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Reducing Self-Study Method Abandonment | ||
Tags: Burn-out | Self-Study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4828 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 33 of 139 27 August 2013 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Give me such an excellent tutor at an affordable price and I'll ask you to hit me so that I wake up.
And the truth is, you have just described an excellent and rarely found tutor. The other side of the coin: First: it costs a lot of money, at least if you want two or more lessons a week to make your learning intensive. Second: most tutors, including a lot of the quite good ones, try to emulate classroom learning (often subconsciously) because in their heads, that is how a language is learnt. They do the same kind of activities, progress the same way and so on. Yes, it works better than the classroom because it is one on one. But still, it is very hard to convince most tutors to just let you use them the way you want. They think they know more about your individual needs than you do, which is nonsense. Third:Well, yes. Unless the tutor tries to keep to their plan. Fourth, fifth, sixth: You can identify vast majority your weaknesses without a tutor, no need to pay for it.But you are right it is a great way to get ready for the spoken parts of exams, interviews and so on. Seven: social register, politeness and so on, now you exagerrate. The tutor won't tell you more than a lot of input. He or she cannot serve instead of a long term immersion that would be the only way to get all the details. Eight: or kill it. Even good tutors sometimes have bad attitudes. Sure, they want to keep getting paid so they will try. But there are many ways to drive you off. ....... I wanted to add a note about the first time learners as they crawled (or were crawled) into the discussion: they are usually not idiots and shouldn't be treated as such. Too dumb down lessons often drive away intelligent, logically thinking people, especially those educated in natural sciences or technology. When the things are dumbed down at all costs and unthreatening look gets priority over creating chunks that makes sense, those people just don't use their potential and lose motivation. Careful when choosing your target audience and trying to guess their needs. I think there would be a more viable model than just more exercises and deeper explanations. I think there should be two basic ways to use the book. First, you go linearily from the first to the last lesson. Second, you find related things in later lessons whenever you feel the need. And later on, you just finish what you haven't covered yet. I often already do this but it takes some time to search the book and basically learn where to find things. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5249 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 34 of 139 27 August 2013 at 11:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I see no point in debating the question of tutors. As I said, if you can do just as well without, that's fine.
To come back to the OP, I think the traditional self-contained method, in book, CD or whatever form is doomed. There are too many variables and individual likes and dislikes to take into account. Some people like a certain kind of exercises; some don't. Something is easy for some people and difficult for others. That is one of the reasons why some many people give up. What I would like to see is some totally modular online method where you can choose what you want to work on, the kind of exercises or drills that you like, a body of interesting sound and visual resources for input and, of course, optional access to a pool of trained native speakers to interact with. All of this would be available for some sort of reasonable monthly subscription fee. There are some things out there that are heading in this direction 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5200 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 35 of 139 28 August 2013 at 1:01am | IP Logged | ||
I think it's here to stay. And for a long time. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4828 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 36 of 139 28 August 2013 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I believe it stays as well. Many learners, especially the first timers, would get lost in a purely modular approach. And it would be very hard to make moduls that wouldn't need you to have previous knowledge, so there would need to be some kind of structure. I would get lost in a purely modular course of a totally new and different language (like Mandarin, Arabic or Swahili).
And I hate monthly subscription feels. I am not the only one, I know a lot of people who just feel much better to pay once for something and not monthly. Of course, it varies among people. For some, the monthly fee can work as motivation to get through the material as soon as possible but I think the speed can be at cost of quality. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5249 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 37 of 139 28 August 2013 at 1:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Sure the self-contained method in book form is going to be around for a while. Sure there'll be Cds for a while. But look what happened to the Linguaphone or Assimil vinyl recordings and then cassettes. Look at what is happening to books. Sure, they'll be around for a while, but the e-book is going to make up a larger percentage of sales. How many people think that paper dictionaries will be around in 10 years? Or make that 20, but we all see where that is going.
As everybody can see, there is an ever expanding offer of online language learning resources. I like to call this a paradigm shift towards a resource-rich online learning environment with real human interaction. Of course, it's not for everybody. Some people will still prefer to buy the Learn To Speak Russian In 90 Days book for $24.95, and then they give up after two chapters. And other people will happily spend $10,000 dollars at Middlebury College for 6 weeks of intensive instruction. And in between there will be people like me who can afford $25 a month for access to a variety of learning resources. There's something for everybody. All the comments so far have clearly explained why most people abandon self-study methods. As I said earlier, I believe that part of the problem is the very nature of the traditional course. It's not a problem of tinkering with exercise or lesson design. The one-size-fits-all self-contained method model is broken. After all, 90% of the users give up. I've pointed out what I think is the future evolution that has started already. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4666 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 38 of 139 28 August 2013 at 3:33am | IP Logged | ||
The future, Marty! THE FUTURE! 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5249 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 39 of 139 28 August 2013 at 6:27am | IP Logged | ||
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One can also ask the question: Why is it important to finish a self-study method? After all, nobody "finishes" a dictionary, a recipe book or most kinds of reference works. Why do you have to go in a linear fashion from the beginning to the end? These methods are not novels or narratives. In fact, what happens is that as soon as people reach a certain level, they want to work with authentic materials that contain real stories.
So, it's not surprising that people pick and choose what they want and need out of a method. This is also why we end up with so many different kinds of materials, including of course websites. I therefore don't really see a problem of people abandoning methods. I do see people realizing that learning a language is serious business that demands time and commitment. I also see serious learners moving to other learning resources without going all the way to the end of a book or a method. This, in my opinion, is quite normal. The biggest problem isn't that people abandon self-teaching methods or books. The biggest problem is that the authors of these tools think that people should use them from beginning to end. Once we change this mentality the problem goes away, leaving intact the market for products claiming to teach languages. This way everybody wins. Authors and publishers keep putting out books and methods. People keep buying them. Who cares if people actually finish them? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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