Thiagi facilitated a variation of this activity, which also might be effective with STEM students, at a workshop at Purdue University on May 8, 2019. He asked participants to say the days of the week, beginning with Sunday, over and over in their first language as fast as they could. Then, he asked participant to say them in alphabetical order. Finally, he asked participants to say them according to the number of letters in the word. According to Thiagi, this tool “works” because it causes participants to question their sense of competence, just as learning a new language or living in a new culture might, by turning a math skill into a linguistic skill.

Language learning is itself an excellent example of this phenomenon. There is an entire area of language acquisition study called L1 interference, which examines the impact and challenges of interference from the first language on learning an additional language. This also supports the argument for language learning at a younger age because of the plasticity of the young brain. This plasticity makes it easier for minds to think in a variety of ways.