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Why is there so little research? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| hobom Triglot Newbie Joined 4219 days ago 33 posts - 61 votes  Speaks: German*, English, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 81 03 February 2014 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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As you look into this forum there are always debates and arguments about the golden way to learn a language. Should I start first by listening or by reading, is comprehensible input the only important thing in language learning and so on and on.
However, people very seldomly cite any research. Looking at the wikipedia article on second language acqusition there is some research on the importance of age in second language learning and some other minor stuff, but I was not able to find studys addresing very basic questions like the relationship between reading and listening, or reading and speaking. The question is really simple: What is the best way to study a language? I wonder why there is so little available empirical research on this. At any rate, is the research just lacking, or simply inconclusive? Can anybody recommend a book which deals scientifically with that topic? Thanks 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4084 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 2 of 81 03 February 2014 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Teachers are set in their ways, there are authority structures in place to ensure they
cannot deviate substantially from the current (sub)standard way of teaching. In such an environment, there cannot be decent studies on different ways of teaching. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5230 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 3 of 81 03 February 2014 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | ||
Go to Amazon and do a search for "secondary language acquisition." Several textbooks come up, and I imagine the references within are to actual studies. That should give you an introduction to the field. I agree that there's too much stress placed on anecdotal evidence around here vs. research. But that problem isn't unique to this forum--it's pretty much a human universal. As is, unfortunately, the rationalization this produces, like Gemuse's conspiracy-flavored comment above. Edited by ScottScheule on 03 February 2014 at 11:23pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5322 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 4 of 81 03 February 2014 at 11:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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AFAIK, this field of study is called "Good language learner studies."
However, the problem is that there doesn't seem to a "one size fits all" solution. If you search this forum, you'll find countless methods: from traditional ones to the outright bizarre ones. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4523 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 5 of 81 03 February 2014 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | ||
I've found at least 1 study addressing this question. Now finding it again might be a challenge ... ;) Btw., the conclusion was that listening had the highest influence on all skills. edit: googled it for you http://www.hindawi.com/isrn/education/2012/810129/ Edited by daegga on 04 February 2014 at 12:06am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 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 6 of 81 04 February 2014 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||
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In my country most of the pedagogical research is focused on the situation of second or third generation immigrants - I know this because I once read through a publication list at the homepage of our most important pedagogical school, and as far as I remember I didn't find anything at all of interest for home learners. Maybe there is pedagogical research going on at the language departments at our universities or in the neurological departments of our hospitals, but I simply don't know whether some if it may be relevant for us as language learners.
But even if there is relevant research going on I wouldn't know about it unless it is published on the internet - expensive peer reviewed magazines may be indispensable for the academical world, but they are definitely not on my budget. In spite of the practical problems I do sometimes write about pedagogical or neurological topics in my learning log, and I'm not alone in this respect - though most threads based on references to articles in the media about scientific research rather than the research reports themselves, which may be hard and/or expensive to consult (and maybe even incomprehensible). I'll recommend one article in particular, namely Myths about vocabulary acquisition by Jan-Arjen Mondria from Groningen. Edited by Iversen on 04 February 2014 at 1:40am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5011 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 7 of 81 04 February 2014 at 12:54am | IP Logged | ||
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I've read a few papers I found somewhere on the internet long ago and a few people linked on htlal. It's been some time, so I cannot give any links to the particular ones. But to your question why do people care more about personal experience of other forum members over research, here are some of the things I noticed:
1. there are various kinds of learners. Even the things coming from a good quality research do not apply to everyone (by far) 2. Majority of research done is quite biased. 2.a Some researchers just have to prove everyone before them to have been wrong at all costs. So many damn explicit grammar learning but so high % of learners fails without it. 2.b Most researchers can't imagine learning in other settings than a classroom and the imagination tends to be restricted in more ways. Even the researches that are supposed to be thorough (even simple EU paper on foreign language knowledge in various countries) are actually very shallow. The EU paper I mentioned counted only % of people learning each of the most common two or three options during the path through the main education system. Not only it counted only people attending which is another number than people actually learning the language. It totally excluded all those crowds learning in language schools, the more the self-teching students. Really, if such a simple research can't be done properly (getting a representative sample and asking them a series of questions with closed answers), how can you expect a flood of high quality papers on something as complex as how is a language learnt the best? 2.c A lot of the papers appear to be more of PR than research 3. High % of the native language teachers is monolingual. So are many researchers. It is logical, they're devoting their careers to teaching their native language. However, I highly doubt many such scholars have learnt a foreign language successfully with methods coming from their results. I'm not saying there aren't any papers worth reading, for example those regarding FSI are very interesting and surely valuable. However, many papers are just crap or their applications (=the methods and courses based on them) are crap. So, I am not the only one to prefer experience of a fellow forum member over theory. And I don't have that much extra free time to dive into looooong texts that don't offer a significant value for my personal learning. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5221 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 8 of 81 04 February 2014 at 12:54am | IP Logged | ||
I believe you have a valid query but not one that would directly attract any research funding as the market is actually quite small: there is a lot of research about methodologies of teaching languages (I read some of these while I was studying to teach Sciences at High School level). There is a lot of research about how primary language acquisition works and to sum up children learn sounds, meanings, phrases, reading, writing, grammar roughly in that order; Rod Ellis did a good summation of the research The Study of Second Language Acquisition - OUP but I don't know of a cited direct correlation of 2nd language being acquired the same way. The FSI/DLI/DSL teach adults with high aptitude a different methodology sounds/script/phrases/grammar and as they have fifty years of experience they will have fine tuned their method, you'd have thought. Sadly for the autodidact they run intensive courses - almost immersion - so 60 hours a week of study isn't unusual. They will get a keen, capable, student from zero to C1 in a Level 4 language in 18 months. A lot of students fall out of the course. Some of the Universities run courses ab-initio but they expect a level of skill in studying any L2 - check out the Oxford guidance on learning Spanish. There are also theories about learning styles: visual/auditory etc etc Finally, there is no golden bullet to learning a language that would work for everyone: fitting learning in to work/family/other interests/time available/willingness: try a lot of things and whatever works for you will come through Now you've diverted me from 5 minutes of German vocab. Tsk. Just enjoy yourself - If you're not enjoying yourself and it's not essential for your future life - drop it. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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