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"Myths" of foreign language learning | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 65 of 72 17 May 2010 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yer man in the early 20th century didn't have brain measurements to look at. Scans show pretty conclusively that the brain sees a word and then triggers a sound. Someone here once claimed that the majority of "spelling" errors made by native Chinese speakers consist of writing a homophone of the intended word -- the confusion is all to do with phonetics, not semantics. It is abstract and in our heads, but it's an abstraction from the spoken sound, not a completely separate system of representation. Edited by Cainntear on 17 May 2010 at 5:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 66 of 72 17 May 2010 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Sounds are the primary represention of language because you almost always will hear sounds in your head while you read, whereas you rarely se letters in front of you when you listen or speak. Some have on this basis even denied that writing was an expression of language itself, - they only see it as a representation of the 'real thing'. But that is without foundation. Even English orthography has some relationship with the sounds of the spoken language, and even when it hasn't it still forms a lingistic system which is absolutely parallel to the spoken language. It is only the organisation of our brains that dictate that spoken language comes before writing, - writing has in itself the same structural characteristics as speech.
And this leads to a fundamental division between learning styles: some people learn best through their ears, some through their eyes. To be sure, even those that belong in the 'eye' camp - people like me -have learnt their native language by ear, and few people would try to learn a language without imagining the sounds (maybe a few paleographs and code experts, - and deaf people who learn sign language). But this doesn't mean that it also will be more effective to do language learning exclusively through the ear later. The written language has some undeniable advantages: you can slow your reading down ad libitum, reread passages, correct a phrase here and there while you write etc., and you could even say that seeing a word or expression is more likely to lead to memorization of it than hearing it briefly in the middle of a long talk. So I would detest any attempt to make me learn primarily through the ear. And attempts in that direction get even worse if coupled with dramatization and silly games (including those 'tournaments' that s-allard mention - my deepest sympathy goes to the poor guinea pigs back home at the school). There are certainly pupils who like those activities and even profit from them, and by all means let them play their time away. But it is necessarily to stress that there ARE different learning styles, precisely because those starry-eyed teachers with their ghastly games otherwise will spoil the learning process for some pupils - in the belief that some more exposure to the teacher's pet methods automatically will change their preferences (which might be true if learning styles only were the result of your life history). It won't happen, brute force will just change the learning situation into a hell for those that don't fit the fun-loving teacher's straightjacket. And of course the opposite is also true: forcing the song-game-tournament-discussion-dialogue loving hordes to sit quietly down on their bum and write translations and wordlists will not be met with glee. Edited by Iversen on 17 May 2010 at 6:39pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 67 of 72 17 May 2010 at 9:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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While certain games may seem silly and ghastly to some people, I am more impressed by the hordes of young people who seem to enjoy learning grammar in a way that I have never seen before. And above all I'm impressed by the measurable results. Now, of course, innovative approaches such as games, songs, dances, dramatizations, computer software, etc., are not for every one. We must recognize that some young children prefer doing exercises in grammar books and would love nothing more than to sit still in a classroom studying word lists instead of running around screaming and laughing while learning verb conjugations in the gymnasium. Fair enough. I think we should offer a choice. Those who love word lists and translations should have that option. Those who are very physical should also have that choice. Now, isn't that what the idea of learning styles is all about?
And lest there be some misunderstanding, I never thought the debate was about learning by ear versus learning by writing. I think it's more about approaches and strategies of learning. Since this is a subforum on myths, there seem to be a new myth that says that "visual" people should learn reading and writing and that "auditory" people should learn hearing and speaking. Nobody here is advocating learning a language totally by ear--although it is an intriguing thought. I find it hard to imagine teaching French without reading or writing. However, one could learn a written language without actually ever having to speak it On the other hand, I can see the need to concentrate on a particular skill. To wit, a class devoted to pronunciation will concentrate on the sound system and the particular features of the spoken language. This could be done in many ways, again according to different learning styles. In fact, for the spoken language a very kinesthetic approach with body language and dramatization ever and anon would probably be quite effective. The written language is a different kettle of fish. I don't see a role for dramatization in a class on academic nonfiction writing (but I'm not closed to the idea). In a class on fiction writing and developing skills for narrative and description, the word lists appraoch will probably come into its own. In all of these areas there is room for experimenting with different approaches. I look at the results, not my likes or dislikes. I'm open to any approach that will deliver the best results. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 68 of 72 17 May 2010 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm not sure what scientific evidence we are looking at here. I don't see any evidence that conclusively shows that the brain "sees" a word and always triggers a sound. Now, it is true that some people sound out words when reading. Some even move their lips. That might be source of confusion. How words are actually stored in the brain is a whole different topic that would certainly merit its own subforum and some serious discussion based on scientific evidence. But that was not what Ferdinand de Saussure was talking sbout. Just to refresh people's memory, de Saussure's key idea was that the linguistic sign, call it a word, is made up of two parts the signifier and the signified or in the original French, le signifiant and le signifié. The relationship of the signifier to the signified is totally arbitrary. Thus, the same animal can be called dog, chien, hund, perro, etc. De Saussure's concept of the sign has been criticized but I think most linguists would recognize that much of modern linguistics is based on the idea of an arbitrary relationship between representation (phonic or written) and meaning. Edit: I have removed the offending "Tsk, tsk". Edited by s_allard on 18 May 2010 at 12:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 69 of 72 17 May 2010 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
Asking for a citation is one thing, but there's no call for acting smug and superior. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6447 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 70 of 72 17 May 2010 at 11:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
So said the pot to the kettle? 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5819 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 71 of 72 18 May 2010 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think Myth 3 and 4 are not myths at all, as long as your philosophy is run with what you've got and fix it as you go. Do with reckless abandon whatever you want to do with language (your passionate right?). Although this would lead you to commit many mistakes, the fact that your committing this mistakes as early as possible means that your also perfecting your language earlier than you would otherwise. If your not making mistakes, your not learning (provided you realize which ones are the mistakes). At least that's my philosophy even outside of language learning. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 72 of 72 18 May 2010 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If I recall properly, quite early in this discussion some of us, including myself, dismissed these so-called myths as rather trivial statements more for marketing purposes than for serious discussion. How in the world can one learn something without initially making mistakes? So much for myths 3 and 4, as other posters have pointed out.
Now the real issue here is how to minimize mistakes and, above all, how to correct them. I won't elaborate here, lest I be accused of smuggery, but I think there are two approaches. One is to systematically imitate trusted models so that relatively early in the learning process one gets a feel for the correct patterns of language. The other is to get some kind of gentle, positive corrective feedback. Reckless abandon? Yes, but under good guidance. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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