Reflection as a method for identifying need for practice

Why is reflection important

The key component to success in practice is reflection. We know that from a lot of research on metacognition.

As an example, we can explore a common myth that young children are good at learning languages. Young children (under the age of about 10) are good at acquiring a language in the same way we all have done it. They can even do it for multiple languages at a time. But children are horrible at learning a foreign language in school if by learning we mean going to class for two hours a week and maybe doing some homework in between. That is because their ability to develop concepts and rely on them to guide their practice is not yet as sophisticated.

A committed adult can learn as much in a week of intense study as a child in a year of attending classes in this way. That is because they have experience they can draw on and ability to regulate their learning. Teaching a child a few grammar rules will just confuse them. Teaching an adult a few grammar rules will accelerate their learning. Of course, the rules should be simple and only there to guide practice but they make a lot of difference.

But an even more important reason for reflection about where we are is that without it, we end up practicing the wrong thing. Here we can learn some lessons from musicians. When learning or practicing a song, don’t always start playing it from the beginning. Practice the bits you find difficult. Otherwise you end up being really good at the start of the song and never will figure out the difficult bits later on.

What to reflect on or signals that you need to practice

Speed

The first signal that something is wrong with your performance is that you slow down. There is no absolute perfect speed for writing or anything (unless you are literally racing) but there is a minimal speed for you to be able to do it at all.

Being able to write 700 words in 30 minutes does not make you a better writer. But not being able to write at least 200 when you do know what you want to write will make you a struggling writer. You will spend so much time fiddling about with each individual word or sentence that you will constantly keep running into limits of working memory and find it difficult to think about what you’re writing.

Fluency

Fluency is different from speed. You can write very fast but if you do it in stops and starts, you will suffer from the same effects on working memory. That does not mean that you cannot pause in the middle of a sentence to think about what you’re going to say next but you should not find yourself stopping in the middle of a phrase or a word (too often).

The same goes for other kinds of performance. When you try to run fast, at some point your form will start to suffer and you will have to go back to focus on it. The same goes for playing a musical instrument. You can speed up a lot but your expression will suffer.

So, the lesson is that sometimes you have to slow down to increase your fluency. And only after your fluency is up, you can start speeding up again.

Accuracy

When speaking, reading or writing, the name of the game is ‘fluency and accuracy’. That is the heart of the definition of dyslexia “condition that interferes with fluent and accurate reading and writing”. But dyslexia is not the only thing that does this. Speaking or writing in a foreign language (including academic language) does the same thing.

So the other signal that you should start reflecting on your performance is when you start making more errors than usual.

However, at the most basic level, fluency is more important than accuracy. Particularly for writing. You can always go and fix your errors. And what’s even more important is that focus on accuracy can interfere with fluency. If you are constantly thinking about being accurate, your working memory will be swamped and you won’t be able to keep up the fluency needed.

That’s why copy editors can read through a whole book and not know much about what it was about, because all they were focusing on was grammar and spelling.

Emotion

Another signal that you should start reflecting on how you could practice to improve your performance is stress. And feelings of stress are a good signal that your working memory is being swamped and you can’t do the thing you’re trying to do.

People who move to a new country and have to speak a different language the whole day are often exhausted by the end of the day. Their working memory is constantly under siege and as a result everything takes more time and more effort.

The emotion that accompanies dyslexia is often the biggest issue. When you finish a bit of reading or writing and feel so exhausted and dispirited that you want to cry, you develop a feeling of hate towards the activity. And dyslexic children who develop greater fluency that this isn’t the case for them any more completely change their feelings, as well.

So feeling bad during doing something should not be a signal to you that the activity is not right for you or that it is just inherently awful. When you feel bad while doing something, it should be a signal that you should focus on the thing that weighs you down and practice it until the weight is lifted.

The mantra should not be: “Practice makes perfect” but “Practice makes happy.”