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How to get to fluency faster | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| 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 34 of 77 18 July 2008 at 9:19am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Children don't learn only from comprehensible input. In some cultures, parents never talk to their children, but children learn to speak anyway. There is an argument that comprehensible input is of no benefit to children. (Some even go as far as saying it's detrimental to child development as it presents an unnatural model of language. My mum was in that school of thought, so she taught me to call a dog a dog, not "doggie".)
See Terry's excellent post -- it's a matter of physiology, so my bat analogy is valid.
There is no proof that their process of learning was like that of children. There is hard science saying that it can't have been. What we are looking at is the learning environment, not the learning process. Immersive, assimilative and natural methods assume a child-like learning process that cannot be. Some people succeed in such environments. Yes. I accept this. But this observation does not validate the (unscientific) theory that they are learning like children.
You aren't learning like a child. You are most likely reasoning actively. Your are conciously and subconciously filtering the input until you distill it down to a manageable size and form. Why do you need to do that? The input can be supplied in a manageable size and form.
The problem with TPR is that the imperative aspect (commands) is a very small part of language, and a very large part of TPR. It is not "productive" language, in that it only occurs in small chunks and rarely combines into complex sentences.
But there is no such thing as "thinking in a language". The proper term for what you're doing is "subvocalising" -- as far as your mind is concerned you are speaking, you just aren't moving your mouth. (Well actually... you are -- just not as much as you would if you were actually vocalising.) This is what I hate about Krashen et al -- they look at the surface and miss the core of the matter: what goes on in the student's head. Successful students, effective learners, "speak" -- whether vocally or subvocally -- from very early on. The schools of thought that promote things like the "silent period" ignore this. A teaching system that only benefits effective learners is not a good teaching system, as effective learners don't really need help. 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 35 of 77 18 July 2008 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Exactly what would you then qualify as thinking? Does thinking exist at all? One of the reasons that thinking (as I shall continue to call it) to some extent can be used as a substitute for speaking is precisely those micro movements of the speech organs. It is not too difficult to jump from subvocalization to actual talking because all the movements are in fact there, they just have to be magnified X times. But in the meantime I have spent my time doing something that is far less tiring and far less taxing for my surroundings - and those surroundings may not yet have lost confidence in my sanity. 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 36 of 77 19 July 2008 at 1:18am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I don't doubt the invalidity of Terry's information in his post. I am sure that children don't only learn from comprehensible input, but sure is a major part of their learning. The information does not thing to refute the idea that adults can learn through comprehensible input. One cannot actively prove that adults can learn like children, so they cannot disprove it either. None of us are children, so I suppose we will never know what exactly goes on in a childs mind, and be able to 100% accurately compare how children at all ages learn languages with 100% proof and assurance.
I strongly believe that you need an extended amount of just listening in order to obtain a near-native accent. That's the most important thing for me in any language. That's great, informative information (ha ha ha alliteration! :) ) that definitely got my mind whirring. I will agree with you on some points--no I do not think adults can learn exactly like children. But modeling our learning based on their way they naturally "pick up" so to speak a language will yield us results that are less artificial and more natural. 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 37 of 77 19 July 2008 at 5:20am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
This is correct.
Only in as much as science never proves anything 100%. The overwhelming balance of the evidence is that infants learn by growing and culling/pruning synapses. Adults learn by adjusting synaptic responses and by some weird funky dendrite activity. These are fundamentally different mechanisms.
But do you need it from the word go? The brain is great at filtering out irrelevant information. You can mkae ltos of msitekas wehn you wirte ard stil be undestood. The brain is trained to fill in the gaps based on what it considers normal. When it hears a foreign accent it tries to "correct" it to your home accent. You do not perceive everything that hits your ear. For example, I started using Pimsleur Polish. When the man said "rosumiem" I perceived "resume-yem", because my brain said "no such thing as rosume -- must be resume". The brain will not learn to properly perceive a native accent until it has some underlying structure for interpreting the meaning of it. So yes, you do need lots of native input, but this is not necessary at the very start of your learning.
Why? We cannot physically learn in the same way that children do, in that our brains do very different things. Surely a different brain physical brain requires a different strategy? Even if we can't say this for sure, the fundamental differences must rationally cast doubt on the idea that child learning can be a model for adult learning. 2 persons have 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 38 of 77 19 July 2008 at 6:53am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I see no reason why talking to yourself subvocally is any more effective than talking to yourself vocally, and I find talking to other people far more rewarding than talking to myself. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6937 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 39 of 77 19 July 2008 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I sometimes study at my favourite café, listen to lessons, podcasts, audiobooks et.c. my mp3 player. Would people give me strange looks if I sat there speaking all by myself? Probably yes. Would the same thing happen if I sat there subvocalizing? Probably not.
So, perhaps it isn't more effective than speaking aloud, however a lot more practical if you're studying with people around you. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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