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Best Method or More Time ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6676 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 73 of 430 25 April 2008 at 6:35am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Then...use WHATEVER you want as long as you feel much more motivated and work more time with the target language It's not about methods, is about working a lot with the language and working tons of time. It's about psychological motivation and tons of dedication working with the target language and not about any specific method. All this "best method approach" is a huge illusory and misleading delusion. Sorry, I know its hard to accept, but the "best method" doesn't exist. It only exists you, the language and tons of TIME working with it. You need more subjective motivation, maybe an insane obsession and tons of...TIME. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| shapd Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6150 days ago 126 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Modern Hebrew, French, Russian | Message 74 of 430 25 April 2008 at 7:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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It has been estimated that it takes ten years of full time practice to become a master of any skill, from music to painting to sport. However, for most of us, who are not in full time study of languages or living in an immersion situation and are part time geeks with a fascination for the subject, it makes sense to optimise the limited study time we have. Jobs, families etc do make substantial demands on resources.
Gethin and Gunnemark in their Art and Science of Learning Languages (reviewed by the Administrator) suggest that you should go all out to learn the first course in a language in a matter of weeks to master basic grammar and the first few hundred vital words and expressions and then gradually build up deeper knowledge with native materials, a similar viewpoint to Richard Burton. This would seem to give a useful compromise between the two opposing viewpoints in this thread. I highly recommend their book by the way. It is an idiosyncratic but fascinating view of the subject, very much from the point of view of the independent learner. Greg Thomson's articles on making best use of a native speaker's help are also very valuable if you have access to such a precious resource. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6679 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 75 of 430 25 April 2008 at 8:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I'm slightly more in favor of choosing a good method. I believe in structure in the beginning, learning the basic grammar, working with charts and so on, getting the basics down, THEN proceeding to native material. Time is of course essential, but without a good method you will probably waste quite a bit of it. Sure, if your native tongue is Spanish and you learn Italian, it will undoubtedly be quite easy to jump to native materials straight away. However, if your native language is German and you've got your heart set on Arabic, then I very strongly doubt just watching movies and so on will help you very much...
I know I don't get much from native Russian materials and I've still been at it for a while. I benefit the most from simplified materials (easy readers and such, or short articles) and from writing as much as possible and being corrected by a native speaker. As many others have said, a good method saves you lots of time. I know for a fact that Assimil works splendidly for a friend of mine who studies Swedish (with extremely little effort), but then I also think Swedish is a language that is well suited for an Assimil kind of approach. I don't know about more complicated languages though. The more complicated the language, the more grammar and structured learning is needed, in my opinion. However, as a last point, if you are not a very detailed learner who gets hung up on every word and conjugation and suffix, you may be able to work fine without studying grammar in depth and just "absorbing" the language. I cannot do that though (anymore - I learned English from just absorbing it when I was like 6, but then English is an easy language for a Scandinavian person). If I read a text and find a new ending, but understand the word, I MUST find out why that ending is there. It's absolutely out of the question to just move on and not care about it. Okay, really last point now. About the DVD method. I find watching TV and movies quite boring, and can rarely even watch a normal movie (=in a language I understand) in one setting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 76 of 430 25 April 2008 at 9:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
The fact that different people learn better or worse depending on the learning style is pretty widely accepted (it's referred to in Lessons Learned from 50 years of theory and practice in Government Language Teaching., which I greatly respect). I don't think it matters whether it's because of personal preference, environment, etc. Learning one way, or some ways, works better than others for most people. Finding what works and what doesn't work is a good idea. I think it would be inefficient to force a native Spanish speaker, with no experience in Asian languages, to learn Mandarin by using only native materials from the beginning, if they don't learn well using that method, for example. Even if they are lectured daily about how there really are no different learning styles, only personal preferences, etc. The fact remains that they don't learn well that way, and even with practice it may be impossible to change their learning style.
I agree only if learning methods and techniques are ones that fit the individual well.
I think your theory is correct. There are probably many methods, that fit the individual's learning style, that would yield similar results.
Completely agree.
Completely agree. Let me plug this excellent article again, for those who haven't read it yet. By the way, thanks for starting this excellent thread slucido. Very interesting indeed! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6944 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 77 of 430 25 April 2008 at 9:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
They used to like it, but after they discovered that it was much slower than some other methods, they started hating it. I've seen it with a number of forum members. For many people, efficiency itself is one of the main motivating factors. Edited by frenkeld on 25 April 2008 at 9:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6676 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 78 of 430 25 April 2008 at 11:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Thank you Leoshmith. I think this thread is very useful for me. Reading your answer I don't know if we disagree in any point. About learning with native materials from scratch is a personal preference, it isn't the truth. As I said before, I don't believe in best methods. My most important point is that we need tons of TIME interacting with the language. So, we need to do whatever motivate ourselves, whatever we feel more interesting or we have fun and do it a lot. More motivation equals more time. I know your FSI article and I don't know where is against my position. In fact, I think it supports my point of view: A lot of TIME interacting with the language and NO best methods. Look this quotes:
About the Greg Thomson article, here a summary:
He is talking about TONS of TIME interacting with the language (input and output) and no about any hypothetical best method. Eventually I think it teaches us: keep it simple. And yes, we need "comprehensible input", This seems some specific advise, but it isn't. It's a common sense approximation. We need massive input and do efforts to understand by any means. Nevertheless, it is very difficult asses the amount (percentage) of understanding you get or you need. In fact, I don't care as long as I am happy with the experience and I feel better. More motivation equals more time with the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6944 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 79 of 430 25 April 2008 at 12:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Not quite, he specifically asks for "gradually increasing the difficulty level". This constrains the choice of materials a great deal in the beginning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6676 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 80 of 430 25 April 2008 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Yes, I agree with you. My point of view is we only need: INPUT + OUTPUT + TIME Comprehensible input is a preference. It's good as long as you feel good. Edited by slucido on 25 April 2008 at 3:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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