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Language Learning Orthodoxy You Ignore | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| 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 65 of 116 04 December 2014 at 7:35am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Nobody wants to butcher the language. Nobody wants to be unable to speak the language they can understand. It's just that most aren't willing to do what it really takes (to speak/write well), especially not in all their languages. Edited by Serpent on 04 December 2014 at 7:37am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| captainalan Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4772 days ago 2 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Spanish, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Korean, Esperanto | Message 66 of 116 04 December 2014 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've been using SRS for a number of years now, practically everyday, mainly as something
that's easy to do as a bare minimum for working on languages when I'm busy. What I've found, is that it is very easy to become complacent and passively go through review material just recognizing, but not deeply 'knowing' the material I'm looking at. Now, compounded over the period of months or even years, I think this certainly has been better than not doing anything at all. But, I will have to agree with the orthodox wisdom in language learning that having lots of native speaker input, practicing speaking, and drilling grammar and sentence patterns are likely very good ideas for training speaking (and listening) ability. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4306 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 67 of 116 04 December 2014 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In terms of sheer publication, is the real orthodoxy the "exercise and key" method?
In the school where I teach there are shelves and shelves of old textbooks, published through the years, which all uses such exercises as their bread and butter. Classics of the "multiple choice", "reading comprehension" "gap fill", "ordering" "matching" variety. Occasionally there are listening tasks that come with a complimentary cassette or CD, but by far the model of these classroom textbooks is the "Teach Yourself" variety. True, you are also supposed to be interacting with the teacher and practicing your communicative skills, but in the classroom reality it is a very token and artificial form of the real deal. Real conversation, in contrast, rarely costs money and is far more stimulating. I never did any "exercise and key" work in German, and it didn´t hold me back. Well... I know that I could definitely benefit from doing these types of exercises to tighten up particular points of grammar (and I plan to do so)... but through more intuitive assimil-like methods, with only occasional reference to a grammar book, I managed to learn all the same points of grammar as class taught people. And I didn't need to pay anyone a chunk of my earnings per month. It only cost me time. And then there's other non-exercise based methods too. Other people do the same thing with SRS-based study programs and others by read-from-day one or speak-from-day-one approaches... The thing they have in common is that no one organizes and presents the language to you with clever foresight. You make your own path. But for this very reason, exercises are uniquely beneficial. You might likely make your path in a less than optimal way. In contrasts, exercise books are written by someone with an expertise in the language and in language learning generally, and they can draw your attention specifically to the likely mistakes that you might make. My problem with them is that they are burned through quickly and offer little value for revision. I believe in the "multi track" philosophy (Iguanamon's?) and so I do not see much value in repeatedly reviewing completed exercises (in spite of teachers well-intended encouragement to do exactly this). Compared with my own shadowing-scriptorium method - my own bread and butter - there is no element of searching and discovery to the process of covering a hundred pages of exercises with graphite. Just some thoughts! I certainly don't think that the "exercise and key" method is some corrupt, rotten regime waiting to be toppled, since I think that so long as people are learning in a classroom with other people, there are inevitably going to be limited in what methods they can be taught with. However it seems to me that, therefore, "teaching styles" and the methodology of the publication of these books cannot be seriously taken as a matter of principle and educational philosophy, but of expediency and the strictures of classroom resources and the classroom environment. Even Michel Thomas's courses are in an audible answer-and-key format, only more elegant and positively-reinforcing than typical textbooks. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 68 of 116 04 December 2014 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Everyone aims to say what a native speaker says. You are not special. It is a ridiculous mistake. This is what happens when you are a foreigner and you learn another language. You make mistakes. Ridiculous and funny ones! The best learners have long ago accepted that stuff happens and dealt with it. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 69 of 116 05 December 2014 at 3:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Against my instinct and better judgment, I have to say that I agree with this post. First of all, I totally accept that I'm not special. I don't think I said I was but I apologize for my erroneous English. Let's move on. We also know that everybody makes mistakes, including ridiculous ones. We are told that the best learners have dealt with them. How? As we all know, the problem with mistakes is that most of the time we are totally unaware that we are making them. Otherwise we wouldn't make them in the first place. Sometimes we can catch a mistake because something doesn't sound right and then we can self-correct. But how can you deal with mistakes if you can't detect them? In the example that I gave of the person using organe instead of orgue, this person was totally convinced that this was the correct form. I would be very curious to see how this person can "deal with it", as suggested here. In my opinion, the only way that the problem can be dealt with is if somebody brings the mistake to the learner's attention. This, by the way, is exactly what happened in the example above. I went over to this person and gently pointed out the mistake. I even offered to review future speeches to help this person avoid other embarrassing mistakes. Is there a better way to deal with this situation? Should I have just let this go by? I like to have my professional writing in another language reviewed before I send it off. I wouldn't dare send a cover letter in Spanish for a job application without having this letter vetted by my tutor. I like to think that I adhere to the same standards in all my languages. Not everybody agrees. It seems that some people find mistakes funny and amusing. That may be the case, but I also find them embarrassing. I don't like to feel embarrassed. I don't think that language examiners find listening to a candidate's mistakes very funny. Neither do I think that receiving a failing grade on a language exam very funny. I certainly don't want to spend $250 on a Spanish DELE exam and months of preparation thinking that I'm going to amuse the examiners with my ridiculous mistakes. I'm not sure about this, but we are told that that the best learners, of which I am certainly not one, have figured out another way to "deal with it." I'm curious to see exactly what this is. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5260 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 70 of 116 05 December 2014 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Most of the time I'll catch my mistakes. When I don't, I laugh at myself and my silly mistake and move on. Whenever I meet someone in TL, I may get a compliment on my language. If I know we may speak for a good while, I will explain that I am not such a good speaker. While I may know quite a lot of their language, I will make mistakes. I will ask the TL speaker to correct me if I make egregious errors.
As much as we try not to in our learning, we will make mistakes. I think the key is to be able to laugh at your own missteps, learn from them, and make different errors the next time. I think that's what tarvos may be talking about with "deal with it". Edited by iguanamon on 05 December 2014 at 1:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 71 of 116 05 December 2014 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Rule 1 of internet arguments: trying to split hairs over semantics is NOT a productive
way of conducting arguments on the internet. But that gripe aside, let's see if s_allard has come up with something worthwhile this time (вряд ли). Ok, Mr Allard, let's see where you show your cunning ability to miss the point this time:
Yes. Let them ask you. No one wants your help - if they want it, they'll ask for it. I agree that feedback is a useful mechanism (I use tutors all the time!) but I do not want a tutor to think that they know what's better for me. I can decide for myself what is better and what is not, thank you very much.
Well have I got news for you. This may come as a shock to you, but (!) (and I recommend you take notes, this might be important in your life and things, such wisdom I'm spreading here!) 1. Not everyone needs to write professional letters. You may think whaaaaaat? Isn't that why people learn to speak Spanish? No. It isn't. cue shocked looks from the audience.. Some people live somewhere and need it for daily life. Some people just have friends. I don't really need to speak French professionally in my daily life right now, but if I did, I'd probably hire a tutor to help me prepare for job interviews. But I don't have to so I don't need to and that goes for a lot of people because get this, right: not everyone needs professional performances in their languages! And as such, shockhorror, it's a clumsy standard to judge people by! Point 2: Not all languages are equal. Sorry, but my ability to write professional e- mails in Greek couldn't interest me a single iota. I don't have to, I don't need to, and I don't care. Maybe it's useful in Russian someday, but besides the 3-4 languages where I actually have any sort of level where that kind of thing comes into play, I don't care. Pure and simple. Does that mean I am now a terrible Greek speaker? No. All it means is that Greek somehow does not have professional priority in my life. And that works for many people. I like speaking Greek cos I have friends that are Greek and because I am going to spend time in Greece. And any professional letters do not fit into that equation at this point in time.
Ah yes. The examiner. Those evil human beings, who cross out things with their red pens and send you to hell for making mistakes. I understand your fear. Yes, I would face them with trembling knees and a pale face. That sum you handed over, a very worthy amount. Your wallet will hate you! It is a sign that you must bow. Bow to the infinite rules of examdom! Feeling embarrassed when you make a mistake is a good thing. It shows you are a normal empathetic human being who is responsible to criticism and will improve the next time he does something. That's why people feel embarrassed. That's enough. I have made funny or embarrassing mistakes in my life and guess what? The fact I made them meant I'd already dealt with the problem. Because the embarrassment quite simply meant I would never make them again. That's it. Please, I beg you, make 500 mistakes and feel embarrassed 500 times. After that amount of embarrassment, you'll speak a whole lot better because that's a whole lot of mistakes you've made and have been able to correct because you made them. This is not the end of the world. In fact, it's the beginning. And about the exams: yeah, making mistakes might make you fail the exam. That's what we invented trial sessions and advance practices for. All exams are standardized and so if you've done your homework there's no reason you ever need fear an exam. The more you worry about that embarrassing mistake you might make, the bigger the chance you're going to make it. Confidence in the face of fire like you're the firefighter and that hose in your hands is going to douse those flames like they've never been doused before. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 72 of 116 05 December 2014 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
(Moderator hat on.)
s_allard, you have a tendency to slip little rhetorical barbs into your messages. These are quite obvious to readers, and they don't really contribute to the conversation. Could you please try to indulge yourself a bit less often?
tarvos, I understand that you're frustrated. But I would appreciate it if you could dial the sarcasm back quite a bit here. Thank you. … As a general rule, please do not attack or personally insult other posters. If you have a problem with somebody else's behavior, please consider reporting it to the moderators. Otherwise, we tend to wind up with long, angry threads that lead to stress (for the people emotionally involved) and nothing of interest (for everybody else). Thank you. Edited by emk on 05 December 2014 at 1:34pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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