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Why grammar does not help ( some of us) | ||
Tags: Language Teaching | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 59 01 September 2013 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Russian teachers and I seem to be at odds when it comes to learning styles. They try to teach me grammar,
and are very pleased when I have learned the rule, and can answer the exercises correctly. Regardless of how many times I try to explain to them that learning the rules helps me very little, that I learn by listening and being corrected, and that even though I may know the rules I still make mistakes when I speak, they persist. I learned Spanish and French without studying a single hour of grammar - and both my French and my Spansh are quite good, with very few grammar mistakes. In German, which I have learned at school, I have learned grammar rules to the point where that will most probably be the last knowledge I forget when I become senile, but my grammar is appalling. Am I the only one to be wired that way?I guess to a certain point I "do learn like a child", which is probably why class room teaching does very little for me. Can the rest of you learn a grammar rule, and then apply it correctly from that day forward? Am I the only freak here, or are there more grammar haters out there? I see grammar as useful for giving me a general understanding of the language, but it does not teach me to speak the language. How does it work for the rest of you guys? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 59 01 September 2013 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Are you in a class or individual lessons? I thought you were getting individual lessons (my mistake if I remember wrong) in which case I don't understand why the teacher is the one making rules.
We all need different approaches but I'd say doing grammar drills with a teacher is the worst waste of time and money. Who needs the exercises and rules (I prefer them) can do them on our own without any discomfort. If you pay a teacher, it's better to use her/him for things you have more trouble doing yourself in my opinion such as getting directly corrected. But grammar rules is not the only nonsense of this kind, there are other similarily crazy "teaching methods" (and when the crap doesn't work for you, the teacher just blames you for not doing their idea right). When you are a kid at school, you have to suffer them. When you are an adult in a paid class, or even paying one on one lessons, it is way different. I personally need the grammar rules and exercises for my active skills. I can get the passive knowledge purely by input (my passive Spanish grammar is totally ok, I nearly always know exactly what the person in the tv show wanted to say using it) but I cannot speak without having actively learnt the grammar. At first, I need the rules and exercises but as the time goes and I practice, it all becomes automatic. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 3 of 59 01 September 2013 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do learn the grammar rules in the middle somewhere, I always have a period in every
language where I look them up and try to get them right, but when I speak, all of that goes out the window. My grammar in most languages is generally acceptable. It could be better usually, but then, nobody really complains about a few mistakes if they get the point, and usually they are pretty happy I speak the language at all. But I do like conjugation and declension tables just for the overview. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 59 01 September 2013 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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@cavesa: I have an individual tutor, ( or actually three different ones) which is why I do not understand why
sometimes it is so difficult to get a system which works for me. If I am in a class with several pupils, I just adapt to whatever system they have, but one would think that in a private class it would be easier to get your way. Lately I have turned to just overruling the teacher though. I have been too shy to speak Russian so far, but now I start talking from the moment I get in, and I do not shut up until it is time to leave. I must drive them crazy, since I make a zillion mistakes, but I have noticed significant improvements over the last month. Do you then feel that the drills translate into you mastering the grammar and being able to eliminate those mistakes? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 5 of 59 01 September 2013 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||
This is their job. And when I tutor Dutch or English, I encourage people to talk and make mistakes. That's how people learn. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4857 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 6 of 59 01 September 2013 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Because some of us prefer contact with people rather than poring over the books?
So easy answer... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4367 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 7 of 59 02 September 2013 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||
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For me, what I've found is something in between. I need a lot of listening and reading to be able to use the language "naturally," but I really can't guess grammar from only reading and listening. I also wonder if this might be different for me with different languages though; it's very possible that in a language without a very different grammar, I wouldn't need to do drills and exercises as much.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4288 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 8 of 59 02 September 2013 at 1:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I think I am the opposite, I need heavy amounts of grammar in my learning. If I do not
have elongated grammar practise, drills, written exercises and rules, I get confused an lost very easily. When I was a teenager, I tried to learn Dutch without emphasising much on grammar, and I could understand somewhat the sentences, speaking was borderline passable, albeit with mistakes, but I had serious problems even writing simple sentences. Now, several years after, I almost exclusively use a method of practising grammar for Dutch, and things like word order (which probably is not as crucial as in other languages) makes much more sense and I progress at least five times quicker. I also started doing this with grammar drill/exercise books for basically every language whereon I try to improve right now. Before I practised Dutch grammar, my writing was so poor that I was using plural conjugations for singular pronouns, using the present perfect for the continuous, and committing all sorts of errors that I eventually stopped because I confused myself so badly, and then relearnt everything with the new method. For example, at least for me, when I learnt Spanish tenses in secondary school, all the inflections on each six endings have to be memorised and drilled for me to remember them for both speech and writing. I am completely comfortable with the subjunctive now, but it literally took me months of practising to finally master it, even out of class. I doubt I could do it without I need months of grammatical practise, and that is partly why I like those grammar workbooks like Practise Makes Perfect. Likewise in my native English, I went to grammar school, so perhaps that affects my opinion. But what I am not sure is, without grammar, how does one in English know to say "we are" instead of "we is". I could forgo learning the verb conjugations and if I see "he is" I might just assume that perhaps "is" could be used with any other pronoun. But I remember, long ago, in primary school, at some point there was a lesson with a chart of "I am, you are, he/she/it is, we are, you are, they are". It seems that just looking at that could facilitate learning than trying to combine pieces of information together. To me, learning language without grammar is like how some people say they learn music playing "by ear", something I cannot do even after playing guitar for eight years and bass for six (albeit for fun and I am mediocre at very best). I.e. learning without grammar is like someone hearing a song on piano and can play the whole thing out without music sheets, whilst someone like me needs to practise piano scales for months and learn music theory to play properly. Or perhaps I am just not as talented.. Edited by 1e4e6 on 02 September 2013 at 1:29am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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