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Language Learning Orthodoxy You Ignore | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 49 of 116 03 December 2014 at 7:34am | IP Logged | |||||
Funny thing, I really thought this thread was opened by somebody else. As for the idea of orthodoxy; it's not a vague, countless majority that has to hold a specific set of ideas to be true: it has to be the majority of a given group to which the belief is relevant, and it can also mean the adherence to a belief that the majority of previous generations of such a group held to be true, while the majority of the current generation does not. While I agree that in the latter sense, little of what people wrote about here fits the criterion of traditional orthodoxy, most of the contributions were about beliefs that certain people (in the group of learning enthusiasts who use the internet for their study) propagate as universally true, which might be the same as ones propagated in the same way in traditional language teaching or which are presented as mutually exclusive to such. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lemberg1963 Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States zamishka.blogspot.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4241 days ago 41 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Ukrainian* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Polish | Message 50 of 116 03 December 2014 at 7:46am | IP Logged | |||||
I'll agree that RS won't get you far on its own, it doesn't teach nearly enough conversational stuff to make you socially functional. However, it's a damn good supplement for mass farming sentences into Anki during the beginner phase. I get RS for $99 as a 3month subscription, which is plenty of time to go through all 5 units, yielding ~2000 sentences. Each lesson gives about 100 sentences, every one accompanied with a unique context-relevant image and clear native audio, which makes it worth the price for me. I wish Assimil added images to their e-method, it would save me so much time Ankifying those conversations. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 51 of 116 03 December 2014 at 10:40am | IP Logged | |||||
You’ve inspired me to retest my assumptions regarding massive input. I’ll give it another shot next year, but at a ‘titanic’ level. Logically it should work as you’re seeing repeated language patterns over and over again that are used in a number of different contexts. The main issue I found was that I would understand a text or audio, but I wouldn’t be focused on specifics like gender or other forms of agreement. I felt I was developing heritage learner capabilities and very strong passive skills, but not an active ability. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 52 of 116 03 December 2014 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, I agree with kanewai. I think most of those for whom it "doesn't work" simply don't do enough reading (heritage learners, movie fans) or listening (most others). Or they don't do enough of either activity.
However, I don't think the Super Challenge amount of work is necessary, unless you're learning only one language and more is always better. As for not glossing over the details, it helps even simply to read with this goal in mind. emk posted somewhere about spotting gender agreement in French. Resources like lyricstraining and GLOSS can also help, and you can even make your own exercises. But these are just ways to speed it up, in my opinion. Edited by Serpent on 03 December 2014 at 12:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 53 of 116 03 December 2014 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
I really have to commend this poster for having the courage to defend RS in this neck of the woods. If there is one subject that maybe fits the definition of orthodoxy here, it's probably the near-universal idea that RS is anathema to all HTLALers and a total waste of time, money and effort. But here we have someone who actually uses and likes RS. I've tried it and don't like it much myself, but but I also know some intelligent and educated people who swear by it. It is even used on a mass scale by a local school system here in Montreal. What gives? It can't be all that bad. Who knows, I might give it a whirl another time. This makes me think that instead of griping about what one dislikes, it might be more productive to explore or revisit ideas or approaches that may not appear to be one's cup of tea. That's the great thing about HTLAL; there's a plethora of ideas that one can experiment with. Whether it's wordlists a la iversen or emk's high-tech tools, just to mention a few, there is so much to try. If there is one thing that I have picked up from my time here it is the paramount importance of working with a good tutor, especially at an advanced level. I won't call it orthodoxy; I'd prefer to call it a personal dogma. If actually performing in the language is important, i.e. speaking and writing, there is nothing better, in my opinion, than using the services of a professional tutor for critical feedback. I know that a lot of people don't want to pay or say they can't afford it. In that case, a language exchange may be an option. Failing to get good critical feedback about one's performance leads to something that I observe every day: people totally unaware of all the terrible mistakes that they are making in the target language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4911 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 54 of 116 03 December 2014 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree, and this is something I've realized I need to work on at my level in French. When I was struggling to understand everything, I paid attention to everything. Now that I can easily pick up the gist of a paragraph without understanding every word, I sometimes read faster and ignore the tiny details of grammar. I've recently realized that if I want my reading to have an impact on my future speaking/writing, I need to slow down a bit and pay attention not only to what the author is communicating but the way the author is communicating. Even in your own language, paying attention to an author's way of communicating makes for a more satisfying reading experience. But for language learners, it also helps you to actually pick up on the structures you're trying to learn. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 55 of 116 03 December 2014 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
Subtle insults again. Not to mention that you always assume speed as an important component, but if you don't have frequent opportunities to use L2, it's less relevant.
Do you actually see any independent learners who struggle to learn to speak/write on their own (and are delusional about that), or do you see classroom learners who: -get a lot of poor non-native input from fellow learners -are forced to speak too early (and produce bad input for other learners) -only receive corrections relevant to the current grammar topic -have unrealistic expectations about how much they can learn in class and how little they need to work outside of it ? Only the last point isn't a direct downside of classroom learning. I think there's a fallacy here along the lines of "if even classroom learners need tutoring, then independent learners need it even more". Edited by Serpent on 03 December 2014 at 2:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 56 of 116 03 December 2014 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
During my 1,000 hours challenge, I read about 3,000 pages and listened to around 400 hours of audio. It was very benficial, but I may have move through the material too quickly. I developed very good listening and reading skills, but not very strong active skills. If kanewai is right, even this isn't enough, and I need to up the figure to Super Challenge levels.
GLOSS is a great tool and I've used it a bit. I regard these as active engagement as you are focused and working in the language. I've started using a few other resources in this area as well and it helps a lot. I think I might do more focused reading, and see how that works out. Thanks again for everyones tips. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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