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Crippling effect of technology | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 1 of 36 11 October 2011 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Though I find that I'm very comfortable with technology, I need to recognize that I didn't grow up with much of today's technology and that, consequently, I may not have the right brain configurations to make full use of it when it comes to learning.
I entered high school just as personal computers were becoming accessible to the public. It wasn't until I reached university that email had started to become widespread and Internet was not yet a reasonable source of information. I didn't email or text my friends -- we called eachother or met in person. Surely that's caused my brain to develop in a different way than a 15-year-old who grew up with all that. For instance, I'm always surprised to find that so many students use SRS, while I find it just doesn't work for me. Sure, we all learn in different ways, but the fact I didn't grow up learning with that technology has got to have something to do with it. I think that some of my learning is simply more efficient when it's done away from technology. Any thoughts? 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5982 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 2 of 36 11 October 2011 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I was 26 when I first touched an SRS system, so I hardly grew up with it but I find that for me it is only effective when used in specific ways and to learn certain things. As long as I am sensitive to the strengths and weaknesses of the system applied to me, I can use it effectively but it is only one part of the language learning puzzle.
All technology is simply a tool, I think the problem comes when we try to encourage ourselves to see it as more than that. I think perhaps the only advantage younger people might have is that they can perhaps use computers a bit more intuitively and have a better sense of what is possible. Perhaps the disadvantage is that if technology forms a big part of how you live your life, you will then look to your computer for a solution first, when in fact it is not always the best one. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5130 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 3 of 36 11 October 2011 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I didn't grow up with SRS either, and really don't use it now, although I've given it a try. Technology has nothing to do with my reason for not using SRS.
Doesn't mean I don't use technology. What was once a turntable, then a walkman, is now an MP3 player. What was once a hardbound, then paperback book is now either an epub or PDF file. What used to be listening to shortwave radio to find relevant target language broadcasts is now a couple clicks away on the internet. What used to be saving a year for a two week trip somewhere that I could practice my target language is now a Skype or Hangout call away. Well, that and the fact that local populations, at least in the US, are much more diverse now and it's much easier to find a real person to practice with. My learning methods haven't really changed at all, but the technology has, and I do my best to take advantage of those changes. They've made things considerably easier. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 11 October 2011 at 10:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 36 11 October 2011 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I can't really make SRS work for me either, but that's more because it isn't the best tool for initial study, and because I don't want the information to be in my computer or notebook, I want it to be in my brain. So any activity that puts a lot of initial effort into the creation of notes or flascards or the likes seems a waste of time to me.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5828 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 5 of 36 12 October 2011 at 12:54am | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with all of this! I also want to say that every time I've seen someone talking about SRS like they can just plug in 500 new words a day without learning them ahead of time and just remember all of them perfectly for ever and ever thanks to the magic of SRS, I also see those same people come back a few months later saying SRS "doesn't work for me anymore!!!" and either asking for help or telling others not to do SRS. So definitely, a lot of people fail to understand its limitations. And I think so many people try it because it seems easy and effective and you can't spend five minutes on this forum without reading about it! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5262 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 6 of 36 12 October 2011 at 1:50am | IP Logged | |||||
Well said! I love my technology. I've never looked back since I got my Kindle and HP Touchpad (not an iPad but because it couldn't compete- $99!). I don't miss physical dictionaries; physical books; dealing with cassette tapes; the fading, static and interference of shortwave radio; not being able to watch foreign TV/movies; no closed captions/subtitle choices; waiting months before getting to talk to a native speaker. Technology changed all that for the better in my opinion. That being said, sometimes less is indeed more. With fewer resources available I think we were forced to concentrate more on what we had. Maybe that's a lesson we can take forward from antediluvian times to the present. I'm a fan of Barry Farber's "multi-track" approach to language learning, but are all the bells and whistles available today really necessary to learn a language effectively, or, do they just add to the noise? Can you get along fine without them? Well a lot of us did get along just fine pre-internet. Some people today use the bare minimum of resources and do just fine. For those who are learning less popular languages with few resources available that is their present day reality- they do the best they can with what they've got. Perhaps technology suckers us in by giving us the false hope of the "magic pill" that will lead us to the promised land. I think that one way a lot of people get frustrated by language learning is that expectation/hope of a technological fix: "Well, Pimsleur didn't work- I'll try Michael Thomas" "Well, FSI/DLI is too boring- I'll try Assimil" "Assimil didn't work- I'll try x". Whereas, before technology advanced to the point of offering us more methods than can you shake a stick at, we were forced to stick with what we had. We had to accept the limitations and move forward on our own. Perhaps that's why we get the perennial questions "how do I advance past intermediate?" "what do I do after Assimil?". Recognition of technology as a tool, as g-bod said, puts the learner into the right frame of thought and avoids relying on it as a crutch or the answer to everything, when it isn't. Using technology to actually speak the language with a native is a technological "fix" that works for me. Oh yeah, about SRS/anki- I never used physical flashcards back in the day. I have no desire to use their e-versions now, but to each his own. Edited by iguanamon on 12 October 2011 at 1:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5191 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 7 of 36 12 October 2011 at 7:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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I am convinced that SRS cannot get the words in my head. It can't teach me new words. However, it is okay for jogging the memory of already learned words. And that's just for Spanish. SRS for Chinese would be useless because for me to practice properly the recall of a character, I need to write it down and get the strokes and their order exactly right, as well as pronounce it properly.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 8 of 36 12 October 2011 at 7:22am | IP Logged | |||||
Dubious.
I grew up with technology. I started using computers in 1st grade, and was on the internet by 2nd. I've been programming for half my life. Nonetheless, I don't enjoy SRS at all. It can be of some value for short periods of time dealing with small groups of facts or words, but I hate using it. Some of my learning is more efficient when it's done away from technology as well. I think this could potentially change, but at the moment, there are plenty of technologies which are cumbersome, counterproductive, or simply lacking in niches I find valuable. Others are highly useful. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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