The Social Psychology of SILP

Ann recently referred me to a NYT article which discusses how limited people are in our ability to accurately assess our own weaknesses. According to research done at Cornell University:

When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead... they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.

Simply put, the greater our deficiencies, the more likely we are to believe those deficiencies to be non-existent.



So how does this relate to SILP? Since the SILP final exams are performance-based, students need to constantly work on improving their language abilities throughout the semester. Students can only build up their competence in the language through regular use and practice, yet they often make the mistake of feeling that they 'know' more of the language than they do - mistaking basic familiarity for mastery. These same students can seem surprised when their performance on the final exam does not result in the grade they'd imagined they would earn. Struggling students are frequently incapable of self-assessment and do not seem to readily accept suggestions for improvement made by tutors or coordinators, preferring to instead believe that they will 'be just fine' on the day of the test.

How can we help? Each tutoring session should include performance-based tasks in which the students must use the language they've studied in order to communicate. For example, when studying foods, students should be asked to order meals as they would in a restaurant, or make and respond to inquires about the ingredients in a certain dish. When studying the past tense, students should be able to comprehensibly describe what they did last weekend or how they celebrated their last birthday. These are the types of activities they will have to complete during the final oral interview, and they should be given every chance to evaluate their progress (or lack thereof) in using the language for practical purposes before the end of the semester. Struggling students should not be shielded out of the desire to keep them from embarrassment, but encouraged to recognize where improvement is needed so that they can work on their weaknesses.

Of course, the Cornell research suggests that not every student will be capable of recognizing their problems, even when we'd expect those problems to be apparent. I remain optimistic, however. Students will more accurately evaluate their strengths and weaknesses if we give them the chance to put their skills to the test during each class, and a greater awareness of their abilities and areas for improvement should help them as they develop their language skills. If they are never asked to use the language to communicate, they will persist in the belief that they 'could use it if they wanted' without any knowledge of if that belief is reasonable or not.