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Text memorization and imitation | ||
Tags: Memory | Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6014 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 17 of 95 23 September 2010 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Them's fightin words, pardner.
This is true. However, it doesn't give the authors the right to draw conclusions from them. This is a case study -- nothing more -- so cannot provide proof of any theory. What it can do is propose a theory. The paper does not propose a theory. "The paper concludes that such practice enhances noticing and rehearsal and hence facilitates second language acquisition." Bad science. The paper never explains the experimental methodology, which in this case would be the judging criteria for the competitions they won. Bad science. The paper notes that they all went to the same school, but fails to note the success (or otherwise) of their classmates. Bad science. The paper lists a whole lot of things about them. Same school. Small class sizes. Classes filled with drama and discussion. Devouring foreign cinema in their spare time. Yet the paper states baldly that it was the memorisation and imitation that brought them success. Bad science. Chinese school culture is famously "bookish". Translations, notes, chorus drills, etc. The most notable feature in their schooling is the unusually interactive lessons. As I state above, that's completely ignored. Bad science. You accept the argument because you already agree with the conclusions, so you fail to see the massive leap in logic. Edited by Cainntear on 23 September 2010 at 9:03pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6014 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 18 of 95 23 September 2010 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I never said memorisation isn't useful -- I just called the argument invalid.
That's an average. You cannnot be anything other than 100% right or 100% wrong to a question of that nature. I always say I believe MT is the best thing, not that my experience is "proof" of this. That's a major difference. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7106 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 19 of 95 23 September 2010 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Maybe the author doesn't know, can't find out and since they didn't place in any of the contests doesn't see the relevance.
Well, actually it's the students themselves who bald, hirsute or otherwise make the claim: The interviewees regarded text memorization and imitation as the most effective methods of learning English. They had been initially forced to use these methods but gradually came to appreciate them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6014 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 20 of 95 23 September 2010 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Surely the fact that they didn't place would be of the utmost relevance -- if these were the only 3 success stories for the method, then the method couldn't be very widely applicable. If they're not the only 3 success stories, we should be told. You cannot recommend a training regime based on 3 people.
For pity's sake... Yes. the students said it. But also -- "The paper concludes that such practice enhances noticing and rehearsal and hence facilitates second language acquisition." The paper concludes, not the students conclude. The students are allowed to state any beliefs they want to. Scientists have to prove their claims before they present them as a conclusion rather than a hypothesis. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7106 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 21 of 95 23 September 2010 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This website's entirely full of people recommending a training regime based on a sample of one i.e. themselves. Nevertheless, despite the small sample size , I've managed to glean the odd nugget or two of useful info.
I'm not disagreeing with you here. My point (already made above) is that this paper is largely anecdotal and the student reports of the usefulness of the techniques are of more interest to me than anything else. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 22 of 95 23 September 2010 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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As has been so often the case in discussions with Cainntear, I prefer to move on to more enlightening pursuits. I think the paper under discussion here is an important contribution to a body of thought that I would call the formulaic language or lexical grammar hypothesis of second-language acquisition. If I can simplify it to the extreme, this approach states that spoken language is made up of set phrases such as collocations and fixed formulations that demonstrate much linguistic probability. This is why we are able to finish another person's sentences and supply missing words in a conversation. By systematically learning these set phrases--through memorization and imitation (my addition)--the learning process is accelerated and better results achieved in spoken fluency.
A fundamental idea of this approach that emphasizes learning fixed phrases is that the grammar is embedded in these phrases and learners will spontaneously internalize the grammatical structures. Actually, I believe that this approach is just a fancy name for something that everybody does. When we learn a language, especially as children, we basically imitate what is being said around us. For adults, things are different but fundamentally all language learning involves considerable imitation. The fact that the three winners of the competition shared a similar technique is quite relevant. A sample of three is not a sample of 300, but that is not the claim of the author. I think it's very valuable to actually be able to study the learning techniques of individuals who have demonstrated objectively a high level of proficiency without actual immersion. These individuals all highlighted the importance of memorization and imitation. Now, if somebody were to win a language competition and say that they did not use memorization and imitation, that would be very interesting as well. I think we could use more of these case studies here. How many people in this forum have attained a very high level of spoken proficiency without ever setting foot in the country where the language is spoken? What insights could they share with us about the learning process? Maybe Cainntear could share his thoughts on learning Spanish and French with us? 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7106 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 23 of 95 23 September 2010 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
As it's late and I've drunk entirely too much vino rosso, I'll limit myself to saying that there's been entirely too much focus on the fact that the author's failed to interview the entire English-language learning population of China prior to publication. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| uuuuaaaa Newbie Poland Joined 5359 days ago 5 posts - 12 votes Studies: Finnish | Message 24 of 95 24 September 2010 at 1:41am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Please, start fighting about something useful, like:
WHAT WOULD BE THE MOST EFFICIENT "DEPTH" OF MEMORIZING? being able to recite whole page/dialog/book: a) without any hints? b) with the help of first letters? (as suggested in this topic by Andy) c) while looking at the translation? d) ...? (any ideas?) 1. What advantage in terms of achieved "language learning effect" could have options "a" and "b" over the option "c"? 2. What would be the differences in "time and effort" required by those options? ("cost" of memorizing, but also maintaining) Feel free to speculate. 3. Personal question to Andy, since he is the one trying this approach: why do You choose option "b" over "c"? EDIT: Just came to me: what about option "d" = "b" + "c"? (being able to recite a foreign text while seeing first letters of it's words AND the translation) Edited by uuuuaaaa on 24 September 2010 at 2:03am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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