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Neurolinguistic Approach | ||
Tags: Scientific Research | School Education | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 41 of 47 13 February 2015 at 12:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's or/or in your scenario. In my view you need both. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 42 of 47 13 February 2015 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Need? Obviously it's perfectly possible to learn a whole lot without speaking. I don't enjoy speaking if I can't do it well, so I won't attempt it until I feel I can have a conversation in a relaxed and fluid way. With Mandarin, I could chat with people and talk about all kinds of things, living my life exclusively in Mandarin from day 1, because I'd learned it at home (by myself, without ever talking to another human being). With other languages, I'll be watching movies and reading books for quite some time before I start speaking, and when I do open my mouth, I find I can have a comfortable conversation. Not flawless, but I can generally say pretty much anything I want to say and get my message across without my interlocutor or me feeling frustrated. Is this the most efficient way? I don't know, but it's certainly possible. I also happen to think it's pretty efficient, since I'm a fan of Krashen's. I'm currently watching documentaries in German after a few weeks of (intensive) studies, and I'm understanding most of what's being said. I haven't had enough input to be able to speak yet, but I can tell my German is advancing rapidly. A week ago I could certainbly not understand a show like this. This is of course anecdotal. But the studies I've read about in essays by Krashen seem to indicate that speaking doesn't necessarily improve your abilities much, whereas reading and listening certainly does. It's not clear cut and there are still questions and controversies, but it's clear to me that comprehensible input (i+1) improves your speaking ability, meaning that speaking might be beneficial, but it's not necessary. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5225 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 43 of 47 13 February 2015 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
But that's the problem most of the time. Assuming there's something that really works better, it's always possible to make it not work, and then it takes some nerve to (rightly) blame oneself :) For example, I won't speak at the beginning unless I have a way to write stuff down, possibly because of my many years of studies. I've tried it many times and I always end up backing up, most stuff goes to some mental limbo of mine and it never sticks. The Russian I can speak is therefore extremely limited because I never sit down to work on my Cyrillic to the point where I can read semi-fluently. On the other hand I never had a problem with English from the beginning even with its crazy spellings -- I think I still have my notes from 6th grade dealing with lack of correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, and between wording across languages(!). On yet another hand, all of my immigrant Lithuanian and Russian friends learned to speak Spanish to a highly functional degree focusing on speaking language as adults because they 'had to', and most of their problems have to do with writing, which to them was kind of an afterthought. You can't even say that those with university education do really much better than the others (and I know of one case that is the opposite). People who write perfectly in their languages simply can't do the same in another if they don't want (or need) to in the first place. To me, that shows both 'extremes', or those on any other particular aspect, can work with the appropriate mindset (this is not to say there would be no differences in efficiency, but we'd need ideal conditions to measure it), and won't work otherwise, for I don't think my brain and mind and my friends' work essentially differently. Could I repeat my friends' feat? I like to think I actually could, but we'll never know because I'm not adventurous (read: crazy) enough to move to a country without speaking the language nor having some kind of support arranged beforehand. You'd have to drop me from a plane to try. Edited by mrwarper on 13 February 2015 at 2:21pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 44 of 47 13 February 2015 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The current debate is rather interesting, but I think it has strayed from the original thread somewhat. If
we refer to the original paper referenced in the OP, we see that the authors developed this so-called neurolinguistic approach specifically for classrooms of young children around the age of 10 - 12. The basic problem was that one approach, i.e. core French, does not work when compared to another one, i.e. immersion French. The simple solution to the whole problem would be to implement immersion programs everywhere. Since this is not feasible for a number of reasons related to politics and resources, the fundamental issue is how to make the second-language class in a traditional setting more efficient. So, the authors suggest this new approach. When I look at the specific proposals, they all make sense to me because of the nature of the audience. Of course priority should be given to oral communication at that age. I think the language of instruction should only be the target language and there should be lots of play in the language. By the same token, there should be little explicit study of grammar and vocabulary because they are incorporated into all the other activities. Really, do we want to hand out wordlists to 11-year olds for vocabulary learning? I would not stand before a class of 25 kids and say: "Listen up everybody, today we are going to look at the construction of the imperative mood of pronominal verbs in French. Please go to page 80 of your textbook." But all this is a far cry from the situation of the HTLALer learning a language on their own. In terms of the best learning strategy, all bets are off; it's everybody for themselves. I've noticed that my name has come up a few times, for no reason that I can understand, but I want to make it clear that my position is that people should do whatever works for them. There are a number of specific points where I disagree strongly with what has been said, but I don't feel like getting into a debate that we have had a number of times under different guises. Edited by s_allard on 13 February 2015 at 3:36pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 45 of 47 13 February 2015 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's not so much either/or as a whole list of various tools you can use. Speaking isn't in my top-5 tools unless I'm travelling or have an opportunity to meet someone like Cristina (or you bw:)). And I think we all agree that using more strategies isn't always better. Edited by Serpent on 13 February 2015 at 3:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 46 of 47 19 February 2015 at 4:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's flattering, but then I have to get my lazy behind over to Russia again and in the current climate I just don't know when that is going to happen (apart from the fact I'm in China on a single-entry visa so I can't leave the country unless I want to never go back and lose job experience). More strategies = more time spent with the language = better, it's about how you organise them into a holistic process which incorporates all elements of the language. My weak point is usually listening. That's something I never do enough of. Reading/writing/speaking are all ok. I'm developing better habits with listening, but I have a huge dislike of podcasts because unless they're native stuff there's too much English in them. I like Echo Moskvy because I can LR everything to hell :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 47 of 47 19 February 2015 at 6:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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For me more strategies don't necessarily equal more time spent with a specific language, and certainly not more time spent on language learning in general. Of course sometimes it's worth it, I'm thinking of the two-week German Tadoku that was an important push for me although I only read some 75 pages. But generally the best techniques are simply the most engaging ones, in terms of time.
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