How to Avoid Learned Helplessness

Are you an English teacher? And is empowering learners your intention? Then you'll want to know about Learned Helplessness.

The 1950s saw some horrible behavioural experiments involving electrical shocks and dogs. Though unthinkable today, those awful experiments did reveal what's now known as Learned Helplessness.

More recent psychological experiments on people clearly show what learned helplessness is - without the electrical shocks, though. For instance, students get three scrambled words to unscramble. For half the group, the first two words are impossible to solve; the third word is the same for all.?

Why bother?

As it turns out, many students who find the first two impossible don't even bother trying to solve the easy third. Seeing others decipher all three puzzles only increases their feeling of failure. In this experiment, learned helplessness sets in after only three-word puzzles. It can work that fast.

Now imagine language students struggling with grammar. What's likely to happen if abstract rules and confusing jargon elude them? What if repeated explanations and exercises don't bring the desired results? Learned helplessness happens.

Is it really you?

Repeated failure induces learned helplessness. But it also depends on how you explain events - externally or internally. Is it because of forces beyond your control, or do you feel there's something wrong with you??

Of course, if at first you don't succeed... You'll try and try, refusing to give up. You'll knuckle down and persevere, but frustration eventually turns into aversion. In short: the more negative experiences you have, the more helpless you'll feel - especially if you think the fault lies with you.

A psychological reflex

The success that comes after an initial struggle is empowering. Repeated failure does the exact opposite. That's the psychological reflex of learned helplessness: in the future, lesson learned, you'll shy away from whatever makes you feel inadequate.?

Now let's translate this to understanding grammar and learning English. Students who repeatedly fail at grammar will often think they're just stupid, so why bother? Teachers who see the limited impact of doubling down on explanations and exercises may reach a similar conclusion.

Empower your students

So it matters what grammar does -?help?or?hinder. Do learners feel it's within their grasp or beyond their control? Is it empowering or frustrating??

There's a practical middle ground between doubling down on grammar or avoiding it altogether. What needs avoiding is frustration and learned helplessness. So let's make grammar help, not hinder. Empower your students - with the One Rule, for instance. Less is more if it helps.

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Less is more – because grammar should HELP, not hinder