Richard Wiseman's Experiments

Richard Wiseman is a professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. Wiseman has gained an international reputation for research into quirky areas of psychology, including deception, humour, luck and the paranormal. In Richard’s website you can find exciting experiments related with belief in ghosts, magic tricks, the power of both memory and suggestion and etc.

There is Wiseman‘s amazing project which is called „The People Watchers“.It consists of many small experiments. Three psychologists perform hidden-camera stunts on unsuspecting members of the public to demonstrate why we behave the way we do in everyday situations. In one of these experiments Richard Wiseman questions how people choose a person for whom they would like to help. Three people: the young nice women, the old lady, and the fat fellow collected money from the customers for the charity in the supermarket. Lots of people passed the old lady and the stout and gave money for the beauty. In this experiment Richard reveals that people are unconsciously attracted by attractive people.

Another experiment is related with people credulity. People got invitations to use facilities of the established hairstylist and evaluate her work. Although she had done nothing only brushed and wetted out people hair, all of them claimed that the hairdresser was the perfect specialist. This experiment demonstrates how easy is to persuade people and make them believe in silliest things.

There is the interesting experiment related with people honesty. Two tables were left in the supermarket. On one of them were laid a lot of magazines. On another was put the box with advertisement: “In a hurry? Take a paper and put your change in here”. Only two girls paid for magazines. A reason for this was people’s belief that nobody could watch them. So, this experiment exposed that the public has huge influence on people’s behavior.

Richard Wiseman’s experiments are both interesting and very beneficial. We could have a lot of knowledge about ways of thinking and perception of people, their behavior causes and understand how we could change that behavior from Richard’s experiments.

References: http://www.richardwiseman.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2rF3THVuhs&feature=PlayList&p=394E176D57B63320&index=0

Learning Languages

There is not universal system of learning languages. There are some recommended ways how to learn. We could use them but at the same time each person chooses an individual method which appeals to him mostly.

There are some strategies which a teacher could use to help us to learn. It would be perfect if students have opportunity to work through past examination papers. If we do not sort out our mistakes, we will make it again and again. Moreover, practice in different types of writing tasks and regular homework is a good method, but not always. If we get too much homework we will not make it intently with our all strength.

It is clear that there are some methods of learning languages which we could apply individually. One of beneficial methods is to keep a vocabulary notebook and revise new vocabulary regularly. Another good idea is to use a bilingual dictionary when you write summaries, contributions or prepare to talk. In that way, your vocabulary could become much wider. Furthermore, it is beneficial to read English newspapers or magazines. There is a good practice when students have foreign language literature to prepare their subjects. Because it is double benefit: knowledge and memorizing of various new words. The best way of learning languages at all is to mach various methods.

There are some learning habits which could become unhelpful in the long run. For example, if you always use a grammar reference book or translate every unknown word as you read without learning grammar rules or revising new words you will not remember them. Furthermore, when people guess all unknown words as they read is not useful. Due to this, they could understand context in wrong meaning. So, it is very important to choose suitable methods.

To sum up, people could learn languages only with their personal wish and a lot of efforts. As Oliver Wendell Holmse is said „Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow“. So, it is really worth to learn so many languages as you afford.

References: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html
http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/proverbs.htm