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Language learning archetypes | ||
Tags: Learner type | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Gitaa Brother Newbie United States Joined 5104 days ago 23 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 9 01 September 2013 at 2:47am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been reading the self-study abandonment thread with interest, and it confirms my suspicion that there are
radically different types of language learners, and what works well for some learners will not work for others. Trying to analyze these types, I dusted off Jung's psychological types and shoehorned different methods into the different categories: Thinking: the classical method of reading a grammar and translating text with a dictionary, Iversen's wordlist method (possibly) Feeling: Benny the Irish polyglot's conversing in L2 on day 1 method Sensation: FSI drills, flashcards, Anki, 10000 sentence method Intuitive: Listening L2/Reading L1, Listening L2/Reading L2, Assimil, Shadowing Some questions: Are my classifications totally daft? Am I causing trouble by breaking up language learning into different camps? Do actual learners tend to gravitate towards one of these groups? In my case, I have used Anki successfully in the past but I still have a strong desire to never do it again. I also fantasize about being some kind of pure mental being that could follow the classical method, but in real life I firmly favor intuitive methods. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5012 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 9 01 September 2013 at 5:16am | IP Logged | ||
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They are not totally daft just incomplete in my opinion. There are the visual/audio/other learners, there are the holistic learners and those who need smaller pieces, there are many more classifications for sure and they somehow overlap. It might be actually interesting to see whether visual learners tend to be more intuitive or thinking etc.
But even given just your four types, I guess most learners would fall int two or three cathegories out of the four. (For example I believe I am like 55% thinking, 40% intuitive and 5% sensation.) But the truth is, it doesn't matter much in the end to know how your type by whichever classification is called. Just the whole you and what you need. P.S. warning: a stupid joke: by Freud, we are all surely expressing our hidden sexual desires by the ways we study and which languages we choose. :-D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 3 of 9 01 September 2013 at 7:22am | IP Logged | ||
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There's been some excellent discussions on this topic, but damn if I can find them.
Learning Styles (see Jeff Lindqvist's post below for the link)from 2006 is interesting, but it's not one of the ones I was thinking of. (note: free the search engine!) I took these notes from a youtube video Prof Arguelles put up on this topic, and I thought it was an excellent place to start a discussion: ANALYTIC MINDS 1. Start with a short overview that gives a bird's eye view of grammar and structure 2. Do one or two thorough and comprehensive grammar/translation courses. 3. Do a deductive / observational course such as Assimil or Linguaphone 4. Finish with a pattern / drill course LEARNS BY DOING 1. Start with a "full scale" Pimsleur course 2. Do a full pattern / drill course, such as FSI 3. Do a short course with a bird's eye view of grammar and structure to tie things together 4. Follow with a self-paced short pattern / drill course 5. Finish with a deductive / observational course such as Assimil or Linguaphone OBSERVATIONAL LEARNERS 1. Start with one or, if available, two Assimil courses, plus Linguaphone 2. Do a comprehensive grammar / translation manual 3. Finish with a full pattern / drill course, such as FSI Edited by kanewai on 01 September 2013 at 7:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4831 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 4 of 9 01 September 2013 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not daft, but I think there are many different ways of looking at this, not all mutually
exclusive, by any means. As for the style of language learning expreaaing my innermost desires (sexual or otherwise): That's me: since I like nothing better than lying back listening to an audiobook, it conveys my desire to be a lazy slob perfectly. :)). (Watching a movie is far too much like hard work: you have to keep your eyes open and maybe read subtitles!). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4311 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 5 of 9 01 September 2013 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that there are definitely categories but the biggest difference is between the
Grammar Book approach and "everything else". By Grammar Book approach I mean: pick an aspect of the language and go through exercises that pick out the general pattern, then go through exercises which go through exceptions to the rule. This is also the mainstream way of teaching a class on language. This style of learning doesn't appeal to me, and I think that I'm in the majority here. Someone like Laoshu has enough passion to make it work, but he would likely succeed with whatever style of learning he chose. This sort of learning can be demotivating if you're a bit naive because it tricks you into thinking to "know the rule" after one lesson; when in actuality it'll take many repetitions and actual use in practice to "know" it. But of course this isn't the case for everyone. That leaves "everything else"... I think that the next big difference is how much writing you do. I personally write at least two A4 pages every day. copied from a text I'm studying, and I also do written translations of the text back into English. I speak as I write and I speak-along as I listen to the audio of the text. Materials for this style are texts, translations of them, and an audio recording of them being read (+dictionaries, grammars). But I understand that some people don't do much writing at all - there are regimes of reading where extensive reading isn't just an end-goal but a method from almost the very start. The idea being to read far and wide and increase the complexity as you go. There are programs like LinQ and Learning with Texts, or old fashioned bilingual texts to help you with this. Sometimes people say it's fine to be entirely non-speaking for much of this process. As L-R doesn't advocate any writing of the text, I would put it in this category. Materials for the method are texts and their translations (+dictionaries, grammars). Finally there are Audio-based methods where you focus on what you can say rather than what you can understand, with the aim to build a bridge between speaking and comprehension later on. You build up from simple expressions and learn to elaborate what you've done already, Therefore this is more of a "speaking" style of learning than the others. This is the only style which has a natural limitation because of the limit of teaching material. Materials needed for this style are simply a pair of ears and a media player. No dictionaries or grammars. So I'll leave it there as a suggestion: 4 categories - Grammar-based, Writing-Based, Reading-Based and Speaking-Based edit: but so as not to be misunderstood - ALL the categories involve some grammar, writing, reading and speaking. And of course listening. It cannot be an effective study program otherwise. I don't think that shadowing is really a category here - it's just a way of listening. Edited by Retinend on 01 September 2013 at 5:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6912 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 9 01 September 2013 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Fixed link:
Learning styles 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 9 01 September 2013 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||
I think these categories are good, but I would broaden out Reading-Based to Input-Based with Reading and Listening (movies/tv/audio-books) as the main activities. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4710 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 8 of 9 01 September 2013 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would get bored of all those textbooks before I even finished the first one.
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