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32 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3
YnEoS
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4253 days ago

472 posts - 893 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 25 of 32
17 October 2014 at 11:33pm | IP Logged 
Lemberg1963 wrote:
Serpent wrote:
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.

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.


Sentence comprehension cards can also help with consolidation. I've found that when a new word is the most difficult word in the sentence, no matter how many times I can encounter it many times and only be lightly familiar with it. But once I see the word in a sentence with another new word and I use the semi-familiar word to figure out the new word, the semi familiar word consolidated pretty quickly. It's not just recognizing the words, but then further using them as stepping stones to learn more words that makes them sink in.

For production cards, I've found cloze deletion cards and Image -> L2 to be way more
effective than L1->L2 cards.

Edited by YnEoS on 18 October 2014 at 12:23am

2 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 26 of 32
18 October 2014 at 12:22am | IP Logged 
YnEoS wrote:
Lemberg1963 wrote:
Serpent wrote:
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.

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.


Sentence comprehension cards can also help with consolidation. I've found that when a
new word is the most difficult word in the sentence, no matter how many times I can
encounter it many times and only be lightly familiar with it. But once I see the word
in a sentence with another new word and I use the semi-familiar word to figure out the
new word, the semi familiar word consolidated pretty quickly. It's not just
recognizing the words, but then further using them as stepping stones to learn more
words that makes them sink in.

For production cards, I've found cloze deletion cards and Image -> L2 to be way more
effective than L1->L2 cards.

I should've been more specific. I've had similar findings to you, as a result my cards
over time evolved to be Q:L1 short phrase with an image, A: L2 translation with audio.
I didn't like cloze deletion because I found that my brain was learning the sentence
more than the deleted cloze.
1 person has voted this message useful



Retinend
Triglot
Senior Member
SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4307 days ago

283 posts - 557 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish
Studies: Arabic (Written), French

 
 Message 27 of 32
18 October 2014 at 8:11am | IP Logged 
Juаn wrote:
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.


Really, no offense intended, but this is a naive thing to say. A "science" proceeds differently
depending on what's in question. The word as it's used (not in some self-conscious, Popper-like
attempt to define it) only describes the most reliable and rationally formed information on a
subject. If the most reliable and rationally formable information is statistical, then there it
is. I suppose that we would agree that the nature of the sciences in humanistic domains is
shallow, even in reasonably developed areas such as the cognitive sciences, when compared with
the hard sciences. But it's not all-or-nothing. Any reliable information is better than none,
even if it's only suggestive of what a human being should do. Memory science is a good example,
though you dismiss it's fruits.

Quote:
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.


Again, you're overstating it, also valuing your own advice as "worthwhile," which is the
job of others. Yes, you're true in so far as obsessive methodological pondering to the
detriment of real study is counteractive (claro), but a little consideration of how you're
doing things and why you're doing them has more than "zero" worth. For example, you say you
eschew spaced repetition, but is this because you tried it and it was of zero worth? This would
run against the experience of Ebbinghaus, fellow memory researchers a century hence, my own
experience and the experience of legions of dedicated Anki fans.
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 28 of 32
18 October 2014 at 10:29pm | IP Logged 
Exactly. To create worthy art, you can break the existing rules but you still need to know them. To learn languages, you don't have to follow the principles we discuss, but it should be an informed choice, otherwise you'll be as foolish as some "modern" and "innovative" artists, writers etc. In addition to knowing what you're doing, you should know what you're not doing.
2 persons have voted this message useful



iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5261 days ago

2241 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 29 of 32
19 October 2014 at 1:17am | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
...To create worthy art, you can break the existing rules but you still need to know them. To learn languages, you don't have to follow the principles we discuss, but it should be an informed choice, otherwise you'll be as foolish as some "modern" and "innovative" artists, writers etc. In addition to knowing what you're doing, you should know what you're not doing.

We all make mistakes in language-learning and we could all probably do with more efficiency. We all do this in our own unique way. The mistakes I make (and have made) help me to refine what I do.

Whether or not my learning style is maximally efficient, is not as relevant to me as the results. In the past 24 hours, I have had conversations in three of my languages (not Ladino, though). I am reading, writing and listening in four languages. I know what I'm doing and what I'm not doing.

Is language learning a science? Is it an art? Or, is it a combination of the two? I think it's most likely the latter, since language is the most human of human constructs, and human beings are hardly logical. Being illogical and hard to quantify is part of what makes us human in the first place.

The conclusions of this book, and the course that Serpent completed, may have useful tips for all of us. Some of it may not be so useful for our purposes. As we say in English- "don't throw the baby out with the bath water".

Scott Adams wrote:
Creativity is making mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.


Edited by iguanamon on 19 October 2014 at 1:54pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



showtime17
Trilingual Hexaglot
Senior Member
Slovakia
gainweightjournal.co
Joined 6083 days ago

154 posts - 210 votes 
Speaks: Russian, English*, Czech*, Slovak*, French, Spanish
Studies: Ukrainian, Polish, Dutch

 
 Message 30 of 32
29 October 2014 at 4:38pm | IP Logged 
70% of the time testing yourself? What are the techniques used for testing yourself?
1 person has voted this message useful



Icaria909
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5590 days ago

201 posts - 346 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 31 of 32
05 November 2014 at 3:03am | IP Logged 
I can understand where some people are coming from when they question the utility of using
some of these methods. The problem with a lot of this kind of information is that it is
geared towards people who are masters of their subject matter and trying to teach this
information to others with little to no prior knowledge of the subject. Very few books deal
with pedagogical practices from the perspective of autodidacts. That is not to say that one
cannot use these practices/ideas, but one should be cautious about how to use them.

For example, if I were teaching Spanish to someone else, I would create a series of tests
designed to identify the areas where the student was comfortable and the areas where he/she
lacks understanding. Perhaps he/she understands how to use haber in the active voice but
he/she is confused as to how to sue it in the passive voice. After that, I could design
lessons that specifically teach how to use haber with the passive voice. That is great if
you are teaching in a traditional classroom, but hardly useful for someone trying learn
Spanish on their own. How does one create these tests? Do I know enough about my target
language to make use of this information? Hardly.

Having said all that, it is clear that this is not the case with this book. This books
seems to veer away from those problematic issues by focusing almost entirely on how people
can teach themselves new skills. It is nice accomplishment and definitely appreciated. I
look forward to reading the book.
2 persons have voted this message useful



luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7204 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 32 of 32
05 November 2014 at 4:02am | IP Logged 
showtime17 wrote:
70% of the time testing yourself? What are the techniques used for testing yourself?


FSI drills.

Sentence dictation. E.G., listening to an Assimil lesson and writing out what you hear. Verifying it with the book.

GLOSS.

A workbook with that includes the answers.

http://lang-8.com/

Edited by luke on 05 November 2014 at 4:08am



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