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Lessons learned from fifty years of theory

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s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5433 days ago
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Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 17 of 34
25 January 2011 at 4:58am | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
s_allard wrote:
For those HTLAL members who are obsessed with sounding like a native and who think that this should be the language-learner's goal, here is a passage from Lesson 1 that debunks that myth.

There is no myth, so there is no debunking. It is my goal, and it is a valid goal. The fact that it is not your goal doesn't make it "myth".

As I tried to convey in my post--alas to little avail--the myth is that sounding like a native should be the goal of all language learning. As an individual goal, that's fine. It's even quite commendable, but, as the people at FSI put it so well, that is not the main purpose of learning a language at an adult age.
8 persons have voted this message useful



kmart
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6127 days ago
194 posts - 400 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 18 of 34
25 January 2011 at 9:41am | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
As I tried to convey in my post--alas to little avail--the myth is that sounding like a native should be the goal of all language learning. As an individual goal, that's fine. It's even quite commendable, but, as the people at FSI put it so well, that is not the main purpose of learning a language at an adult age.

I actually don't WANT a native-like accent in my target language. I don't want to pass for a native - I want to be recognised as a brilliant non-native speaker of the language, haha!

I think accents are cute in English, I'm hoping my Aussie sounds cute grafted onto Italian, and will get me free drinks from sexy Italian men!
;-)
11 persons have voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6014 days ago
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Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 19 of 34
25 January 2011 at 10:19am | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
s_allard wrote:
For those HTLAL members who are obsessed with sounding like a native and who think that this should be the language-learner's goal, here is a passage from Lesson 1 that debunks that myth.

There is no myth, so there is no debunking. It is my goal, and it is a valid goal. The fact that it is not your goal doesn't make it "myth".

As I tried to convey in my post--alas to little avail--the myth is that sounding like a native should be the goal of all language learning. As an individual goal, that's fine. It's even quite commendable, but, as the people at FSI put it so well, that is not the main purpose of learning a language at an adult age.

The problem is that the quote says it shouldn't be the target, which to me is a bit baffling. Surely there is no other possible target to aim for? Native speech is the language, after all.
3 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 20 of 34
25 January 2011 at 6:07pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
s_allard wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
s_allard wrote:
For those HTLAL members who are obsessed with sounding like a native and who think that this should be the language-learner's goal, here is a passage from Lesson 1 that debunks that myth.

There is no myth, so there is no debunking. It is my goal, and it is a valid goal. The fact that it is not your goal doesn't make it "myth".

As I tried to convey in my post--alas to little avail--the myth is that sounding like a native should be the goal of all language learning. As an individual goal, that's fine. It's even quite commendable, but, as the people at FSI put it so well, that is not the main purpose of learning a language at an adult age.

The problem is that the quote says it shouldn't be the target, which to me is a bit baffling. Surely there is no other possible target to aim for? Native speech is the language, after all.


I know we've been down this road before, and I don't want to bore everybody else with the same arguments. The quote from FSI says it all. I've paraphrased the same thing in plain English. If someone does not agree and believes that there is no other target than trying to sound like a native, that's O.K. too. There is room in this world for different opinions.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5384 days ago
3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 21 of 34
25 January 2011 at 8:08pm | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
s_allard wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
s_allard wrote:
For those HTLAL members who are obsessed with sounding like a native and who think that this should be the language-learner's goal, here is a passage from Lesson 1 that debunks that myth.

There is no myth, so there is no debunking. It is my goal, and it is a valid goal. The fact that it is not your goal doesn't make it "myth".

As I tried to convey in my post--alas to little avail--the myth is that sounding like a native should be the goal of all language learning. As an individual goal, that's fine. It's even quite commendable, but, as the people at FSI put it so well, that is not the main purpose of learning a language at an adult age.

The problem is that the quote says it shouldn't be the target, which to me is a bit baffling. Surely there is no other possible target to aim for? Native speech is the language, after all.


I know we've been down this road before, and I don't want to bore everybody else with the same arguments. The quote from FSI says it all. I've paraphrased the same thing in plain English. If someone does not agree and believes that there is no other target than trying to sound like a native, that's O.K. too. There is room in this world for different opinions.

I share Cainntear's bafflement at the idea that one would not have native fluency as a target, but I do understand that reaching that target does not have the same importance for all and that it's a matter of personal choice.
3 persons have voted this message useful



TadeuszD
Diglot
Newbie
Poland
Joined 5055 days ago
3 posts - 3 votes
Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: German, Malay

 
 Message 22 of 34
25 January 2011 at 8:45pm | IP Logged 
"the goal, the target" as opposed to "one of the possible targets".
1 person has voted this message useful



kmart
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6127 days ago
194 posts - 400 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 23 of 34
26 January 2011 at 6:42am | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
I share Cainntear's bafflement at the idea that one would not have native fluency as a target, but I do understand that reaching that target does not have the same importance for all and that it's a matter of personal choice.

Why are you baffled that people would learn a language and not have native fluency as a target at all?
Here's some reasons:
I want a degree in Modern Languages, the requirement is to study 2 European and 1 Asian language. I'm not really interested in Asian languages but I want that degree, so I study Japanese for 3 years. Why would I try to achieve native fluency in Japanese, I only want a pass in order to gain my qualification. Any extra time spent on Japanese is time taken from my chosen languages.
I'm going on a 4-week holiday to Germany. I want to be polite, and get around the country easily, so I learn some German - a little more than the standard tourist phrases, so that I can have interesting conversations, but I don't have native fluency as a goal - I want to enjoy my holiday in Germany, then come back home and study Russian for my big holiday next year.
My grandchildren are being brought up bilingually by my Vietnamese daughter-in-law. I want to be able to have some basic conversations with them (amd make sure they're not swearing at Grandma in Vietnamese), but I have no strong interest in Vietnamese culture or literature, and any visits I take there I will be accompanied by my DiL to translate if things get sticky. I'm not interested in fluency, B1 will do.
We're not all driving on the same autobahn.
;-)

7 persons have voted this message useful



slucido
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Spain
https://goo.gl/126Yv
Joined 6678 days ago
1296 posts - 1781 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*
Studies: English

 
 Message 24 of 34
11 May 2013 at 11:02am | IP Logged 
The old link it's not working. Here is the new one:

Lessons learned from fifty years of theory and practice in government language teaching

Frederick H. Jackson
Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State
Marsha A. Kaplan
Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State

http://www.geolanguage.org/archives/sla/gurt_1999_07.pdf




12 persons have voted this message useful



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