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Why is there so little research? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4911 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 65 of 81 07 February 2014 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||
I think what you're missing here in the personal experience is that it isn't necessarily about the most effective or efficient method. To learn to speak a language, you need to find methods which keep you interested in continuing to learn. For a language learner, personal experience is key. So take your example of an expert recommending a method. It may be efficient, and might help students to learn and retain the most words per hour, for example. But if the method isn't something you can do day after day for several years, then it isn't going to be an important method for you. One thing that often makes me laugh on these forums, is when someone asks if some method would be "dangerous". No, unless the method involves something like retaining facts by thumbtacking them to your forehead. In the same way, it doesn't really matter if a method has been proven to be effective by scientific study. If it isn't compelling, it won't last long. If it is compelling, then it will keep you learning. So when I take advice from these forums, I'm not looking for someone who says a method is proven, effective, or efficient. I look for someone who says they enjoy it enough to keep doing it over and over. 6 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 66 of 81 07 February 2014 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not missing that. How well a method captures one's interest is something that can surely be studied, in much the same way scientists study which diets are most likely to be adhered to. You can ask all sorts of questions: what's the quickest way to lose weight? what's the most reliable way to lose weight? what's the safest way to lose weight? what's the method that will require the least will power?
Etc. Of course there's a subjective aspect, and we're all marvelously different. But we're all alike, too. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4256 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 67 of 81 07 February 2014 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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By the way, in case anyone doesn't follow him on youtube, a few months ago Professor Arguelles posted a video on creating more case studies for self-learners rather than the usual studies in classroom environments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylKn6AqF0WY 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 68 of 81 07 February 2014 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | ||
Losing weight is a mega-multi-billion dollar industry. Learning languages doesn't have the same market. They do have some things in common. One of the most important is the motivation of the individual. People lose weight with a variety of methods, some of them are certainly not the "best". Similarly, we learn language in different ways. One key is something you that "effective enough" that you can keep doing long enough to reach your goals. 2 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 69 of 81 07 February 2014 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | ||
The market size is irrelevant so far as the comparison I made goes and there's no point to bringing it up. Nor am I saying there's one best way that'll work for everybody. That's silly. I'm saying you can study which methods are best, and best can include factors as diverse as you like--likeliness to keep learners interested, effectiveness of time spent, yadda yadda. Let's say we're studying the best way to fight cancer. Will we find one best way? Surely not. Will best methods vary depending on the individual? Of course. Are there more issues than just effectiveness of fighting cancer? Of course: we look at quality of life, too, as well as cost effectiveness, for instance. Does that mean these questions can't be investigated scientifically? Of course not. Does that mean that some ways of fighting cancer aren't better than others? Of course not. I'm really not sure why people are combating me on this issue. Are there some who believe second language acquisition can't be studied scientifically? I suppose it's possible--but I don't think it's likely. Certainly the burden should be on the naysayers. Or do some believe that the scientific research on this is so bad we should eschew it and just go on our gut hunches? I suppose that's possible, too, but again, I doubt it, and given what we know of human decision-making, I'd say it's advisable to put more faith in scientific analysis than individual appraisal. Or do we think we're just all so different that any kind of statistical analysis wouldn't offer much? I think that vastly exaggerates the amount of difference between people--we've all got brains that follow the same basic blueprint--and moreover, would seem to vitiate the point of sharing any advice on this site as well. None of this is to say the science behind second language acquisition is as well developed as say, dieting. Indeed, I very much doubt it is. Nonetheless, that does not mean what's there isn't worthwhile, nor that it's impossible to do such useful research in the future even if it doesn't exist at present. 3 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 70 of 81 07 February 2014 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | ||
There are things which are harder than others to self-evaluate, like your accent or idiomaticity in a language. And in such cases I tend to be sceptical about my own level - maybe it is enough for communication with natives, but that's all I can test personally. I may suspect that I have an abysmally bad accent, but it takes a qualified opinion to get a more precise appraisal. However I don't need a second opinion to tell me whether I need to look two words up per page in a book or not, and I can also estimate how large my vocabulary is. And I certainly know whether an hour with a grammar and some paper gives me a clearer vision about some grammatical phenomenon - maybe even to the extent that I can avoid certain types of errors. So all hope is not lost. We don't have to gather outside the gates of our universities in the vain hope that somebody will come out and tell us how everything functions. Maybe we will get some sane advice from the wise people inside, but until that happens we have to experiment, each in our own unscientific way. Edited by Iversen on 07 February 2014 at 8:46pm 6 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 71 of 81 07 February 2014 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree our self-evaluation is likely to be more accurate in certain areas than others, and as long as we approach it with proper skepticism and appreciation of our own cognitive limitations, then there's no problem. I think people generally don't exhibit the proper degree of those concepts, and that should be stressed, which I've aimed to do here. But of course, lacking any better evidence, personal report will have to do.
Perhaps we should return to the OP's question. There have been a wide array of answers as to why more research isn't cited. Some think there's a conspiracy that poisons research, so we shouldn't listen to it. Some think it's just not very good. Some think there's just not very much of it. Some think what is out there isn't applicable because everyone's too different from one another. Some of us just don't know about what's out there. Some of us prize anecdotal evidence over scientific evidence. So there's the answer. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 72 of 81 07 February 2014 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
There were some links to research earlier in the thread. I found the one giving weight to the listening skill interesting. There is Lessons learned from fifty years of theory and practice in government language teaching by the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, which isn't research per se, but it is based upon experience. There is also Success with Foreign Languages - Seven who achieved it and what worked for them by Earl Stevick, which is a great read on the variability of successful language learners. I'm reminded of Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions (link to a powerpoint with pretty pictures). It seems there is no "one best way". Each individual has to find what works. Input from others is often helpful, but second language learning/acquisition is a complex enterprise. Let the games begin! 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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