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Self-teaching methods declared useless | ||
Tags: Rosetta Stone | Self-Study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| jean-luc Senior Member France Joined 4895 days ago 100 posts - 150 votes  Speaks: French* Studies: German | Message 49 of 81 13 September 2011 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I agree with s_allard, nothing beat a real person in front of you when it comes to learn something. Of course there is limits (price, flexibility and differential progress between learners), and you still have to work by yourself.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6374 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 50 of 81 13 September 2011 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I suspect we agree on what tutoring can be. Sprachprofi brought me from never having studied Latin to joining her course reading original literature, in about 3 days. We covered all the grammar taught in about 2.5 years in German schools. We used her custom material, which she uses for her students, for this. (My vocabulary was still quite weak after three days, obviously, but her reading course contained a lot of vocabulary glosses). Aside from that, at this stage of my life, I'd take Assimil over any other tutor I've had. I think we merely disagree on the frequency of good tutoring, and our thresholds for that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5316 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 51 of 81 13 September 2011 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Might you take Assimil AND a tutor? Do you feel you could benefit from having a tutor who knew Assimil and could help you make the most of that material? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6405 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 52 of 81 13 September 2011 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
A lot of teachers use Khan Academy like that, but that's for the empirical sciences, not languages. I do offer 1-on-1 tutoring that is basically supporting people in their chosen self-study courses.
We covered all Latin grammar except for rare items like Conjunctive Future Perfect or the like. However, it is not fair to chalk her amazing progress up to my tutoring skills; Volte is just extremely quick of understanding, soaks up knowledge like a sponge and needs very little recovery time between lessons.
I am unlike a lot of forum members because I can say that I had good classroom experiences and very good tutoring experiences; it's just a matter of knowing what you need and finding a tutor who is flexible enough to teach you that way. I work best with a mixture of self-study and tutoring - neither one nor the other work well by themselves for me. Though I have achieved decent results with Assimil Swahili and Anki, I believe they would have been better (and faster in coming) with a tutor. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6374 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 53 of 81 13 September 2011 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thank you, Sprachprofi. Nonetheless, I have some idea of what I can and can't do. I could not have done that on my own, even with your materials, nor with most teachers or tutors I've met. I find most tutors and teachers frustrating; the pace is usually too slow, and when it's not, I often have trouble getting support for repeating or deepening parts of what we're covering that haven't sunk in yet. Sprachprofi is an amazing tutor: she knows how to design materials, does so, uses and refines them, and is able and willing to adapt to her students' needs, while intelligently answering questions, checking for understanding and memorization on the fly, and responding accordingly. I've never met anyone else that tutors this way, though I've heard of intensive courses that sound extremely good. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6374 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 54 of 81 13 September 2011 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I could, but I'd probably be very frustrated by the tutor. I do certainly see the value of interacting with people that know the language: having at least two friends who speak it, at least one of whom is a language geek, is something I value highly, especially when they're willing to provide corrections and answer questions. Formal tutoring, though, I tend to passionately hate, with rare exceptions. Edited by Volte on 13 September 2011 at 5:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 55 of 81 13 September 2011 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Part of the issue with the use of private instructors, tutors, coaches or buddies seems to be what is the best way to work with them. Actually, that would be a good thread to begin. Suffice it to say that as the client, you have to be in charge. You must tell the tutor what you need and how you want to learn. If things are going to slowly, then you speed up the pace. If the drills are boring, change the drills. The tutor is a resource person and should do want you the client want, not the other way around.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6638 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 56 of 81 13 September 2011 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The closest thing I have had to a tutor was during my study years when a native Romanian teacher suddenly appeared at my institute (I was studying French at the time). Together with four others I followed a course with 2 hours each week. However within a year I was alone, and the teacher returned back home - hopefully not because of me. Instead we got another native teacher, and I had one-to-one conversation classes with him for two years.
We decided (or rather I decided) that we should speak Romanian and Romanian only, and I did so even when I met him in a corridor between classes. We mostly spoke about literature, but also in some cases about non fiction. During the first year with teacher no. 1 I learnt the grammar (from a grammar written by the Swede Alf Lombard), and in that period we spoke partly English, parly Romanian. However after one year I didn't need a teacher for that and then the important thing was to train extensive reading, listening and speaking. Plus I used him for testing out constructions I read about in my grammar. Language learning in a class room setting with other pupils was never effective - I only learn from things I can trust, and my fellow classmates didn't really live up to that. I did learn some grammar though, and of course having to make correct translations was also a spur to learn more. But nowadays I can learn grammar without a teacher, and the thing I should do more often would be to listen to comprehensible speech. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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