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Learn like a child? | ||
Tags: Children | Learning Technique/Method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 1 of 26 25 May 2012 at 12:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I get so tired of courses, websites and language gurus who use the way a child learns languages to explain how an adult should learn a language. They generally make good points about language learning. For example, they generally push large amounts of exposure, which I fully agree with. But the use of children as an example is simply a distraction.
First of all, I am not a child. My brain has aged, and it is filled with knowledge and presuppositions. In addition, there are the theories of the "plasticity" of young brains, which are more capable of absorbing new information. Secondly, even if my brain were to function as a child's does, I do not have the time to learn like a child does. Let's do some simple calculations: Assuming a 3 year old has slept an average of 12 hours per day, they have been exposed to the language for 3*365*12 = 13,140 hours (mostly passive). I would be rather disappointed if I spent 13k hours learning a language only to be able to speak like a 3 year old, and not be able to read or write. An 8 year old sleeps less, but for the sake of simplicity, I'll stick with the 12 hours of sleep. My 8 year old daughter can speak fluently, and she can read and write. She still makes simple grammatical errors, like saying "wented", but not very frequently. I would be very happy if I could speak a foreign language as well as she speaks her own. However, she has had 8*365*12 = 35,040 hours of immersion in her language, much of it being active use of the language. One more thing which is often said is that a child doesn't try to speak for X number of years (I read 3 on a website), and so we should have a silent period of absorbing before we try to speak. I agree that a person should not speak until they are ready, but the child example is not only irrelevant, it is completely untrue! From the moment a child is born, they are making sounds. Okay, for the first few months it is mostly gurgling and crying, but from about 3 months to 6 months they are trying out their vocal cords, trying to make sensible noises. Most children are saying words by around 9 months. If the child analogy holds up, then we should be babbling in our L2 as soon as possible, even if it makes no sense! I'd like to close this little rant with a quote from a fairly old article, but the point it makes is quite clear:
Source JSTOR 12 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4663 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 2 of 26 25 May 2012 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, if I had the conversational abilities and vocabulary of a three year old after 13,000 hours of French, I think I might throw in the towel at that point. :-P
The funny thing is that it seems like no one who has actually had lots of success with learning foreign languages (thinking of the many YouTube polyglots and people here) talks about "learning like a child," they all talk about many hours of various kinds of practice, study, and attentive listening. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4620 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 3 of 26 25 May 2012 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, I agree with you. In addition to what you mention, there's also the fact that the child has an extremely close relationship to many of the people who are teaching him or her to speak.
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| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 4 of 26 25 May 2012 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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'a long, slow, and arduous process--despite prolonged and continuous exposure'
So the experts and gurus are right, we adults do learn a foreign language like a child :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jed Newbie United States Joined 4814 days ago 12 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 26 25 May 2012 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As an adult, I wouldn't mind the opportunity to truly learn like a child. Imagine, having three years with 2 to 10 full time teachers who think you are cute and adorable, modify their language to make sure you understand everything, give you all their attention even when they are tired and irritable, read you the same story 150 times in their most entertaining voices, and give you a smile or a hug everytime you are successful. And it is all free of charge! Then imagine that your only responsibilities and worries during these three years are taking your nap when you are supposed to, sharing your toys, eating your mashed peas, and remembering not to poo you pants.
Believe me, when Rosetta Stone really gives adults the opportunity to learn like a child, I will jump at the chance. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4747 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 6 of 26 25 May 2012 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You cannot learn like a chld, because adult brain and children brain are not the same.
children brain is like an empty memory drive which is constantly expanding... Adult brain is like a memory drive with 90^% of capacity full, which is rather shkrinking than expanding, and it requires a fair amount of erasing of data before you can store new data. Children can memorize a new word, expression after one single exposure. Adults, only if the information is relevant, interesting or funny. But only 1 % of information is like that. Other information require conscious memorization and many repeatings. So, you have to try hard(er) to memorize a word. Edited by Camundonguinho on 25 May 2012 at 5:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 7 of 26 25 May 2012 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
@Camundonguinho, i'd say these differences are an advantage for adults. We already know all those concepts, some of them so complicated! We just need to learn the words for them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 26 25 May 2012 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is news to me. I've never seen any evidence to suggest that people have more or less filled their brains by adulthood. If anything I see many counter examples on a daily basis :-) I've also never seen any serious research that suggests that we need to erase information to retain new information. (I'm not counting Sherlock Holmes as "serious research" here :-)).
But my 8-year old's weekly school spelling test results seem to improve when we make him practice ... 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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