcaster living in England. She is the woman behind Fluent Language.

Kerstin is the author of more than 15 books and courses for language learners, co-founder of AI Language Club and the Women in Language conference, and creator of the Fluent Show podcast.

She is a native German speaker who hails from the beautiful Moselle valley. Kerstin studied six languages in Germany and has added four more so far, including her language crush, Welsh. Kerstin is a popular speaker at universities and events, and has been featured on BBC World Service, in Süddeutsche Zeitung, Bloomberg Businessweek and The Cut.

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References

Links will direct you to resources Kerstin mentions in this episode and more.

1. Cable, K. (2021) Language Coaches: What they are and how to work with them

2. The Fluent Show - a podcast about loving, living and learning languages

3. Rubin, G. (2020). The Four Tendencies. Two Roads

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Watch the video with closed captions or refer to the transcript below.

Transcript

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:21:09

Laura

TESOL Pop: Season Nine, Episode Three. Hello and welcome to TESOL Pop, the mini podcast for busy teachers. My name is Laura and joining me today to talk about coaching language learners to success is Kerstin Cable. Kerstin is a language learning coach, speaker and podcaster living in England. She's also the woman behind fluentlanguage.co.uk and the creator of the Fluent Show podcast.

00:00:21:13 - 00:00:33:19

Laura

In this episode, we talk about the characteristics of coaching and how Kerstin developed her language habit system to drive her students to success. Let's join the conversation where I ask Kerstin what coaching means to her.

00:00:33:21 - 00:00:59:14

Kerstin

Essentially, the idea of coaching for me is I'm interested in why my learner, why my client does things, why they what they want to achieve with their language. And I want to talk to them, and I want to listen to what they've got to say and then have the opportunity to kind of poke a little bit and ask them questions and suggest different scenarios.

00:00:59:16 - 00:01:19:21

Kerstin

So I'm not I'm no longer giving them the answers. I want them to find their own answers and to come away feeling like, “Do you know what? That really made me think, and I'm going to try something else and I feel safe to try it. And then maybe I'll see her again in a month, and then we can check in on how I did it. ”

00:01:19:23 - 00:01:35:13

Kerstin

So to me, the spectrum between that's where the spectrum is between the teaching and the coaching. It's kind of about how much decision, how many decisions your, your person makes. And I want my person to be really quite autonomous.

00:01:35:19 - 00:01:42:14

Laura

You have a system that revolves around habits and that's something that's really at the heart of your sessions.

00:01:42:16 - 00:01:43:10

Kerstin

Often is yeah.

00:01:43:10 - 00:01:54:21

Laura

Yeah, yeah. Well, what is it about habits that is effective for your students who are trying to master or achieve a particular goal in the language?

00:01:54:23 - 00:02:19:24

Kerstin

so the way the, the way you can define a habit is that it's an automatic, an automatic action that you kind of do without thinking about it, which when you're thinking about that's, you know, you think about your bad habits. That's I feel like where this really comes into play, like if you're a smoker, if you, you know, reach for the chocolate, if you're on the social media, a lot.

00:02:20:01 - 00:02:41:02

Kerstin

We all have bad habits. You know, if you're a gossip, I don't know. And, then you realise these are things that happen involuntarily. You know, you don't really think about, oh, I'm gonna like, I'm gonna spend half an hour on TikTok now, but then you do, I hear I don't I don't have TikTok. And, I got really interested.

00:02:41:05 - 00:03:05:20

Kerstin

I was also reading a lot of Gretchen Rubin at the time. Gretchen Rubin is a really, interesting writer about the idea of habits and how it all works. So I got interested in, like, a lot of people saying, here's what I want to do in my languages. And usually having these like, big, bombastic goals and going really hard and watching four hours of YouTube every single day.

00:03:05:20 - 00:03:29:24

Kerstin

And then when they felt like the imaginary or imagined progress or goal wasn't achieved, people would really drop off and people would feel bad about themselves. And I thought, well, what is how is that different to how I do languages? Because I don't do that. I just, I don't know, like because I've been doing it for so long, I don't have this question in my mind of whether I can do it or not.

00:03:30:01 - 00:03:59:20

Kerstin

So I started wondering, how can we take that question out? And that is really where this habit thing comes in. You start to think of yourself just as, yeah, I'm a person who does well each once a week, or I'm a person who listens to French radio in the mornings, or I'm a French learner. So you try to make your contact points with the language so small and so.

00:03:59:22 - 00:04:22:02

Kerstin

Easy to access and so little that they really build up to something big. But you no longer have to set yourself these huge plans. You just kind of work down a list or you just sort of do your thing. and that feeling of you just doing your thing, that was swift when I first started with this habit work, where I was coming from.

00:04:22:05 - 00:04:39:18

Kerstin

And I started language habit system for myself, you know, so it was, it started off with me going, how do I organise myself? How do I never successfully self-study language before I did? Well, what am I going to do now? Like what is what is the thing that I can do? And I've had to learn how to self-study.

00:04:39:21 - 00:05:01:03

Kerstin

Then I realised I built these trackers for myself in this system and I thought, okay, it's just going to work for other people. And I pulled in testers and we, we experimented with it and over the years, then built it from a little set of trackers into this whole, okay, here is a system that really works for you.

00:05:01:05 - 00:05:21:01

Kerstin

because every part of it talks to each other, it's actually really simple. At the heart of it, it's planning, tracking a little bit what you're doing and then reviewing. And at the review stage, you look at everything you did, you look at what work, do you look at what to do next, and you let your new goals be informed by what you actually did.

00:05:21:03 - 00:05:47:23

Kerstin

So over time, your goals become more and more realistic. But during the smaller section that you've planned for, you also keep you like you're really incentivised to keep your actions really, really small and to do that daily contact thing. So you're not constantly reinventing the wheel, you're not constantly resource hopping or wondering what the new technique is. You just go, I'm going to try this for a month, or I'm going to try this for two weeks.

00:05:48:00 - 00:05:52:18

Kerstin

Let's go. And then during the let's go phase, you don't have to think about it so hard anymore.

00:05:52:23 - 00:06:14:00

Laura

So it sounds really agile as well. So if there's a habit that's just not working or there's a blocker, that's something I can take time to reflect on and pivot. So for example, if I wanted to do a morning coffee review, of German, but I'm finding I'm getting too distracted by the morning start of emails and stuff like that, then that would be a good moment to say, well, this isn't working at this time.

00:06:14:00 - 00:06:19:02

Laura

Do I need to try a different time? Is there a better opportunity? Is that kind of how it works?

00:06:19:04 - 00:06:51:24

Kerstin

That's kind of how it works. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So the idea is that when something doesn't work, you have an opportunity to not beat yourself up and think, I'm a terrible German learner, but instead to realise, oh, do you know what? I'm just going to go and do it in the whatever in my lounge where I haven't got the internet, where I've got the emails, I'm going to leave my phone in the kitchen, go and do it in the lounge for ten minutes, then I can go come back to my phone and over time maybe you go, okay, and then I'm going to actually I'm going to take my coffee there.

00:06:51:24 - 00:07:13:16

Kerstin

So I'm getting used to it. I'm going to maybe put a candle in or something like that. I'm going to just make sure the book is actually where I need it to be, rather than two floors up or down. So everything is about like a lot of things with habit. Building is about convenience. Everything's about, okay, what's the little break that is on you doing the thing that you want to do?

00:07:13:20 - 00:07:16:15

Kerstin

And how can we maybe do it slightly differently?

00:07:16:17 - 00:07:42:02

Laura

It sounds so much more accessible than when I was starting to learn German. I felt like this is a huge thing that I had to master. I had serious books to study because I want to pass the exam for, citizenship. And it just became this really scary thing, and I felt like I had to block off big amounts of time or attend a particular school at certain times to, in order to master the language.

00:07:42:04 - 00:08:07:12

Laura

But this model that you're mentioning and taking this approach, this could apply to anything, right? Whether you're studying a language for like my myself, I'm studying for, visa citizenship reasons or even just people that wanting to learn just for the pure pleasure of learning the language, it seems that this could be transferred to all of those different contexts that people study for.

00:08:07:14 - 00:08:31:23

Kerstin

It does it does work that way because the place where you start is with your goals. So at the start, I work with the two types of goals because people often say, I've got this beautiful girl, I want to get fluent and, and then don't know how to break it down. So, I talk about the vision and, and really try to build an emotional connection with that vision.

00:08:31:23 - 00:08:53:09

Kerstin

So for you, it might be imagine. Yes, I remember my citizens are everybody. But like imagine imagine yourself at the citizenship ceremony. Imagine yourself passing. Imagine yourself getting the thing in the post that says C1 sorted, you know, 100, 100, 100 hundred. And just that feeling of I've got that. It's this is so great, you know, connect to that.

00:08:53:11 - 00:09:16:04

Kerstin

We can't really then, break that down into tasks that doesn't work. But to have it sealed away somewhere, to have it locked away somewhere and to have access to it is a really great motivator, a really great driver, and it makes it clear for you, oh, this is why what I'm in this for. And I think sometimes we need to every few years we need to re-examine what we're in this for that with.

00:09:16:07 - 00:09:38:02

Kerstin

Well Jeff, how do you know as I've improved, it's my reason for still being in the game is different. but it's it's really important to kind of I don't know if I'm going to say it in like, marketing terms or whatever. Like it's not knowing your why. It's a bit of a platitude, but it really is important.

00:09:38:04 - 00:09:54:07

Kerstin

And what that also means is you do have a system that is flexible enough to adjust to the person who is an expat who needs to live somewhere, the person whose kid is in school in a different language. You need to start talking to that kid and understand what the teachers want, and then the person who is learning for the pure love and pleasure of it.

00:09:54:12 - 00:10:14:05

Laura

Yeah, it's coming back to that. What is your your why and how is it going to change your life if you put these habits into place? For myself, I didn't really think about that enough because the why was imposed on me by the standards of, where I'm living. So I hadn't really spent time to think about how would my life change if I spoke German better?

00:10:14:07 - 00:10:39:02

Laura

What would get easier for me? What sort of friendships and relationships would I foster if I was able to speak German better? And I think if I maybe spent some time thinking about that, I'd be far more enthusiastic about building habits. Maybe not so much the coursework. I don't think I could be enthusiastic about that, but, you know, taking steps forward that propel me forward in my learning rather than feeling like it's a bit of a chore.

00:10:39:04 - 00:11:09:08

Kerstin

Gretchen Rubin has got this, framework that she refers to, called the “four tendencies,” which there is a this sort of a bonus workshop in my habit system course that is just four tendencies, just explaining what they are. And then how that works for language learners, perhaps. But the idea of the four tendencies is that you've got, most people fall into four categories in how you respond to, I think she calls it.

00:11:09:10 - 00:11:27:19

Kerstin

Demands on us or like requirements. So the different things that that we want that we want from ourselves, but also that the world wants from us. You can be an obliger. It's usually somebody who responds really well to what comes from the outside, but you overlook what you want internally a little bit, and you're not very good at motivating yourself.

00:11:27:21 - 00:11:49:14

Kerstin

But when somebody else makes you like, then you're very excited about it. You can be a questioner, which I definitely fall into, which is someone where everything needs to make sense to you before you do it. So if it doesn't make sense to you internally, you just don't. You don't do it. You can't bring up the motivation.

00:11:49:14 - 00:12:11:06

Kerstin

So I often feel like, well, that's pointless doing it. And then I just don't do whatever it is in my life. So I need to relative size. And the downside is a lot of, questioning, you know, more than you need, which is, I think, why I built the system for myself. I set the goal, and then I go, and then we're not questioning the goal anymore because this is sensible, right?

00:12:11:06 - 00:12:23:13

Kerstin

I've built the system. you can be the rebel, but essentially you just other people, other expectations, all your inner expectations. You just don't like any of it.

00:12:23:15 - 00:12:26:10

Laura

It's just not going to do that. Yeah. Exactly.

00:12:26:12 - 00:12:47:14

Kerstin

Right. The way to motivate rebel, she says, is to basically go, yeah, I don't think you should blah, blah, blah, because then they're going to do whatever you said they shouldn’t. Or you can be, the upholder, which just is almost the other side of the spectrum to a rebel. So somebody who just is mega reliable maybe can be a little can become a little bit stiff and inflexible.

00:12:47:19 - 00:13:07:14

Kerstin

You know, that's so good. It just always doing the same thing that the structure makes them feel secure. But it can it removes a little bit of flexibility. So I like thinking about it in those way. And it for me with habits, that works as a framework. that's why I kind of built it in. Then I was thinking about that a lot.

00:13:07:14 - 00:13:13:10

Kerstin

And, I build that into when I first developed the the language habit system a little bit.

00:13:13:12 - 00:13:27:14

Laura

This is really useful. And, for listeners of the show, I'll include a link to Gretchen's book in the show notes as a closed today's podcast, episode, would you like to just share where can listeners find more, about your wonderful courses and the work you do?

00:13:27:16 - 00:13:53:17

Kerstin

Absolutely. So my website is, fluentlanguage.co.uk. And, if you go to /lhs, you can see a little bit about the language habit system, but I've got sort of an on-demand free training that explains it to you in more detail. It's really useful whether you end up getting the course or not. so I would recommend that as your next, point of information.

00:13:53:19 - 00:14:03:20

Kerstin

And, I also have this podcast episode that I refer to about language coaching. So I'm going to send that to Laura as well, so you can put it in the show notes because that might be really useful.

00:14:03:20 - 00:14:06:19

Laura

Thank you so much, Kerstin. It's been lovely talking to you today.

00:14:06:21 - 00:14:08:17

Kerstin

And you, thank you so much.

00:14:08:19 - 00:14:25:07

Laura

As mentioned, all those links in the show notes so you can find them easily. If you have a question or an idea that you'd like to pitch to the podcast, you can contact us via Instagram, Facebook or the website TESOLPop.com. Finally, if you love the work we do, then you can support us by leaving a rating review wherever you listen to the podcast.

00:14:25:09 - 00:14:34:20

Laura

By sharing today's episode with your teaching community or by even buying a coffee at ko-fi.com/tesolpop.

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