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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 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 32 16 October 2014 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It seems like much of the resistance to scientific discussion of learning methods rests on the idea that the science
deals with people on average, while personal experience deals specifically with you. Why should I care if 1-7-30 is the best SRS spacing for people in general when I could just try multiple settings and see which one I like best? Does Carey get at all into findings about individual differences? Are there factors that predict which of the recommendations will be most applicable to individuals? Or methods for developing the metacognition and exploration strategies for finding the ideal personalized learning strategy? Without this, we could be left in a situation where the science correctly says that most people need to sleep about eight hours, and sleep deprivation has measurable effects X, Y and Z, but the recommendation is little more than "pay attention to your body, and sleep when you feel tired; eliminate activities that you find disrupt your quality of sleep." 4 persons have 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 18 of 32 16 October 2014 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Science still helps by telling us:
1: X is a factor. Pay attention to it. 2: Average Joe learns best when Y. If you have no reason to believe otherwise, you most likely do, too. If you don't know, following the average is the best policy. That said, knowing the confidence intervals helps a lot. Does 51% of people learn better with Z, or is it 95%? 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5344 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 19 of 32 16 October 2014 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
One problem I have is that on a fundamental level there can't be a science of these things. But I concede, this concern is not something that should occupy members of this forum. On topic though, while one can be aware of the different ways that exist of approaching language learning, it is still worthwhile advice not to spend anything more than a cursory amount of time meditating on them and rather go ahead and actually get to work on your languages, in which process what works for you will become clear on its own without outside theorizing. Years ago when I was new to language learning I devoted a great amount of time gathering information and reflecting on whether I should or would be able to learn languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit or Arabic. All of it turned out to be of exactly zero utility to me once I actually occupied myself with them. 3 persons have 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 20 of 32 16 October 2014 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thing is, a lot of people here actually enjoy discussing methods, theory and optimization. If you don't, that's fine, but then why are you here discussing this with us? Me, I'm very interested in the science of how language learning works and how it can be optimized, even if it brings me no practical benefits. I like knowledge. 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 21 of 32 16 October 2014 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Also, research is often done on unmotivated classroom learners. So I'm sceptical of any research that doesn't deal directly with how our brains work.
I agree that testing yourself applies less (or differently) to languages. The default way of testing is generally translation, and it's not the same as actively thinking about what you read instead of staring at the same page for an hour. But most of us do SRS/exercises/word lists, and these activities are more than fine for testing. It's been argued that even reading or listening is basically a test of your comprehension (unless it's a leisurely activity in a strong language), and I tend to agree with that, too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5235 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 22 of 32 16 October 2014 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I have to disagree. Statistical models are a verifiable and fundamental science. Representative sampling assures that inferences and conclusions can safely extend from the sample to the population as a whole. There is an entire branch of science based on Quantitative Psychology, which examines just this type of thing. The American Psychological Association defines Quantitative Psychology as "the study of methods and techniques for the measurement of human attributes, the statistical and mathematical modeling of psychological processes, the design of research studies, and the analysis of psychological data". So in fact not only can there be a science of these things, there is a science of these things. And while most people would like to believe they are outliners and not average, most of us fall safely inside of the bell curve.
But the average motivated and unmotivated students are still humans, and the way which humans learn is important. So if an unmotivated student learns best with a repetition rate of 1-3-50 there is a very good chance that the motivated student still learns best with the same repetition pattern. I agree that motivated people will tend to do MORE work, but I think it is worthwhile for everyone to know the best way to do something, and if your motivated you can do it twice as much.
Again I disagree, how can you find and improve your methods if you don't consider the research and experimentation of scientists and behaviour studies? Although you might be able to learn to program a computer using only assembly code with no manual, no assistance or training simply by "directly engaging yourself with your subject", I bet you would get further faster by looking for additional material and training. Personally I hope some scientist can find a pill that lets me learn a language in 10 minutes! I could use the help. Edited by rdearman on 16 October 2014 at 11:23pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 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 23 of 32 17 October 2014 at 4:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Of course there cannot be a science that deals specifically with you, just as there cannot be a science about the
specific stone on my back porch. However, there is a science about stones, and that science is not complete until it can explain not only how stones behave on average, but also how a particular stone will behave differently from the average given observations we can make to determine what kind of stone it is and what state and environment it's in. Quantitative psychology encompasses some early attempts to move the science of learning in that direction. I think there will be a long way to go until there are large advances both in the measurement and statistics of human psychological attributes, and the fundamental understanding of how human brain and behavior work. If our current science of human differences helps me determine how Average Joe learns, that's useful. If it helps me determine how I'm likely to learn differently from Average Joe, that's even more useful. My hunch is that the science right now is the source of a few useful tips, plus a bunch of speculative tips that one should be skeptical about, but might be useful. Incidentally, that description works pretty well for the nonscientific methods community, too. EDIT: Actually, there sort of is such thing as science about a specific person. It's called a case study. For a language learning example, see the case of Christopher, the alleged linguistic savant with autism. There are little bits of science that deal specifically with how he works. Edited by robarb on 17 October 2014 at 7:55am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lemberg1963 Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States zamishka.blogspot.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4238 days ago 41 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Ukrainian* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Polish | Message 24 of 32 17 October 2014 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
The testing effect is still important to know about. It explains why my retention went up significantly when I switched my Anki cards from L2->L1 to L1->L2. L1->L2 requires more cognitive power to retrieve the answer, which improves consolidation. Edited by Lemberg1963 on 17 October 2014 at 10:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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