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Stephen Krashen, an interview | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 41 of 52 16 April 2013 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
I guess it depends on what you mean by skill mastery. To me reading lots, speaking, listening, and any other way of actively using your language is practical training for the language parts of your brain. How is this different from people who learn music or sports? I guess the big difference for expert performers in music or sport is that they focus on their specific weaknesses and do repetitive exercises to get better. Interestingly most people play golf show rapid improvements in their game, but then plateau in terms of ability, despite playing lots of games over decades because they are not actively working on areas of weakness. I am not sure how relevant this insight is for language learning. It seems until you get to a higher area you are constantly working on your weaknesses.
Probably because L1 speakers don't have another language to interfere with their accents, and because they also don't need to speak perfectly to be understood. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 42 of 52 23 April 2013 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
:-) Two words, guaranteed to chill my soul: "group work".... (and then you get 10 conversations going on all at once, in an overcrowded echo-y classroom......very incomprehensible input). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 43 of 52 24 April 2013 at 9:34am | IP Logged | |||||
Fascinating lecture! Thanks for posting that. But while he doesn't seem worried by the advent of technology, e.g. computers and email, there will not yet have been time for research to have take into account the latest developments in mobile devices and social media. True that teenagers could be reading literature on their smartphones, but are they? Would they have the time and the attention span before being interrupted by a tweet from a friend, etc? Not necessarily bad, or all bad, but not quite the same as his " [uninterrupted] silent sustained reading". I do wonder if the days of the battered paperback in the pocket are finally numbered. But only time will tell. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 44 of 52 24 April 2013 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Since we are posting Krashen videos, here is my contribution:
From 1982, in 2 parts: Stephen Krashen on Language Acquisition Part 1 of 2 Stephen Krashen on Language Acquisition Part 2 of 2 A little more hair, and of darker hue; a lot of the basic message is the same. Less emphasis on interesting/appealing/compelling input, IIRC. "I like talking about relative clauses...". (Understandable; in the saloon bar of the Dog and Duck, they talk of little else...). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 45 of 52 25 April 2013 at 3:05am | IP Logged | |||||
I enjoy this video. Whenever I watch it, I think I should make a major shift in my approach to language learning. I.E., start doing what I really want to do with the language (read and listen to audiobooks). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 46 of 52 25 April 2013 at 5:08am | IP Logged | |||||
For me, a big part of language learning is building an enormous database of examples in my head. At first, this database only contains really common stuff that appears a half-dozen times on every page. As I listen and read, the database grows, until it contains lots variations for all the common words:
And eventually, the database becomes sufficiently big that I can actually use it to infer the non-existence of certain constructions: "Hmm, they either said X, Y or Z. But if Y or Z actually existed, I would surely have encountered them by now. So they must have said X." Or "I've never heard a regular subjunctive for that verb, and I should have by now if it existed. Is there an irregular form?" And of the course the database also contains information about social context, register, and lots of useful stuff like that. (For the geeks in the audience, the database is, strictly speaking, a probabilistic language model built by extracting patterns from input. A very rough analog would be the databases that drive Google Translate or Linguee.) Explicit study either (1) clarifies stuff that was already in the database, or (2) allows me to better use new input for the database when I encounter it. So I make the most progress if I mix study and input. If I rely solely on input, I need a lot of input to improve. If I rely solely on study, I wind up trying to build the database consciously, one tiny datum at a time, which is a truly herculean task. If I ever had to sit down and memorize a grammar book, I'd loath every single minute. Output is a bit weird. The easiest way for me to get really good output is to massively binge on input for half a day, producing what Iversen calls the language "ringing in my head". But there's also an element of practice—it's not enough to know how something might be said; I need that expression to fall off the tip of my tongue without any thought. Even there, the database is useful—my brain can compare my input to the way other people speak, and let me know if something sounds weird. Of course, this means that if the database is "cold", and it's feeding me information slowly, it can be very hard to speak, because words are always a few seconds late, and my brain tells me I sound strange two seconds after I spoke. So for me, the input isn't the only thing, but it is the most important thing. And I find it's important not only to chip away at the completely opaque parts of the input, but also to heavily reinforce the stuff I can understand, until it becomes second nature. I suppose all this is by way of saying that if you really want to listen to audiobooks, it seems like a perfectly logical and pleasant idea to me. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 47 of 52 25 April 2013 at 8:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Well put. (the whole post). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 48 of 52 25 April 2013 at 10:47am | IP Logged | |||||
I think the reinforcement of high frequency words and expressions by lots and lots of input is perhaps more important than learning the lower frequency stuff, which is why reading trashy novels can be so effective. Since any input will contain lots of examples of the high frequency stuff. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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