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Krashen and LingQ | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Zhuangzi Nonaglot Language Program Publisher Senior Member Canada lingq.com Joined 7028 days ago 646 posts - 688 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Japanese, Swedish, Mandarin, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 60 29 December 2007 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Stephen Krashen is the best known exponent of learning through massive input of meaningful content. Meaningful means relevant, interesting, and just a little difficult for the learner. This is sometimes referred to as n+ 1 or i+1, and has been compared to Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. Even Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow theory touches on the need for the challenge of a learning task to be just a little difficult, a challenge, but one that is appropriate to the skill level of the learner. In this way the learner achieves the satisfaction of overcoming the challenge rather than the frustration of being overcome by it. LingQ expands the boundary of what is within the skill level of the learner. Krashen recommends reading texts that contain only 5% new words, in order to be able to infer the meaning of these new words and still enjoy reading. In LingQ, I regulary read texts which have 40% new words. I find find 20% new words to be very comfortable in Russian. Granted that the definition of "word" can vary (word or word family), and the incidence of new words will be higher in inflected languages like Russian, the fact remains that, with LingQ, it is possible to attack more difficult texts earlier and still feel that one is meeting the challenge. The reasons are as follows. 1) All texts that one reads have audio to listen to. One can prepare by listening to audio, and one can listen to audio over and over, after reading the text. 2) All texts are read on the computer, at least initially. Unknown words can be looked up easily using an online dictionary. 3) All new words collect in a database for review in an efficient vocabulary acquisition system. This review, using Flash Cards and other tools is in itself a satisfying activity. One has the feeling that these words are not being lost into oblivion as one saves them. 4) The statistical record of one's activity provides an additional sense of achievement, motivating the learner to continue. Thus the whole experience is different from simply reading a book with lots of unknown words. The result is that vocabulary can be accumulated much faster than in the Krashen extensive reading model. LingQ combines narrow reading, extensive reading, narrow listening and efficient vocabulary review, in a way that Krashen's model does not. While researching the web for this article I came across this extract. I believe that LingQ simplifies the whole process of listening.Listen, read, save words and review them. Then go back to listening. Do this as long as you are interested, and then move on. If you like the content matter, the voice and the rhythm and if you still have sections that you do not understand, keep listening to the same content. Further on the subject of making Krashen's meaningful input model of language learning more effective, I should add one more factor, which is perhaps the most important, choice. The more interesting the content is for the learner, the easier it is to understand. Reading and listening to interesting content is, as Proust said, (quoted by Maryann Wolf in her recent book Proust and the Squid) "that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude". The better the "communication", the better the learning. One of the things we feel is key to learning success at LingQ is the ability for the learner to chose what content to listen to, read and learn from. We are expanding the Store of content at LingQ in all languages, but we also make it possible for learners to import any text file and audio file to LingQ for their own use. This enables the learner to either stay with one subject or novel or author, to achieve the benefits of a "narrow"content focus, or to jump to subjects of interest. If a learner is dealing with a content item of interest, the i+1 limit can be extended further. Edited by Zhuangzi on 29 December 2007 at 5:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Doing_kermit Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6192 days ago 68 posts - 68 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Catalan, French | Message 2 of 60 29 December 2007 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting post.
and I like to read texts with more than 5% new words, even though I don't use LingQ. I just read things I enjoy across the net and within books, Some of them may contain less than 5% new words, and some may contain a lot more, but I rarely come across a sentence I cannot understand. so overall I do agree that LingQ may be able to increase your amount of new words to take in but, I also believe most people read things with more than 5% new words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zhuangzi Nonaglot Language Program Publisher Senior Member Canada lingq.com Joined 7028 days ago 646 posts - 688 votes Speaks: English*, French, Japanese, Swedish, Mandarin, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 60 29 December 2007 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree that the ability to access content of interest, often with audio, and to use online dictionaries on the Internet, all contribute to pushing the limit of Krashen's n+1 well beyond the 5% new words limit. I believe that LingQ pushes it further but then that is why we designed it that way, but it is by no means the only way, nor even a necessary way to expand the range of one's listening and reading in the language one is learning. Edited by Zhuangzi on 29 December 2007 at 6:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6550 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 4 of 60 29 December 2007 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ideally, I'd read things with exactly 5% unknown words, only once, without any vocabulary review. I'd read and read, increasing my vocabulary until all content that I'm interested in would have less than 5% unknown words. At a beginner or even intermediate level, this means finding graded readers of some sort that fit my need perfectly. Unfortunately, this is hard to do.
So I'm stuck reading what's available. At some point, I go for "normal" reading material. This is usually around the 20% unknown word level. Because of the way I learn best, I have to look up lots of vocabulary words. Since it's real material now, there are no translations. This is where pop-up dictionaries and tools like LingQ come in real handy. In fact, since LingQ creates vocab lists for me, and has audio, it is the best tool at this stage that I know of. When are you going to get it working for Asian languages? Is it like boxing day or something up there? That being said, I believe graded readers, with convenient translations, with phonetic script if applicable, with audio, (and with video in an ideal situation), that keep the reader at 5% until they can read real material at that level, would be far superior to LingQ. Too bad I've never heard of anyone producing these. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zhuangzi Nonaglot Language Program Publisher Senior Member Canada lingq.com Joined 7028 days ago 646 posts - 688 votes Speaks: English*, French, Japanese, Swedish, Mandarin, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 60 29 December 2007 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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leosmith
I am as anxious as you to get Asian languages going properly at LingQ. One issue is finding time for our programmars who are doing other things that we feel more important right now. Another issue we will have to deal with is how to divide the text into words since Asian languages do not have spaces between words. I am sure that software for this exists. We will see. As to graded readers, this is a matter of taste. I find them as insipid as learner content unless it is on subjects like History or something that relates to the culture or the language and is of interest to me. Simplified versions of literature etc, do not cut it. If we get enough conversational content for other languages (like natural conversation podcasts as we are now starting for FrenchLingQ, SwedishLingQ, RussianLingQ, PortugueseLingQ, JapaneseLingQ, on the model of our popular EnglishLingQ podcasts, and if we can get these transcribed as is our plan this will fill a need. These usually have much easier vocabulary, although the syntax can be difficult at times. I still feel getting to authentic content asap is more motivating and more stimulating. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| myann23 Newbie United States Joined 6545 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 60 29 December 2007 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Leosmith,
If you want phonetic script for Chinese (I'm not sure about Japanese), you can get it with Wenlin which transcribes characters into pinyin. If you use it with something like the Chinese Voices project that is on the Clavis Sinica site, then that's basically what you just described in your post. I'm gradually working my way up to authentic texts. I'm using elementary and intermediate Chinese listening courses from Peking U and BLCU for massive comprehensive input, after that I might do some advanced lessons on Chinesepod for a couple of months, and then hopefully that will prepare me enough for the more authentic stuff in Chinese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 7 of 60 29 December 2007 at 9:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Does anyone know what Krashen says about using a dictionary?
My understanding from Linguamor's posts was that texts with 5% of unknown vocabulary were optimal for reading without a dictionary, figuring out and learning many words from context. A number of people, including ProfArguelles, suggested that texts with 20% were still useful for learning vocabulary from context. ProfArguelles further argued that texts with 25% of unknown vocabulary were considerably less useful for such purposes, effectively suggesting that 20% is near the upper range of usefulness. Now, LingQ is a computer-enhanced tool for reading with a dictionary, so naturally it would allow the boundary to be moved towards a higher percentage of unknown vocabulary. I guess I am concerned if this thread addresses Krashen's ideas or whether it is about a different mode of reading. Edited by frenkeld on 29 December 2007 at 9:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kewms Senior Member United States Joined 6187 days ago 160 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 60 30 December 2007 at 1:09am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, software exists. The Mac and Windows operating systems do this as part of their kanji lookup. In Japanese, you type the phrase phonetically using kana or romaji, and the OS suggests kanji. It almost always gets both the word breaks and the kanji right. (No doubt based on some kind of frequency algorithm.) Dedicated language software probably has even better tools. Katherine 1 person has voted this message useful |
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