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How to get to fluency faster | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Paul999 Newbie Czech Republic Joined 6082 days ago 12 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English | Message 27 of 77 17 July 2008 at 8:11am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I have read many different researchs... http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Krashen.htm "comprehension hypothesis" (or "input hypothesis") by professor Stephen Krashen (University of Southern California) and is part of his "natural approach" to language learning. (humans acquire language in only one way - by understanding messages or by receiving "comprehensible input") ............... The model describes the process of a child learning its first (native) language. The child listens to its parents and other people. The child's brain collects sentences and gets better and better at producing its own sentences. By the age of 5, the child can already speak quite fluently. The same model works for learning a foreign language. In fact, we think it is the only way to learn a language well. (antimoon.com) --------------- An adult can acquire a new language in the same way like a child does. Moreover, an adult can already read, write, use the web, has a reach vocabulary in his or her own language, and can do many other activities towards acquire a new language , unlike a child. Which should provide even more satisfactory results. (of course, that only listening isn't enough but I believe it should be the first stage for the first three years, and then, focus on reading more) Anyway, the most important thing is enjoyment. No matter what technique is used as long as you enjoy learning... Edited by Paul999 on 17 July 2008 at 8:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6103 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 28 of 77 17 July 2008 at 1:03pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Paul i can agree with some aspects, but does a child really learn by listening ONLY? I am not convinced, young children speak all the time, only in the very early stages do they not join in conversations verbally. When children make mistakes with language, they are corrected by their parents, especially in the area of pronunciation.
Would I also be correct in assuming that for the first three years, there is no writing or reading skill whatsoever? Is reading a part of the passive learning you speak of, or does that only come into play after 3 years too. Others in this forum may or may not agree with me, but I find reading the easiest activity in terms of understanding, and listening the hardest. But I heard that there are different types of learners, like "audiant" who learn quicker through listening, and another whose name I can't remember, that learn easier through active participation. Can't remember where I heard/read this. Might be an interesting subtopic 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6039 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 29 of 77 17 July 2008 at 5:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Corrected above. My point is that the recommendations you here for various courses (including Michel Thomas) is "I was rubbish at languages at school, but with Preparation H I learned really quickly!" This is a useless comparison, because a high school classroom is a pretty poor place to learn. Disruptive classmates, hormones, antipathy to authority. It's a non-argument and I just wanted to make sure no-one used that justification for anything.
Because people say "this is a good technique -- Johnny benefitted from it" and reuse it. However, Johnny didn't benefit from it per se -- it just didn't get in the way of his learning: it didn't block his internal coping strategies. Other techniques equally wouldn't get in the way of his learning. Meanwhile, the technique didn't work for poor Mickey, who now works down at the shopping centre with a mop and bucket. So if they had realised that the technique wasn't really helping all that much, they wouldn't have needed to sacrifice Mickey ("he's not very bright") because Johnny would probably have been alright anyway....
I'm not talking about criticising the learner, I'm talking about the identification of effective teaching techniques. A learner without encouragement will probably fail!
Yes, I am. I may be wrong, but I believe the differences in learning styles are differences in filtering input. The "Pimsleur learner", the "FSI learner", the "Assimil learner"... they all break the input down into manageable chunks. They only need to break the input down because it's too big for simple processing. Breaking down the input is a useful and powerful skill, but it's not a universal one. However, the core workings of the human brain, while subtle, are quite regular. I'm quite confident that the filtered input that all learners create is the same. All the experiments for the observation of learning styles seem to employ learning tasks involving quite a high cognitive load. Tone it down, and will those differences remain? I doubt it -- we're all human, after all. Pre-digested input is removing the need for this higher-order filtering and going straight to the core.
I would like to model my flight on the best fliers of all: bats. However, I can't -- I am not a bat. Neuroscientists are pretty certain that the adult brain cannot learn like a child's brain.
Why do people always look at the extremes? It's not a straight-out choice between listening to podcasts and learning vocab lists & grammar tables, and you have clearly never looked at the Michel Thomas method. Words are easy to learn through context -- grammar less so. Michel Thomas teaches the fundamental grammatical structures very quickly using very few words. I hardly have to do any work to keep up with my university Spanish course, because I've had the hard part made easy for me -- now I just have to learn the words. I learn them as I go -- from task lists, from conversations with Spaniards and from books, films and computer games. I learnt the grammar then immersed myself, and I just met a Spanish woman at the gym who thought I was from Spain.
Theory, conjecture and a posteriori rationalisation. There is nothing in Krashen's work that really looks inside the learner. He looks at externalities and draws (jumps to?) his own conclusions. Like most pedagogues.
I child does not learn sentences!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A child learns nouns ("biss kitt!" "Fwoot joose!"). Then learns "want" and a couple of verbs. The child confuses different cases of pronouns ("me want!") . The child produces syntactically incorrect utterences ("me want" -- want is transitive!) The child produces lots of errors and much of the child's "silent period" is when the child simply doesn't have the motor control to pick up a fork, never mind pronounce a voiceless aveolar stop! The adult silent period is not a motor problem -- it's a confidence thing. Why not help make the adult confident rather than leave him in a corner till he finds it himself? Anyway, when I was put into an immersive, direct class, the first thing I heard was "hoova paiva" (I don't know how to spell Finnish). Unlike a child, I knew that the first thing a teacher says is "Good morning". It took a bit of prompting, but when we responded, he said "erityne hoova!" Which must mean "very good", so "hoova" must be "good". We do this naturally, and it's something a child can't do. We cannot learn like children, however much Krashen would like to believe otherwise.
Then in my fourth year of learning, the Spanish woman wouldn't have thought I was Spanish.
If you find learning slowly enjoyable, learning quickly will be orgasmic. Your profile only shows English. So how successful has this strategy really been for you? Edited by Cainntear on 17 July 2008 at 5:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| FrenchSilkPie Senior Member United States Joined 6645 days ago 125 posts - 130 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 30 of 77 18 July 2008 at 1:12am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I believe an adult can learn like a child does. It's something called comprehensible input, which I agree with Paul999 needs to be the focus and is the single and only factor in order to learn a language successfully. I don't see what relevence your comment on bats has to do with anything. It's entirely possible to model language learning after children. I've never in my life heard of a child who was born speaking its native language (naturally) or when they moved to a foreign country, started speaking that language right away. If you have, please, let me know.
I am trying to say that unless you study X way, you can't gain fluency. But for nautral language acquisition and knowledge, there really is only one way. And I have looked at the Michel Thomas method--it wasn't for me. I am the kind of person who needs a visual, which is why I favor programs like the Learnables and French in Action. I am sure it's a great program for you, but, like I have said earlier, I would rather naturally acquire vocab and grammar through immersion. And congrats on the Spanish woman at the gym! That's a great sign. How much of your time do you spend working on pronounciation/shadow methods/etc? I also happen to think that the majority of your language learning materials needs to come from native speakers. By the way, why are you so fixated on the fact that adults cannot learn like a child? Despite the fact there are several instances of this happening and several people on this forum claim it is possible, I really don't understand your disbelief. What is so hard to believe about it? I am just curious, is all.That is exactly how I am learning my languages. Through exposure, I learned (am learning) nouns and verbs. Tenses are a bit more difficult, but we have brains. They are primed to sort out a language. I don't think my brain is stupid or that children have some special ability (except their ability to perceive sounds correctly, which is why adults must have a silent period.) Have you looked at the Tomatis Method, by any chance? I think its great that you have a method that works and worked for you (with previous languages, I am assuming). On a different note, I do believe there are some major differences in the method I am using: language is easier acquired when actively used, which is why I would like to get my hands on a program like TPR. (For example, an adult would say "Put the glass in the sink" and you would listen and do the action. The more real the experience, the better.) I suppose we will see what happens after two years of no speaking! :) Edited by FrenchSilkPie on 18 July 2008 at 1:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6385 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 31 of 77 18 July 2008 at 4:42am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Yes, I agree completely. One of my pet peeves is hearing something like "Learn like a child does!" for a whole lot of languages courses. It would be interesting to compile a list of them. It's a great sales pitch, since it sounds so reasonable and convincing. But it's not. I've read many times that the adult brain just doesn't work like a child's brain. For example, here is a great, very understandable technical paper (actually, transcript of a speech), "Born to Learn: Language, Reading, and the Brain of the Child Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl, Co-Director, Center for Mind, Brain, and Learning University of Washington. http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/early/earlylearnsummit02/kuhl .pdf Early Learning paper Some interesting quotes: "• Diagnosing children with reading problems may be easier in the future. Our studies now show that infants’ abilities to distinguish speech sounds at 6 months of age correlates with later language abilities. The better infants are at distinguishing the building blocks of speech, the better they are years later at other more complex language skills." So maybe the "gifted" argument really equates to how well you were pre-programmed by age 6-months. "• In the first years of life, up to age three, the brains of children are forming connections furiously. Newborns have relatively few. By one year, they have many more, and by the time they approach the age of three, the child has twice the number of connections as the adult brain. Furthermore, the synapses create three times more brain activity than in an adult. Infants have far more synapses — more connections — than they will ever need. Once the brain is fully wired and all the connections are formed, the brain begins to “prune” excess connections. Quite literally like a rose bush, pruning some connections helps strengthen others. This pruning process continues to sculpt an individual’s brain until the end of puberty. The brain is being sculpted by experience during the entire period from early infancy to the end of puberty and it is important that parents and educators know this." So if any of you have not reached the end of puberty yet, jump on all those courses, quick! "• The infant’s brain by measured by examining brain waves as the baby plays, looks at his mother, or listens to language. This baby is listening to language and has no idea that we are recording the brainwaves he creates as his brain works away. We can see how his brain responds to new information, like a new language. The tests show that early in life, the infant brain is very plastic and readily learns new information. This plasticity is remarkable and we believe it will lead to new ways of understanding how children best learn." Edited by TerryW on 18 July 2008 at 4:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6731 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 32 of 77 18 July 2008 at 5:53am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I will try to keep this as short as possible because I have covered most of territory in other posts. I'm currently thinking about making a collection of my most substantial posts in my thread under Members' Profiles because the total amount of what I have written here has become slightly overwhelming. Another disclaimer: I started out learning Italian and Spanish on my own in the mid sixties without any reliable audio sources, just by working my way some Danish text books (none of those on your list above). I had to readjust my pronunciation drastically during the seventies where I travelled alot around on Interail and heard some more of 'the real mcCoy'. But in fact I did teach myself those two languages. Besides I had English, German and later Latin and French in school, where my teachers used the usual eclectic set of slightly conservative methods. I had one French teacher though who tried out an extreme version of the natural method, - he had to give it up because it simply didn't work. So what I am going to suggest below is not what I did myself when I started out learning languages, but what I have done with my recent additions. And that would be self study because I don't like classes. And I detest working in groups. First I would read a simple grammar, not to remember anything, but to know approximately what ground I would have to cover later. If there was another alphabet involved I would learn it the hard way by writing page after page of transliterations (this probably won't function with Japanese or Chinese, but I haven't studied those languages) Next I would try to get some bilingual texts AND some audio files. I would essentially use them as specified in the L-R method (Listening-reading), i.e. listening while reading either the translation or the transcription - but for shorter periods than specified by Siomotteikiru. I would mostly do this to absorb the sounds of the new language, not so much to learn words or constructions. Then I would start doing ultraliteral translations using bilingual texts, preferably of the interlaced kind (but these can be difficult to find, and you have to know a minimum of the language to make them yourself). This would force me to learn some grammar too so at the same time I would make my own morphological tables for easy reference, and I would start reading about syntax. Again I would first skim the syntax book(s), but after that I would read about one topic at a time, as I felt the need based on the texts I worked with. All new words would be used as material for making word lists (I have described the details of all this in my profile thread) Working with texts in this way takes forever, so I might only be able to do a few paragraphs each day. But to be fluent you have to be able to read fast, so I would try to find some 'comprehensible input'. For a total beginner this typically has to be taken from text books because everything else is too difficult. However with languages that are near relatives to something you already know you can probably find genuine texts that are so simple that you can get the gist of the content - and that is all you need. This exercise is 100% about getting momentum when confronted by texts, not about understanding everything. Getting some momentum is the basis for starting to think in the new language (or even speaking aloud). In the beginning it may be single words, later small fragments and only full sentences at a later stage. It will be full of errors and holes (due to missing words) but that is not important, - momentum is the only thing that counts here. As you see I would have a long phase where I don't listen much to the language, but rely mainly on written materials. This is because the kind of slow meticulous work that I need in the beginning can't be done with spoken words - everything you will hear as an independent student is too fast for you in the beginning (and the CDs or tapes that are an indispendable part of modern courseware are too boring - at least that has been the case with everything I have tried out). When I introduce audio - outside the L-R situation described above - I don't try to understand what is said, but only concentrate on parsing the words. Suddenly one day when I know enough words and enough grammar the meaning will appear out of the blue - and I'm patient enough to wait for that moment. Speaking and writing should of course be tried out somewhere along this timeline, but unless you have a patient teacher for yourself the kind of discussions you can have in the beginning will be composed mainly of readymade phrases and pauses, so I prefer just to keep thinking until I can think fairly fluently (with errors) before I try to speak. Unless of course I have ordered a travel too early, because then even asking for directions and for food items is worth doing while you are surrounded by native speakers. But generally I wouldn't try to speak before I could think fairly fluently on the level of a simple discussion. At that point you will also be better equipped to deal with corrections. At this point you will be at something like the intermediate level, and from then on extensive reading and listening, interspersed with writing and speaking, will be more and more important, and most of your work will consist in weeding out errors and learning more words and idiomatic phrases. But I still occasionally make word lists and read grammars even in my 'advanced' languages. You can always get better. Edited by Iversen on 18 July 2008 at 6:06am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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