{"id":205,"date":"2016-02-27T13:37:52","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T09:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/?p=205"},"modified":"2016-01-20T13:52:25","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T09:22:25","slug":"adding-tension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/2016\/02\/27\/adding-tension\/","title":{"rendered":"Adding tension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you can ride a bike, you\u2019re probably aware of the two most significant gears: the one connected to the pedals that you turn, and the one that turns the rear wheel. But take a look at the picture below.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/800px-Kettenspanner_f\u00fcr_Singlespeed-R\u00e4der.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-206\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-206\" src=\"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/800px-Kettenspanner_f\u00fcr_Singlespeed-R\u00e4der.jpg\" alt=\"800px-Kettenspanner_f\u00fcr_Singlespeed-R\u00e4der\" width=\"800\" height=\"453\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/800px-Kettenspanner_f\u00fcr_Singlespeed-R\u00e4der.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/800px-Kettenspanner_f\u00fcr_Singlespeed-R\u00e4der-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/800px-Kettenspanner_f\u00fcr_Singlespeed-R\u00e4der-768x435.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/800px-Kettenspanner_f\u00fcr_Singlespeed-R\u00e4der-624x353.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What is the purpose of that red thing? It\u2019s neither the pedal gear nor the wheel gear, but without it the bike would not work. It\u2019s the <em>tensioner<\/em>. Its whole job is to press outward on the chain, to keep a certain amount of tension on it. If there\u2019s not enough tension on the chain, it\u2019ll fall off the gears.<\/p>\n<p>To draw an analogy with language learning:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The pedal gear is where you put the effort into language learning.<\/li>\n<li>The rear wheel is what you get out of it: better language ability.<\/li>\n<li>The tensioner is constant pressure you need to apply to make these things connect.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The tensioner is that small bit of positive stress in your use of language\u2014\u201cpositive\u201d in that it prompts you to want to learn more, and to keep your lessons relevant to your daily life.<\/p>\n<p>Some people are \u201cout there\u201d trying to get stuff done in the language. People like that probably have all the positive stress they need already\u2014probably some negative stress too!<\/p>\n<p>I expect that most of us, however, need a \u201ctensioner\u201d in our lives. We can converse fluently in our five routine conversations. But what\u2019s going to get you to the next level? That\u2019s where the tensioner comes in. It\u2019s the next thing you\u2019re trying to learn. It\u2019s what keeps you growing in the language.<\/p>\n<p>I have the personal goal of understanding Afghan culture better. Recently, I\u2019ve started reading poetry with a language teacher. Poetry does two things for me:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>It stretches my language ability, because it\u2019s not easy\u2014though if you\u2019re thinking of getting into it, it\u2019s not as hard as I thought it would be either.<\/li>\n<li>It opens up cultural doors. What does the reed symbolize? How could a single death be <em>that<\/em> upsetting? I don\u2019t have answer to those questions, but now I have the questions.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>What could your tensioner be?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A radio program<\/li>\n<li>A television show or serial<\/li>\n<li>A book or short story<\/li>\n<li>A work goal: being able to give a lesson or a speech, or being able to read a translation<\/li>\n<li>Random flashcards\u2014I learned the word \u0627\u0650\u0646\u0642\u0650\u0644\u0627\u0628\u06cc from a deck of flashcards a three years and ten days before I heard it in real life, but when I heard it I was ready! (If that seems oddly specific, the flashcard program keeps track of dates and I heard the word for the first time the day I wrote this.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t have to be big. I spend about two hours a week on poetry\u2014one hour with a teacher, one hour in private study. It\u2019s just enough to keep the pressure on, to make sure that I keep learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you can ride a bike, you\u2019re probably aware of the two most significant gears: the one connected to the pedals that you turn, and the one that turns the rear wheel. But take a look at the picture below. What is the purpose of that red thing? It\u2019s neither the pedal gear nor the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goals","category-learning-about-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}