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10,000 hours of input

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
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Huliganov
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 Message 17 of 60
13 February 2011 at 4:01pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
iguanamon wrote:
"10,000 hours" comes from Malcolm Gladwell's last book- "Outliers". Where he talks about how long it takes for someone to become a master in any field. The following quote is from the Wikipedia article about Outliers

Yup, and the book is peppered with dubious assumptions, fallacies and omissions. There's no observational evidence for 10,000 hours as either a general rule or as a language-specific one.

Gladwell was successful enough in selling the idea that a lot of language teachers picked it up independently and it quick became part of language myth.

The only purpose it seems to serve is as an excuse for the slow pace of language classes.


Despite the fact that sometimes I wholeheartedly disagree with you, on other matters I wholeheartedly agree with you, and this is one of those latter times.

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Huliganov
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 Message 18 of 60
13 February 2011 at 4:04pm | IP Logged 
Akatsuki wrote:
What's with you? If you don't care about the subject on this topic don't start being rude. I'm sure there are more people interested.


??? Not sure who that was addressed to. I didn't notice any rude posts.
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Akatsuki
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 Message 19 of 60
13 February 2011 at 4:23pm | IP Logged 
lingoleng wrote:
Well, yes, yes, and yes again. Please, do yourself a favor and just forget this strange fake number, it is just nonsense.


It was addressed to lingoleng. He hasn't been rude to me, and I don't feel insulted whatsoever, but there's no need to make such kind of comments.
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Akatsuki
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 Message 20 of 60
13 February 2011 at 4:28pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
The only purpose it seems to serve is as an excuse for the slow pace of language classes.


I didn't quite understand your statement. You're saying the 10,000 hours method is an excuse as to prolong the study of languages? As if students set their goal at 10,000 hours and doesn't matter how they get there or when they do, they just think 10,000 hours will be enough to speak the language in question.
Was that it?
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Huliganov
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 Message 21 of 60
13 February 2011 at 4:31pm | IP Logged 
Akatsuki wrote:
lingoleng wrote:
Well, yes, yes, and yes again. Please, do yourself a favor and just forget this strange fake number, it is just nonsense.


It was addressed to lingoleng. He hasn't been rude to me, and I don't feel insulted whatsoever, but there's no need to make such kind of comments.


If he feels that the number 10,000 is strange, fake and nonsense then it's very good that he says so. You wish to defend the honour of a mathematical number?
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Huliganov
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 Message 22 of 60
13 February 2011 at 4:45pm | IP Logged 
Akatsuki wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
The only purpose it seems to serve is as an excuse for the slow pace of language classes.


I didn't quite understand your statement. You're saying the 10,000 hours method is an excuse as to prolong the study of languages? As if students set their goal at 10,000 hours and doesn't matter how they get there or when they do, they just think 10,000 hours will be enough to speak the language in question.
Was that it?


I don't want to answer for Cainntear, as he is more than capable of responding for himself, but in my opinion this figure of 10,000 is the sort of figure that teachers will use to encourage students to lower their expectations in terms of rapid language acquisition, and therefore buy more lessons even when they are only really going slowly because of a poor method.

Some teachers are so awful that you could really sit in their boring and directionless lessons for 10,000 hours and still be nowhere near native. You could spend in theory a fortune on them.

When you look with logic at the figure 10,000, what it equates to in terms of management time is seven years of full time work. It is simply not the case that you need that kind of input to function on an even level with natives. In most cases the amount of time required will be a fraction of that. I'd be more inclined to believe it were true for a person of below average intelligence learning a second language for their first time, using a flawed methodology and trying a language very different to their native one. For such a person they could really try hard for 10,000 hours and still not be where they want to be.

So better to get a good method at the beginning.

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Akatsuki
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 Message 23 of 60
13 February 2011 at 4:46pm | IP Logged 
No, I don't. I just wanted people to discuss the theory. I'm not here to persuade anyone nor to defend anything.
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Cainntear
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 Message 24 of 60
13 February 2011 at 8:16pm | IP Logged 
Akatsuki wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
The only purpose it seems to serve is as an excuse for the slow pace of language classes.


I didn't quite understand your statement. You're saying the 10,000 hours method is an excuse as to prolong the study of languages? As if students set their goal at 10,000 hours and doesn't matter how they get there or when they do, they just think 10,000 hours will be enough to speak the language in question.
Was that it?

I'm saying that many taught courses are slow and unproductive. It is easier for a teacher to say "well of course it's slow -- it takes 10,000 hours to learn a language". The teachers don't expect to be able to teach any faster, so they continue to believe that they are doing a good job when they are really just teaching too slow.

I'm not a fan of the Pareto Principle (I think it's a crude oversimplification of reality and for that is as bad as the 10,000 hour "rule"), but Huliganov makes the right point here.

A beginner should be expected to learn more, and more quickly, than an advanced learner.

There are things in every language that are very common, and other things that are very rare, and everything in between.

The most frequent word in English is "I". Learning "I" is therefore more useful than learning "silage". The words "I" "he" "she" "it" "you" "they" "we" "is" "was" "am" "were" and "are" will allow you to engage more with English than "silage" "artichoke" "scurvy" "symptomatic" "fragrance" "bridle" "gruff" "gabion" "underfelt" "cystitis" "motherboard" and "mitre".

So the law of diminishing returns should apply to language learning after the initial stages -- each new thing you learn will improve your mastery of the language less than the last thing you learned.


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