Craig Dodge - Blog

In the dark of the night, when a deer might cross a road and a car comes along, they look into the car's headlights and are momentarly blinded. Out of confusion, panic or fear, they freeze instead of running away. "Like a deer caught in headlights" has become an expression to describe a person who is too stunned to move or respond.

During another recent conversation with "Mary", I was reminded of this analogy when we talked about what language learners usually do when they hear a word they don't know. Too often, they worry so much about the unfamiliar word that they miss everything else the other person says. They freeze like a deer caught in headlights.  If they read an unfamiliar word, they stop reading to look-up the unfamiliar word in a dictionary. Very frustrating.

The better, more productive, less frustrating way to handle an unfamiliar word is not to panic, but to just keep listening/reading and focus on the words you DO understand, then try to figure out the new word from the context. For most learners who are at least at a pre-intermediate or intermediate level, there will probably be a lot more words you can understand than not. You might surprise yourself.

I wrote about this learning strategy in my post "Get the Idea?". "Mary" told me that this strategy was key to making progress. It was a breakthrough in her language learning. When confronted with a new word, she no longer freezes and stops listening, but can generally figure it out from the whole conversation. Even in the worst case scenario and she can't figure it out, at least she can get the main ideas and have a productive conversation. She can look up the word later, when it's more convenient.

So when you hear or read a word you can't understand, don't be like a deer in headlights. Keep reading or listening , focusing on the main ideas, and see if you can figure out the new word. If not, look it up later.