Book introduction The book The Seven Keys to Self-reliant Learning was written as a result of classroom studies with language learners of more than 50 different nationalities. Its main focus is on the thinking processes that that make learners sucessful.   The whole introduction to the book is provided here. Please enjoy your reading: Dear learner, Welcome to explore the wonders of human learning and to see your own strengths and weaknesses in a new light.

This book/course addresses the challenge of lifelong learning in a complex and ever-changing society. Please regard the book and its connected web site as a thinking project which will give you a solid platform for self-reliant and effective studies. Much of what we ask you to do may seem self-evident, but taken together your efforts will raise your learning awareness to a level which provides the combination of conscious and subconscious working routines that are typical of advanced self-reliant learners. Years of classroom research on the connection between learning and teaching have taught us one of education’s most important lessons; successful learners ask more questions. They do not only ask more questions; they also ask themselves questions about their own questions. They ask the right kind of questions because they have developed constructive, creative, and critical thinking and they have become extremely good communicators. Interviews with adult high school students suggest that there is a strong link between a successful learner’s practical work and her understanding of how and why learning happens. Those interviews also suggest that successful learners have a better understanding of their own selves and of the relationship between the individual and her society. When we put together the most common questions that successful learners ask themselves we found a compelling pattern. All the questions could be sorted under seven headings, making up a framework that can be used for all kinds of learning. The Seven Keys to Self-reliant Learning is what we call it. Realize Your Potential You are the only one … The objective of this book is to show you how to become an efficient self-reliant learner. We can show you the way, but you are the only one who can do the job because learning happens in the brain of the learner - nowhere else. You will have to rally your best constructive thinking. You will have to question your own as well as your university’s, college’s, or school’s working routines, and you will probably have to get rid of some old habits. You can move mountains Every human baby is born with the innate ‘gift’ to develop into an absolutely unique person, and most people can develop their learning far beyond their own expectations. You keep learning all your life and you must take it for granted that it is up to you to decide your own future. We hope to convince you that expert learning is within reach. Children living on an island off the coast of Thailand don’t need a mask when they dive; their eye-sight is just as good without a mask. This is so unusual that a scientist actually wanted to confirm it and try to find out how and why those children can see so well under water. She did indeed get both a confirmation and an explanation. The children have, quite spontaneously, learnt to adapt their eye pupils in order to get a clear view. After very little instruction, children in Sweden could learn to do the same thing. As soon as they understood what it was all about, they could do it.  Lesson to learn; the first step in achieving a learning goal is to know about its existence and to believe it is possible to achieve. Book outline Even though the book was written in the simplest possible language, with the non-native speaker in mind, you must expect it to be very theoretical and requiring a lot of thinking. One of our main messages is this: By asking the right kind of questions you will not only develop your thinking skills – you will also increase your understanding of how and why you learn, which is extremely important when you try to acquire practical study techniques. All the chapters invite you to ask such questions. Use right-hand-side pages to write all sorts of questions that come to mind. At the end of Part 1 and Part 2 there are chapters called Time for reflection, which give you the opportunity to check your progress. Use the web You will find many useful tasks, like checking your reading speed, doing a working style analysis, etc., on the web. Naturally there are also a number of links to sites with information for further study, and there is a discussion forum where you can exchange thoughts and experiences with other readers around the world. Whenever we feel that there is something worth your while on-line we will insert this icon in the right-hand-side margin. See you at www.forumeducation.net Language support As a non-native speaker you have the advantage of word explanations and lots of on-line language exercises. You can print or download the wordlist of your choice, and you can check your reading comprehension as you go along. Pay attention to our fundamental concepts We use a number of terms (sometimes in an untraditional way), so we define them to state very clearly where we stand. You find all our fundamental concepts at the end of the book. If you work your way through all the chapters without forcing your way through the book, and pay due attention to the definitions of those concepts, you will have no problems understanding it. An icon will remind you of paying attention to our fundamental concepts. Work your way through the book sequentially Your overall goal is to become an efficient self-reliant learner. The strategy is to boost your thinking capacity and your understanding by learning to ask all the vital questions. That will improve your learning awareness quite rapidly and by the time you have worked your way through the book you will have acquired a constructive learning framework. Work your way straight through (sequentially) – from the first chapter of Part 1 to the last chapter of Part 3. We are aware of the fact that some learners don’t want to learn sequentially, but we ask you to regard the reading of this book as a thinking project in which you try new approaches. You will go through four stages on your way towards expert learning:   You will get a good understanding of the dynamics of human potential, and you will begin to realize your own uniqueness. (Part 1) You will get an overall picture of how natural learning processes transform human potential into competence for peak performance. (Part 2) Having understood the basics of human potential and the learning processes, you will have begun to widen the range of your learning awareness. (the last chapter of Part 2) Improved learning awareness will make it natural for you to start adopting The Seven Keys to Self-reliant Learning. Your practical working routines will, by and by, be automatically guided by your improved learning awareness. (Part 3) Start now! Decide now that what lies ahead is not just the reading of another textbook; it is a question of acquiring a new approach and a new attitude towards learning. Decide now to take the opportunity of challenging your thinking patterns. Skim-reading is the natural beginning Whenever you start reading a new book your learning awareness should be activated and you should try to ask yourself the kind of questions that get you off to a good start. Experienced learners do that more or less subconsciously. For the inexperienced learner it is a question of conscious training in order to make such awareness become more and more automatic. Successful learners use skim-reading to get the overall picture. Such an overview activates your pre-understanding of the subject, turns on your attention, starts structuring your thoughts, and lays a basic foundation for retention. So the time you spend on skim-reading is always a ‘safe’ investment. The focus is generally on: The table of contents The introduction Headings and sub-headings Text in bold or italics Summaries Graphs and captions Here are some of the general questions that should pop up while you are skim-reading (any book), and by the time you have finished skim-reading you should have the answers: What’s the objective of this book? Is it of real interest to me, or do I have to boost my motivation artificially? Is it the kind of book one reads from cover to cover, or can I skip around? Have I got a bird’s-eye view of the book? Can I set my own goals? Are there key terms that I need to pay attention to? How do I begin? How do I plan my work? How do I know that I am making progress? How do I know whether I work too much for too little result? Here are some questions that should pop up as you are reading this introduction: Will I really improve my learning if I read this book? What’s the difference between conscious and subconscious? What do they mean by self-reliant learning? Why do they stress thinking so much? How do they define human potential? How do they define learning processes? How do they define learning awareness? Don’t forget to include the web in your skim-reading! Your first task What is knowledge to you? Throughout this book we will be trying to convince you that the concept of knowledge needs to be re-considered. The term ‘knowledge’ is used in so many ways that it gets confusing. In traditional education it carries enormous weight although educators and scientists don’t seem to be able to agree on a common definition. What is your current understanding of the concept of knowledge? Sit down comfortably and just try to come up with thoughts about knowledge: Write down key words. Try to arrange those words into groups. Then try to phrase your own definition of knowledge. Please write your own definition of knowledge before you go on to Part 1! In Part 1.5  you will be asked to analyze your definition. ------------------------------ End of introduction