Charlene Polio discusses facts and myths about the challenges of language learning, and suggests strategies for framing the learning process, whether your students are motivated or anxious.

Dr. Polio is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian & African Languages at Michigan State University, where she teaches in the Master’s Degree Program in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and also in the Second Language Studies Program. She gave a talk last week as part of our monthly LRC Speaker Series titled “Are Some Languages Really More ‘Difficult’ to Learn?” and we will extend our conversation about language difficulty on our podcast.