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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5819 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes  Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 337 of 405 07 March 2011 at 7:42am | IP Logged | |||||
But what are "learning styles" and "learning preferences"? Are they different? Maybe a learning style to someone is a learning preference to another. Until somebody gives a clear characterization of them, we can't agree simply because maybe we're talking of different things. What if someone calls a preference a style? Is he wrong? And absence of proof (of learning styles) is not proof of absence (of learning styles). And isn't it that styles and preferences are unique to each person, and each person is unique in the world? Even identical twins could have different styles and preferences. Talking of MT, I've tried it and loved it, but for me it's not totally perfect. I love mixing different kinds of methods, as all have their strengths and weaknesses. Why not just identify when is a study material good and when it is not? When is a study method for beginners and when is it for advanced? What material is good when driving alone, when at home, when with friends outside, when reviewing for an assessment, when tired or demotivated? What study method pairs well with which technology or gadget? Which study method is best for developing listening, writing, reading, speaking skills? No one method will satisfy any person all the time. Is that a learning style, a preference or neither? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 338 of 405 07 March 2011 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
Nope, it makes you normal. Nobody's expected to be perfect -- you're supposed to get better as you go along. The students on the CD struggle along -- why should you or anyone else be any different? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kmart Senior Member Australia Joined 6125 days ago 194 posts - 400 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 339 of 405 08 March 2011 at 11:14am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, I'm no expert, but this is how it appears to me... A learning "style" is supposed to be the way in which an individual learns best, it may be aurally, it may be visually, it may be tactile (incidentally, I never have met a person who claimed their learning style was tactile), and there are several more complicated versions. Teach a person to their learning style, the theory goes, and they learn better. As Cainntear says, there's no real evidence that this theory works, or at least the methods currently and expensively in use, don't. A learning preference, to my mind, is how a person prefers to learn ie by reading about the subject, by listening to lectures, by physically doing something. Most people talk about their learning "style" when in reality they are talking about their learning preference. But just because a person likes to learn a certain way, doesn't mean that it is the optimal way to learn. I hear so many people say about language learning "I have to see the words written down to learn them, I'm a visual learner". How the heck did they learn their native language then? Were they mute until they went to school and they were taught to read? Or perhaps they could speak only poorly before they started to read, because the aural learning style was sub-optimal for them? And why is it that so many of these people, getting the visual learning "style" that suits them, have such appalling pronunciation skills? Because they are trying to use the pronunciation rules of their native language to pronounce the target language. They'd be better off if they stopped trying to read the words and listened to them (OK I'm really only able to talk about native English speakers here, that's all I've had the opportunity to observe). I'm not trying to promote aural approaches to language learning over visual. We've been given 5 senses, the best approach to learning something is to use as many of them as possible, not because that way our particular learning style will manage to get a turn at being used, but because we take in information with several of our senses (depending on the subject studied), and they all contribute to our knowledge. Restricting oneself to one's supposed style, means restricting the learning opportunities. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| RogerK Triglot Groupie Austria Joined 5076 days ago 92 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian Studies: Portuguese | Message 340 of 405 08 March 2011 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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We have three senses we use to learn: our eyes for 'visual learning', our ears for 'auditory learning' and our sense of touch for 'tactile or kinesthetic learning'. Generally we use a mixture of all three styles, while individually we use one of the three a little more than the other two. While learning sporting skills or movement we tend to use visual and kinesthetic learning more and the more kinesthetic you are the better you will tend to be at sport. But some people are quite happy to just listen to instruction, others want to see what needs to be done (kids are great at this) and others need to have their bodies manipulated. Adults tend to prefer listening and practicing motion whereas children prefer watching, copying and practicing motion.
In language learning it is obvious that the eyes and ears take on a greater roll but (and I'm just guessing here) perhaps writing in the target language could be considered kinesthetic learning. It certainly helps me. If you take some time and read many of the threads here you will notice some people say: "I prefer Michel Thomas, so listening is the best method" the next person will say "I need to read a lot, the words sink in better when I read them, so you must read as much as you can" and the third person will say you have to write and write and write". Who is correct? There all are. If you mix up your learning, i.e. listen to your target language, read various materials and write out passages you will certainly cover your main learning style and practice your weaknesses at the same time which is also important. Language learning is interesting because we are learning four skills at the same time: listening, speaking, reading and writing. So we should use three styles while learning our languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 7001 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 341 of 405 08 March 2011 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, i would rather say that It is the way that person thinks she/he learns best. I have seen some persons unable to actually progress in a language because they "know" they have to learn with bad programs , in my oPinion (exercises grammar conjugation tables) and seem to be faced with a high level of anxiety when trying to use what i deem efficient self learner programs such as pimsleur or assimil or michel thomas 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kmart Senior Member Australia Joined 6125 days ago 194 posts - 400 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 342 of 405 09 March 2011 at 1:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's exactly the point I was trying to make - well one of the points. 1. There are educators who believe that people have learning styles, and that if they are taught specfically to that style, they will learn better. There are other expert educators who refute that learning styles exist, and others who say that even if they do exist, the methods developed to teach to those styles don't actually work. 2. Even supposing that the learning styles theory is true, what happens is that people read a little bit about it, and think they are qualified to self-assess. 3. What happens with the self-assessment is that the person looks at the way that they like to learn and decide that that is their learning style and proceed to study based on that assumption. But it may be that, supposing learning styles to exist, the style that actually ennables them to learn better may not be the style that they prefer. It's like a non-medical person diagnosing their own set of complicated symptoms and self-prescribing. At the risk of boring everyone silly, here's my own experience with Pimsleur. I bought it because it seemed so highly recommended. I was almost immediately irritated by it - it's all audio, but I like to see things written down, I learn a lot of things well that way, I learn poorly from listening ("aha - visual learner" I hear you say). I also like explanations, I don't do the "trust me and it will all become clear" thing patiently, and Pimsleur gave hardly any grammar explanations. I wanted to stop after the first couple of lessons, but I'd paid so much money for it, I forced myself to continue. By about lesson 10 I was loving it, and I am still a fan of it to this day. I discovered that it wasn't that my learning skills were inferior aurally, it's that my self-discipline was. I had always allowed my thoughts to wander during lectures - even while taking notes my brain got sidetracked. Once I determined to pay close attention to the audio tapes, and discipline my mind, I found I was able to learn quite well aurally, and indeed it's the only way to get good pronunciation - listen and repeat. My point is, any amateur, myself included, would have picked me for a visual learner and thus rejected Pimsleur as a learning tool, but it turned out to be a good tool for me, after all. If learning styles do exist, then the only way they could possibly work well, would be to be assessed by a person trained to do so, and not to assume that what you like to do, is what is best for you. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| csidler Diglot Pro Member Australia chadsidler.com Joined 4824 days ago 51 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 343 of 405 03 February 2012 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Anyone have transcripts or links to transcripts for the German, French, Italian and Spanish original courses?
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7145 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 344 of 405 03 February 2012 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There was a site that had provided them, but it's since gone down. You can find it here, though, and some of the links therein still seem to work. Good luck!
http://web.archive.org/web/20091027000314/http://geocities.c om/joekane765/ 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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