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Listening before speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| openthedoor320 Newbie United States Joined 6912 days ago 20 posts - 20 votes | Message 17 of 83 31 January 2006 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think I understand ALG's position of language aquistion. I find it very intriguing and it makes some sense. I'm not sure I agree with their claim that speaking the language early on impedes the learning process. Don't children speak from the beginning, constantly trying to imitate sounds they hear? I thought children learned faster because they weren't embarrassed to practice their speaking.
Having said that, I'm still not exactly sure how to apply ALG's method or the "Natural Approach." Can you do this with any learning program - just focus on the listening and reading; not speaking? If that's the case, can't one use the FSI course and simply listening to through whole course without speaking? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7189 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes  7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 18 of 83 01 February 2006 at 4:02am | IP Logged | ||
Actually children don't speak from the beginning. I'm not sure when the usual age for children to begin speaking is but they at least spend a year not saying a single word just listening to the language around them. So when they to begin to speak they have already listened to the language for a long time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| openthedoor320 Newbie United States Joined 6912 days ago 20 posts - 20 votes | Message 19 of 83 01 February 2006 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | ||
Alright, how can I apply this method? Obviously my French and Spanish professors aren't going to adopt this method anytime soon. In fact, they stress that the only way to learn is to speak the language as much as possible. What can I do when self studying? Assimil, watch movies, listen to music? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7098 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 83 01 February 2006 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | ||
John Walker claims you can teach yourself French just by watching the French in Action videos over and over again. I’m following his plan more or less. Read what he has to say in Resources for Learning French. Edited by Farley on 01 February 2006 at 2:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| openthedoor320 Newbie United States Joined 6912 days ago 20 posts - 20 votes | Message 21 of 83 01 February 2006 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
My French teacher loves these series. She taught from it for over ten years. The college I attend took it out of their cirriculum, so she gave me her marked up textbook. What a wonderful gift. Anyway, she said the same thing. If you watch the videos over and over again, you'll be able to have conversations and read short stories. I gave her the article from the ALG website. I wonder what she'll say about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6949 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 22 of 83 01 February 2006 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting...
As someone who gets drawn to reading before all else upon seeing a new language, I can't but welcome the news that passive learning is a good thing, but on the other hand, one may as well ask just what harm Pimsleur could do, other than possibly to one's wallet? Our public library, and it's not alone in that, now carries all Pimsleur courses for download by patrons, and as I was setting out on a two-day 1100 mile (1 mile = 1.6 km) drive last Saturday, on a lark I downloaded Italian I to my portable player in order to assult my senses with it without rewinding while I was driving. I got as far as lesson 24 in two days of driving, likely with below 80 percent success rate towards the end, but still clearly making progress. This is the first time I seriously tried Pimsleur, and my impression is pretty good, actually. I bet a lot of problems stem from the fact that one's tendency is to look for The Method, instead of just treating Pimsleur (or, I am guessing, even an FSI course) as just another language-learning tool, to be used along with others. Barry Farber, whom we all respect, advocates a multi-track approach from the get go, so should we revere the master without ever following him? I looked at a few Italian materials in a bookstore after I arrived at my destination, and there is a very lively Barron's workbook "Italian the Easy Way" by Marcel Donosi, which, like Pimsleur, limits itself to only some 700 words and does not try to cover all the verb tenses. There is also "Italian: A Self-Teaching Guide" by Edoardo A. Lèbano, which goes up to 1100 words and tries to cover most of the grammatical structures, and this textbook/workbook also looks pretty good. A more experienced language-learner, especially one who knows another Romance language, could perhaps even go straight to a grammar reference, a dictionary, and a novel. I bet by combining a workbook or two with Pimsleur, one can do quite well, with Pimsleur providing a lot of good speaking and pronunciation practice. One can even try using it semi-passively for a while, if one wants to experiment. Edited by frenkeld on 02 February 2006 at 4:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7152 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 23 of 83 01 February 2006 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think the idea of ALG is that we learn a language like a baby. That would entail speaking baby-talk while we were learning. I think the idea is that we learn our target language the same way a young child picks up a second or third language and is able to speak it like a native.
I don't want to speak baby-talk while I am learning, but that is not unusual for many adults who learn a new language. Listening to the language spoken correctly and thinking in the language seems a logical and natural progression to speaking the language. I wish there were more research into the method. John Walker's methods seem to fit in well with the ALG approach. I wonder if some of us have subconsciously hit on the idea anyway. I always felt guilty that I did no speaking while listening to Assimil Spanish and rocketed my way through the first 60 lessons, easily understanding what I heard. I would listen to the recordings on my mp3 player in public so I didn't want to speak out loud for fear of being put away, although people speak to themselves with mobile phones everywhere you go, I don't see that this is a problem any more. Anyway, I found I could understand all of the Spanish very well and I guess I had a passive vocabulary of around 1,000 words. All of the ideas in the posts above seem good to me. I will be interested to see how they work out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| flatlandllama Diglot Newbie United States Joined 7095 days ago 35 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English*, Vietnamese Studies: Khmer | Message 24 of 83 01 February 2006 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Does anybody have any experience with this sort of thing for class or self study? When i self studied German i never really wrote much and didnt speak much...I did however read alot and listened but whenever i got to Germany i could never say a full, long sentence without getting lost midway and forgetting what I had said and what needed still to be said...so i dont know if my method was wrong for this particular way of studying(the one mentioned by topic starter) or i hadnt done it long enough(as in enough hours, I had done it for 2 years or so) or if my assumption from that point forward is actualy correct...that each skill is its own skill...meaning if you want to get better at speaking then speak, listening then listen etc...Id like to try this method but im not sure of how to apply it as self study(since you have to understand 80% of each lesson) or what to do\...right now im just starting cambodian and restarting my German...I could try this approach indefinetely with German and for about 8 months with cambodian...but then again i dont want to waste 8 months if i cant apply this correctly\...any ideas?
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