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Neurolinguistic Approach | ||
Tags: Scientific Research | School Education | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 47 11 February 2015 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I came across this recently when reading the teachers section of a recent publication by CLE International, Interactions. The course mentions an approach to language teaching called the Neurolinguistic Approach. I’d never heard of it before so I did some searching. I found a paper by Joan Netten and Claude Germain called, “A new paradigm for the learning of a second or foreign language: the neurolinguistic approach”. You can find links by googling, but I’m not sure how dubious some of the sites hosting the material are, so I didn’t post a link.
In the paper, the authors wanted to understand why the teaching of French was more successful in Canadian immersion schools than in the standard (core) secondary school system. They claim that a better understanding of the neuroscience behind language acquisition would facilitate better teaching methods. The main claims of the paper are, - Explicit grammar instruction doesn’t lead to an implicit understanding. This overturns the previous understanding that explicit knowledge + practice = implicit competence. - Students under the core system fail to reach B1 speaking proficiency. - Students in the immersion system achieve B2+. - Paradis in his neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism proposes a different understanding. -- Explicit and implicit competence are two distinct aspects of neuronal functioning. -- Implicit knowledge is only developed by spoken interaction. -- This spoken interaction must consist of the use and re-use structures over and over again until the connections between the morphosyntactic phenomena are well-established in the procedural memory. - Oral language must consist of authentic communication without thinking of explicit language rules. - Transfer appropriate processing means it’s better to learn language in the context that it’s used. The paper then goes onto describe a methodology using these fundamentals. The main aspects of the method are, - Teacher interaction one to one with pupils in spoken communication. - The teacher tries to develop spoken language habits. - Oral communication always proceeds reading and writing. - A period of intensive instruction is required. - Students develop competence around specific personal themes. (A bit like language islands) - Explicit grammar should only be used for writing practice. Do you think the Neurolinguistic Approach is valid ? Personally, I think it raises some interesting points, but buried in the paper is one very small fact. This fact may be far more relevant than the methodology. In the core school system the pupils have 1,000 hours of language interaction, but in the immersion schools it’s 3,000 – 5,000 hours. Edited by DaraghM on 11 February 2015 at 4:50pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5019 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 2 of 47 11 February 2015 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Either you delete the words "the paper" and all the neurostuff and this is nothing more than a normal htlal conversation
or I, like many of us here at htlal, am an expert in neurolinguistic. (Thank you for pointing this new skill of mine to my neurones and to the world) Because a theory comes out of university - doesn't make it new or worth talking about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 47 11 February 2015 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It sounds interesting. I look for ways that it can be extrapolated and may support some of what I do. My two
biggest take-aways are: 1) FSI automaticity is good. 2) Doing Listen/Reading around a core interest is good. I know that seems like quite a stretch from DaraghM's summary, but I see the connections. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5230 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 4 of 47 11 February 2015 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Does this not all boil down to "practicing something makes you better at it?"
So, if you want to increase oral communication skills, practice orally communicating. Cut and paste with writing skills, listening skills, reading skills. That oral communication should precede reading and writing is, however, more interesting. I'd like to know more about why that should be so and what the evidence is. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4446 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 5 of 47 11 February 2015 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Needless say an immersion program in any language would be better than the traditional where one would
learn grammar & vocabulary but no emphasis on speaking. A child would learn to say "apple" before picking up a pen. Living in Canada I was a "failed" language student and now a taxpayer. The country is officially bilingual but in an English-speaking primary school not 1 student would claim they can speak French at any level. The taxpayers' money are spent in French classes each year to "hopefully" get people to become bilingual get wasted running language programs with a traditional curriculum without any emphasis on speaking. The system failed many of us. The failed statistics is clear but the government accountability to the taxpayers isn't. Edited by shk00design on 12 February 2015 at 1:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5230 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 6 of 47 11 February 2015 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Is it language classes that are uniquely bad? I didn't make much progress in Spanish in school, this much is true. But there many things I also learned in school that I currently can't do--calculus, physics, chemistry, etc.
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| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5228 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 7 of 47 11 February 2015 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think what you list as 'method' looks like much more kosher than the 'theory'. It fringes some points that are usually controversial anyway (speak before writing and reading, explicit grammar should only be used for writing practice?) but other than that, all of it revolves around common sense and common ground between many successful learners and teachers here: favor one on one spoken interaction? who wouldn't?; intensive instruction period? try to keep slacking and see what happens. So it's mostly OK, but hardly new in any relevant way. WRT to the theory, I agree that "a better understanding of the neuroscience behind language acquisition would facilitate better teaching methods." but I'm wary of anything that seemingly relies a lot on 'mystery meat'. What the heck are "explicit" and "implicit" understanding? Same for competence, or knowledge -- I know you're just giving a quick summary but it sounds like they're throwing opposite adjectives at random words, really. How come the proposed method does not reference this mystery meat, anyway? Maybe it's not actually important. If we couple all that with
which again is common sense (do something 3x to 5x longer and become better at it? who would have thought?), to me it all looks like trying to come up with some fancy way to sell the same stuff we've been suggesting and discussing here for ages with maybe little twists here and there. Maybe we are all neurolinguistic experts here -- just of the implicit kind so we hadn't realized ;) I might be wrong / need to check it more to give an accurate analysis, but judging from your summary, their neurostuff sounds too much like bogus / irrelevant. A bit like explaining Physics in terms of tiny little goblins that make things happen the way we see them. Edited by mrwarper on 11 February 2015 at 10:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4535 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 47 11 February 2015 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think it's interesting too, but I am definitely wedded to the idea of reading before speaking. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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