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Why is there so little research? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4522 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 9 of 81 04 February 2014 at 1:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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There are lots of studies in 2nd language acquisition, but many are not that relevant to self-learners.
For instance, I am interested in reading as an aid to learning your L2, but most of the papers I have seen have been for studies that are just not that relevant because they are looking at standard learning situations (e.g., students reading books for 1 hour/week), not self-learning (e.g., students reading 2-3 hours/day). The published results are suggestive, but that's about it. A lot of the other techniques self-learners employ are simply not used in the classroom setting so there are few if many good studies out there. In addition, the psychology/neuroscience of 2nd language learning is simply not well enough understood to be useful to settle pedagogic disputes at this time. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5945 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 10 of 81 04 February 2014 at 3:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I run some risk here of skewing the ongoing experiment, but ironically none of my fellow lab rats will believe me (really, no sane person ever should, in any context), so I consider myself free to leak the details of my research into this - I was overseas for a couple of weeks this January ferretting this out....
The interesting reality is that there is a large-scale research project currently underway right now, originally sourced by a gentlemen in Switzerland by the name of Micheloud, code-named for confidential research purposes the Mezzofanti Project, which involves open-sourced voluntary* unknowing and unaware test subjects running a variety of learning methods who are closely monitored through the screening of their various "posts", and who are put through various testing protocols identified with random acronyms such as the "TAC" and "6WC" initiatives, and (somewhat of a dark chapter), the sinister "L-R Method" experiment, discontinued when a number of test volunteers were rendered utterly mad by the experimental protocols. So now you know. P.S. the experiment overseer group, codenamed in kafka-esque fashion "The Moderators" all wear white lab coats. But no one knows this, since they operate in an unseen fashion only by way of post. * voluntary in the same way mice voluntarily hunt down the tasty bit of cheese hidden somewhere at the end of the maze, and watched and monitored just as closely.... Edited by Spanky on 04 February 2014 at 3:34am 16 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4433 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 11 of 81 04 February 2014 at 4:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Found a discussion on YouTube broken into 7 parts:
Webinar on effective language learning techniques The first part consists of a discussion with an Italian polyglot Luca Lampariello. Edited by shk00design on 04 February 2014 at 4:59am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4243 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 12 of 81 04 February 2014 at 6:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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While studies might be able to find broad generalizations about language learning, I feel like there are just way too many variables to make them useful to an individual learner. What language are you learning, what previous language experiences you have, what you want to use the language for, what subjects you're interested in, and what non-language skills can you adapt to language learning, all play a massive role in how well you do. Not even an individual person can objectively measure what methods work best from them, because after each new method and language they're also different as a learner.
In addition it's really hard to isolate a single method, because there are lots of small variations in how someone uses a method, and mental state also plays a huge role. I feel I'm more likely to remember a sentence if a write it down, but what also matters is if I'm rushing to write the sentence out or taking my time to write it neatly and clearly, and even something like: if I chose to write the sentence because I liked it, or if I'm writing it out because I said I would write out all of lesson 17 today, can play a huge role. I personally believe the most efficient learning style will always be when you're fully aware of your goals, strength, and weaknesses in a language and selectively pick a method that you know works for you to improve the areas you feel need work. I don't necessarily buy into the "everyone has their own unique learning style" theories, it's just that there are so many variables that are always changing about your personal situation, and you will always be the most informed person about that and most capable to making intelligent decisions. Personally the research I would find the most valuable would be to read several personal accounts from really experienced and independent language learners, compare their situation to mine, try out their methods, and see how well they work for me modify mix and match what I learn into figuring out my own routine. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6586 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 13 of 81 04 February 2014 at 8:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Exactly! Even when asked "just tell me what to do!" we try to find out more about a specific learner's situation and/or acknowledge that we say what works for us, and pretty much everyone will have to adjust it to their needs at least a little.
Also, research tends to choose people's goals for them. It's always too much about speaking, with excessive focus either on perfect grammar or "as long as you can communicate idgaf". Even when people take classes, they all have different goals. Someone loves geeky L2 stuff, someone loves mainstream L2 stuff, someone is about to get married or go for work abroad, someone is going to Switzerland* next year, someone needs to get a certificate, someone is forced by their parents/company/whatever etc etc etc, and then there are always a few people who have no clue what they are doing there. If you compare them, see how well they reach *their* goals and not some abstract goals in a vacuum. *easiest example, heh. 5 people with plans to go there can be learning 5 different languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6692 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 81 04 February 2014 at 9:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Even I didn't know that .. thanks for the information. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5521 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 81 04 February 2014 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Hmm. Now I totally need a white lab coat. Anyway, I've read a bunch of second language acquisition research. It tends to fall into a few categories: 1. Some studies claim adult language acquisition is impossible, generally after interviewing a small group of advanced non-native speakers who've spent a few decades using the language. (Huh, what?) The evidence against adult language learning is based on either (a) a lingering accent, (b) minor persistent grammar errors, or (c) sticking somebody in an MRI and seeing minor differences in brain response. Me? I couldn't care less about what an MRI says, or whether I have a slight accent, so I find these studies rather irrelevant. (OK, to be fair, I do find a delicious irony in reading French studies that claim I couldn't possibly have learned French.) Here's a typical summary of what this research concludes, but I don't recommend reading it unless English is your L2, because without the irony of reading it in a second language, it's just too discouraging. :-) I specifically call bullshit on this assertion:
My wife's English is purely "acquired" from about B2 up, and my French is at least 75% "acquired", both well after the age of 14. And kids are frequently awful about acquiring second languages that aren't used in the surrounding community, even given massive exposure. As for other examples of this sort of study, if you're learning French, you might enjoy this one, which is a much better example of the genre. 2. Studies based on classrooms, which typically involve 20 unmotivated students who aren't ever going to reach a decent level. For a nice overview of this subfield, read through Scott Thornbury's blog. Thornbury is widely respected in this area, and he lived for about 30 years in Spain without ever getting comfortable in Spanish. To his immense credit, he recently decided to fix that, and made rapid progress. He cites tons of classroom-oriented researchers. But again, this work has only modest relevance for obsessed, independent learners. (Hi, HTLAL!) 3. Studies performed by Stephen Krashen and his crew. The conclusion of these studies is always: "You should probably read a whole lot and watch some television, because that has a big effect, and other things don't seem to change the outcome much." Other researchers keep responding to Krashen and saying things like, "Well, we had our students read 100,000 words of boring books, and it only had a modest effect." Krashen meanwhile gets frustrated and points out that it takes at least a million words to reach a decent level, and that the student should pick the books, and why can't people actually test his theories instead of ridiculous strawmen, please? 4. Small studies which teach volunteers a new language with a few dozen words and some odd grammar. These studies do occasionally produce some interesting results—and they can be performed on a typical university researcher's budget—but honestly, there's only so much you can generalize from toy languages. 5. And finally, we come to the FSI, which has spent decades training thousands of people to speak foreign languages at a high level. Now, like HTLAL, all they really have is annecdotal evidence, but they have a lot of it. Here's what they say:
And so we come to a conclusion: Adults can learn languages (well, duh), and they can do so using a great variety of methods. This is more or less the prevailing wisdom at HTLAL, too—we have tons of adults who've learned languages to very respectable levels using many different methods. And we like to compare notes, just in case somebody has some good ideas that might help us fix a specific problem.
Well, my answer is: Why do we need to learn a language the "best" way? If we wind up researching a decent level in a couple of years, and if we have fun along the way, does it really matter if there was a "better" way to learn the language? Or is our time better spent actually learning it and using it? 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4898 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 16 of 81 04 February 2014 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Thank you for linking to that useful classic, Iversen. I read it a couple of years ago, but have since tried to rediscover it, to no avail. Among the useful aspects is the description of "the human computer", which is superior to any computer SRS I have ever experienced. One point I would disagree with them on (somewhat), is myth #6 "Words learned productively are retained better." This was tested with a single group of students, and over a very brief period of time (two weeks). And the vocabulary test given was only receptive. It may be possible that if one only needs to use a language receptively, then vocabulary only needs to be learnt receptively. But my own (so therefore anecdotal) experience with Ancient Greek is that when I was learning vocabulary receptively alone, I was forgetting a lot of words a few weeks later. Once I started learning my cards both ways my long-term retention was significantly improved. Unfortunately, the limited study given to one myth out of seven leads me to wonder how much research was actually given to any of them (although I generally find myself in agreement with the rest of their points). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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