Scientific writing can be a scary thing for a new PhD student, at least that was the case for me. I wrote my research plan for a couple of years and once I was accepted into the program, I mostly read and collected data during my first year. I did not write at all! I felt that I was never ready to start writing, instead I read one more article, and another one, and then ten more. This week I published a video on my YouTube channel about getting rid of my fear of writing. Watch the full video above or directly on YouTube, but here are my three takeaways:

I was listening to a webinar on English learning in Japan, and it was mentioned that many Japanese students might lack the motivation to study English or see themselves as English users in the future. It got me thinking about how language choice, and if it is a choice, affects second language learning motivation. My experiences choosing languages If I first take myself as an example, I have experience learning English, Swedish, German, Latin, Cantonese, and Mandarin. When it comes to English, is a compulsory subject in Finland and as a global language, there are many incentives to learn it. I never had to consider whether I was motivated to…