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The Pleasure Hypothesis | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5062 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes  Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 17 of 25 16 January 2015 at 9:12am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, Krashen's point is not really that you should read and watch your existing favorites, but that comprehensible input in general is effective, and it's usually enjoyable. It's certainly allowed to include conversing with native speakers, or consuming media that you wouldn't otherwise be interested in--as long as it isn't so painfully boring that you can't engage with it and absorb those large amounts of input. As you say, despite being forced to read things in Ladino and Haitian that you wouldn't otherwise have wanted to read, you could find some enjoyment in them, and they provided comprehensible input. According to Krashen's hypothesis though, if you wanted to learn an obscure or dead language and there really wasn't any material to read or listen to, then it would be basically impossible to learn ("acquire") that language no matter how well its grammar and structure were documented. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 18 of 25 16 January 2015 at 9:52am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Though if you come from a cognitive science background it's not as radical/crazy as it sounds. It's well recognized that there are lots of processing stages in the brain that are inaccessible to conscious ideas/thoughts/knowledge. Take for instance this visual illusion: 
Squares A and B are identical. We see them as different shades because the visual brain makes takes into account shadows at a mid-level stage of visual processing. Interesting, we are not born with this knowledge: the visual system needs to interact with the world to acquire it (i.e., we need input), but at the same time no amount of theoretical knowledge about the how the visual world really is will help us see the two squares as identical, as our conscious knowledge of the world is unable to change the unconscious processing in these visual areas. It's easy to see how the same type of arguments could be made for language areas, though whether this is true is hard to say. An easy preconception to have is that thoughts seem to be words in our head, and that knowledge in the form of words (e.g., stuff out of grammar books) should be easily transposed in the computations that occur in our language areas. That's an obvious fallacy, as the computations that occur in language areas are no more language-like than anywhere else in the brain. Even is the above account is roughly accurate that's not to say that only reading need be helpful. Grammar drills, for instance, might be a very useful form of structured input. And conscious knowledge of the language structure might well help with parsing/paying-attention to certain aspects of input. So while Krashen might seem radical from a pedagogic perspective, within cognitive science, this sort of approach is fairly standard, which of course is not the same as saying it's true. Edited by patrickwilken on 16 January 2015 at 9:54am 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 19 of 25 16 January 2015 at 10:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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That's a very thought provoking image. Squares A and B are two different shades though. That's an irrelevant detail. What your post really conjures up is the importance of automatic, intuitive understanding of a situation. In the context of Krashen, he argues that pleasurable, comprehensible input is the key.
Have you read Thomas Kuhn's book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? It's quite fascinating. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 20 of 25 16 January 2015 at 10:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
No the two squares are identical, we just perceive them as different, because the visual system automatically "lightens" the appearance of objects in shadow. And the visual system learnt this knowledge when we were babies when we interacted (got input) from the world. Babies don't need to go to school to see - that would be ridiculous - they learn to see from the right sort of input. Reading about vision in school would not help you see better. Knowledge that the two squares are identical in real life won't change how you see the illusion. In the same way, knowledge about grammar may have absolutely no affect on how your language areas work.  Edited by patrickwilken on 16 January 2015 at 11:09am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Dragon27 Diglot Groupie Russian Federation Joined 4244 days ago 41 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Russian*, English | Message 21 of 25 16 January 2015 at 11:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I checked that in Paint - they're absolutely identical RGB 88-88-88. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 22 of 25 16 January 2015 at 11:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm surprised nobody has questioned the statement so far. I'd say there's always a way to make it more fun - sometimes it simply takes too much time and/or money. But just because sometimes pain seems inevitable, doesn't mean that it's as essential as you claim. 1 person has 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 23 of 25 16 January 2015 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You proved that to me. What's especially fascinating is that I was thinking, "hmm, patrickwilken wouldn't make such an obvious mistake. I probably shouldn't even mention it".
Grammar rules are helpful when I'm in the puzzling stage. However, and this is where the behaviorists - like those employing the FSI's once popular audio-lingual method - are right, (at least some of the time). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5062 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 24 of 25 17 January 2015 at 4:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
OK, I guess I don't mean that there are things you HAVE to do that HAVE to be painful. But in the real world oftentimes the most beneficial activity will be an unpleasant one, even if hypothetically everything could be made enjoyable in a world with much better pedagogy. For example, in a lot of games, the most fun thing is to just keep playing, but if you really want to get better you should study or drill small aspects of it (e.g. memorizing openings in chess, memorizing useful words for word games, practicing sequences of keyboard/mouse actions until they become automatic for real-time video games. In principle you could have a fun way of acquiring those skills (and there will always be some people who find the normal way fun) but you can stagnate by only doing the fun thing. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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