Active vs Passive Language Learning, What Is The Difference?

When you are learning a new language you will often hear people talk about using Active and Passive study techniques and often discussing which one is better.

Both techniques are very different and while they can both have a place in your study plan, you really need to focus on active learning. This is what will bring you the best results, but I will go through everything below in more detail so you can understand why.

(This is not the same as Active and Passive Vocabulary, which is slightly different.)

What Is Active Language Learning?

Active learning is when you actually have to think and engage your mind when learning. This can really be anything, so long as you are using your brain and are actively engaged in what you are doing.

If the activity involves you to actually consciously think, remember or just generally focus on something, then it will be a form of active learning.

What Is Passive Language Learning?

Passive learning is when you are not really paying attention to whatever it is you are studying. This can seem pretty counterproductive, but you are basically allowing your subconscious to absorb the information.

This type of study is usually done by just having stuff playing in the background in the target language, such as movies or music. You are not really paying attention to it, but you can still hear it and may catch the occasional word, but basically your main focus is elsewhere.

Some people also like to listen to the language while they are asleep, in the hope that their subconscious is still listening, which would be an extremely passive form of learning.

(You can read more about – Can You Learn A Language In Your Sleep?)

Is Classroom Learning Passive Or Active?

Technically sitting in a classroom and just listening to a teacher explain things is passive learning. The teacher is doing all the work and you are just sitting there, passively.

However, it’s a bit of a grey are as you are actually paying attention and you are engaging your mind.

I’m sure you had plenty of lessons in school where you just zoned out and didn’t pay attention. I would describe this as passive, but I don’t think many of us do this while learning a language, well certainly not for the whole lesson.

We will usually be trying to link what the teacher is saying to what we already know and just generally trying to absorb the information. While it is not the most active thing we could be doing, I think we are engaged enough that it can’t be called “passive”.   

You may also have a teacher who makes the lesson more engaging, by asking you questions, so I think every class will be slightly different and really we should say that it could be a bit of both, but I imagine its more active than not.

Is Immersion Passive Or Active?

Immersion is often seen as a very passive activity; especially listening, you just sit there and watch TV in your target language, but again I think this is a very grey area.

Once you have been immersing for a while you will tend to notice that there are 3 types of mindset you can be in while immersing.

You can actively immerse, passively immerse and then there is something sort of inbetween.

Immersion Is Often Active

The first mindset is when you are paying full attention, consciously trying to understand everything and your brain will be going at 100mph trying to remember what things mean or recognising grammar patterns for example.

You may only be sitting there, but you are certainly very actively thinking about what you are listening to.

Passive Immersion Is Pointless

You then have totally passive immersion, which would be what I talked about above and is when you have the material on in the background and are basically paying zero attention to it as you are focused on something else.

Personally I think this is a waste of time. This is like when you go a coffee shop and read a book. You will notice that a lot of the background noise gets drowned out and you just zone in on the book.

Having your language on in the background is going to have the same effect. Your brain will register it as an annoying noise and zone out it out so you can just focus on whatever you are actually doing.

Of course there is a chance you may tune in every now again, but I think overall this type of immersion is pointless.

You Often Hear Other Immersion Wrongly Called “Passive”

If you hang around enough language learning communities you will hear some forms of immersion wrongly called “passive immersion”.

Japanese language learners…I’m looking at you.

They will often talk about listening to Japanese podcasts while doing very mundane tasks, such as ironing or washing the dishes. You may be doing something else, but really it does not take a lot of mental focus to do that other task and the reality is that you are pretty much actively listening to the language material.

I have even heard someone say they go for walks and “passively listen” to podcasts …this isn’t passive. This is really, really active. They were saying how they could pay more attention as they were just free to walk about the park with no distractions. They where focusing on the podcast …actively listening to it.   

So just watch out for that. If you are mostly paying attention, you are actively listening… if you are basically paying zero attention, that’s passive.          

Immersion Can Be Both Passive and Active At The Same Time

The last mindset may seem a little passive, but it’s still active in a way. This is when you try and shut off your conscious thoughts and just try to let the language come into you and allow yourself to understand it instinctively. 

This is a very strange state to be in, as your conscious mind will want to verify that you understand everything by translating it into your native language, but if you can stop that you will find that you can still understand what is going on without this.

The fact is that you are still paying attention, it’s just that you are doing it in a more natural, relaxed way and this can seem quite passive and unusual until you get used to it. This can be really powerful way to immerse as you are basically just allowing your subconscious to take over and start making sense of things and you can see this is happening if you are able to bypass your native language and just understand what is going on.

If you think about how you watch TV in your native language, you will see you do this. You just watch the show and understand it, you don’t need to really focus on it with a lot of intent, you just relax and absorb it, while understanding what is going on. You don’t need to explain to yourself that you understand, you just understand and it can feel passive, even though you are actually paying attention.

It is a little hard to explain, but hopefully what I’m describing makes sense. Either way I think you can still count this type of immersion as active learning, even if it is passively being active …which I understand sounds strange.

…so basically it’s a grey area, but your subconscious is definitely working on overdrive when you immerse and you will acquire the language while in this state.    

(You can read more about – What Is Learning A Language By Immersion?)

Should You Be Using Active or Passive Learning Methods?

As you can see you can now see it is possible to use both active and passive learning when studying a language.

However, I believe that for the best results you need to focus on being active with the language along with getting yourself into that state of being able to passively be active with your immersion.

If you can get into that grey area, along with spending some time actually thinking about what is going on you should really be set up for success.

I also think that “passive” listening where you are basically listening to nearly everything is totally fine.

I do have a problem with the truly passive learning, where you are literally paying zero attention. This is just a waste of your time. Your brain is elsewhere, how can you expect it to take anything in.  

Conclusion

Hopefully now you can understand the difference between passive and active learning methods, and how sometimes the definition can be a little blurry, especially when it comes to things like immersion. 

You can play around with both methods in your own studies and what progress they bring, but really actively engaging with the language will always be your best bet, although as discussed at times you need to try and stop consciously thinking and allow your subconscious to do the work.

Just stick with it and you will see results.   

(You can read more about – How Do We Acquire More Vocabulary?)