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The Pleasure Hypothesis | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5265 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 9 of 25 15 January 2015 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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The pleasure hypothesis works well for the big languages, and even small languages with a successful and highly developed economy, where there is plenty of choice. Try finding dubbed TV series, BD's, science fiction and the latest Ken Follet novel in Ladino or Haitian Creole- it's not happening.
For learning Haitian Creole, I used whatever I could get my hands on, whether it was "fun" or not. For books, I had a 17 page pamphlet from the US Army Corps of Engineers designed to teach 5th graders about the Everglades. I had Woben Lakwa (Robinson Crusoe), Ti Prens Lan (The Little Prince) and the Bible. I found my fun in learning the language and learning about the culture. The more I learned, the more I enjoyed these aspects and discovered I enjoyed reading and listening to interviews of Vodou Wizans. Ideally, I would have loved to have done something (for Ladino and Haitian Creole) like emk did with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in French and is doing now with "Avatar" in Spanish. I couldn't. It isn't available. So, I took what I had, even though it wasn't that much "fun" and later discovered things I didn't know that I would like and they became fun because I gave them a chance. Some learners of major languages are so spoiled for choice of what they like that they won't give unfamiliar material a chance; i.e.- only reading translated English books or only watching dubbed US series. Do they still learn the language, yes- but much of the culture that the language embodies is transmitted through original native media. For a first language and a raw beginner (one who is monolingual), yes, fun is very important and doable for the major languages (and even minor ones with a sufficiently educated populace and a non-poverty situation). For lesser studied and small languages, you take what you can get and you have to discover something that doesn't have an analog in your L1 and hope that it will become "fun". Ultimately, what is fun for me is being able to speak Haitian Creole with people and learn about the culture. With Ladino I don't get to speak, but I have enough access to learn about a fascinating culture, and that is fun for me. Edited by iguanamon on 15 January 2015 at 4:41pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5239 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 10 of 25 15 January 2015 at 3:12pm | IP Logged | ||
Actually that is one aspect of the Super Challenge that I like. When you are forced to get massive amounts of input you have to lower your criteria about what you'd read or watch. I've watched a lot of TV & Films in French that I didn't think I would like, but did. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 11 of 25 15 January 2015 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think robarb is basically right.
Pleasure is a motivational state, which leads you towards certain actions (in the same way displeasure leads you away from certain actions). There are a few possibilities: 1. It's obviously a trivial point to say that if you are disposed to doing something more often, you'll get better at it. Bottom-line: Finding pleasurable things to do while learning is good, as this will increase time spent on tasks, but be careful not to neglect other necessary, but unpleasurable tasks, which are also necessary. 2. When and only when we learn effectively do we feel pleasure. So feeling pleasure is a useful signal we are learning effectively. Bottom-line: Only do things that are pleasurable. Avoid unpleasurable things as they are a waste of time. Of course, Option 2 is often false in non-learning situations (e.g., sugar is pleasurable, but sometimes you need to eat vegetables; heroin is also fun, but is to be generally avoided; playing video games is fun, but sometimes homework has to be done too, etc). 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6585 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 12 of 25 15 January 2015 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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3. Pleasure as a psychological state makes us more receptive to learning, by surpressing stress hormones and reducing distracting thoughts, making it more likely for us to enter flow states and whatnot.
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| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 13 of 25 15 January 2015 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | ||
That sounds reasonable or contrawise: displeasure releases stress hormones, creates distracting thoughts etc... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 14 of 25 15 January 2015 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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First a minor detail. This is not a new paper. It was first published in 1994, and does not represent any
cutting-edge research. It probably appears for the first time on Krashen's website. After reading the paper, my reaction was: What is the big deal about the pleasure hypothesis other than the basic observation that learning activities that give pleasure are perceived to be more effective by learners? I mean, really, what's earth-shaking about this? Don't we all learn better when we are enjoying the learning process? But what Krashen is arguing is that the Comprehensible Input (CI) approach is more fun and pleasant than the so-called traditional approaches. Therefore CI is more effective. More specifically, Krashen claims that certain activities such as Forced Speech, Corrective Feedback and Grammar Study are not pleasant, therefore they are not effective. I basically agree with Krashen because most of his stuff is, in my opinion, self-evident. After all, who can be against getting lots of comprehensible input? I would think that everybody here at HTLAL agrees that the more you are exposed to the target language, the more you learn. Duh. The real problem is what one does with the input. I like to think that independent learners like us interact actively with input. Just lying on the couch watching foreign-language TV with a beer in one hand and the remote control in the other will not be very effective. You have to engage the language. Krashen is thinking in terms of the classroom, not independent learning. This is where our paths diverge. I can see why he identifies certain activities as not pleasurable. But for us independent learners I believe that grammar study, early speaking and especially corrective feedback can be transformed into pleasureful activities. Why not make all aspects of language learning a pleasure? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 15 of 25 16 January 2015 at 1:18am | IP Logged | ||
It seems that he used the S curve to describe two different phenomenon. I took him as saying even extensive/input activities hit an inflection point - the top of the S curve - where further input doesn't do much. I.E. "fossilization". Similarly, "studying" also gets to a point where further effort doesn't help much and one has to dive in the deep end and use the language in more native-like situationa to improve further. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6585 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 16 of 25 16 January 2015 at 8:07am | IP Logged | ||
This is how I get my input! Except without the beer. Anyway, Krashen suggests that we shouldn't engage with the language. Rather, we should engage with the content. Acquiring the language is something that happens unconsciously, and we should't focus too much on he language. Rather, focus on trying to understand and enjoy the plot of the TV series, for example. Also, what's not self-evident about Krashen's hypothesis is that he claims that comprehensible input is the ONLY way we acquire language. Everything else is useless, according to the theory. And that's pretty radical, even if it's not new. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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