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Enduring criticism of the self-study mthd | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 25 of 36 18 December 2010 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Although I certainly believe that you can learn a language by yourself, I do believe that there is nothing like having a good teacher to make the whole process easier. Many people here are bashing their high school classes as being entirely useless. I don't doubt that, but keep in mind that classes of this kind are not designed to teach the student to speak. They are meant to prepare students to pass some kind of officially sanctioned test.
On the other hand, many private language schools do quite a good job of teaching. Classes tend to be small and the pace is quite intensive. There are often cultural activities and opportunities to practice with native speakers. I've heard lots of good things about these kinds of schools for Spanish in Spain and Latin America. I was quite pleasantly surprised to learn that the main industry of the town of Antigua, Guatemala, is language instruction. This is because the primary method used by all the institutes is one-on-one instruction. This is a far cry from your typical classroom of 30 students where you hardly get a chance to talk because a couple of people are hogging the conversation. Imagine instead that you have a private teacher for four hours a day, five days a week. Then you can go practice the language in all sorts of real situations. Think how much progress you could make. I think I would learn more in a week than in six months here in a typical class. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| CaucusWolf Senior Member United States Joined 5207 days ago 191 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese | Message 26 of 36 18 December 2010 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have no doubt that a good teacher and a class could help someone to fluency. However someone has to be motivated to spend hours on there own studying or they'll never be fluent. In High school I had one of the best Spanish teachers and yet I still only remember things like Si, Que es? and Comprende? What I lacked was a motivation to learn the language. The problem for me was not having a broad choice of languages as I could only choose Spanish, German and French.(which I've never been interested in.) There wasn't a class for Japanese(which is what I was interested at the time.)so I had to settle for a requirement and not an interest. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5161 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 27 of 36 02 February 2011 at 1:57am | IP Logged | ||
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At primary school, and later high school, I had fairly decent language classes.
Mine were mostly 'classical' style classes where you were presented with grammar bits one at a time, several (or many) vocabulary items you could use with that, and you started and kept reading and writing at appropriate levels. Listening was a bit lacking because cassettes were a bit cumbersome compared to modern stuff, and we had not particularly well-accented teachers so our spoken production wasn't all that great but hey. If you wanted to, you learned. I didn't speak very fluently after that, but I was intelligible and I could have faced almost any situation without panicking--and that being very shy! I made almost zero mistakes (within my limits, obviously), nut there was still so much more to learn. When I first went abroad in a language exchange program (I could be ~17) for one month, I managed myself pretty well and avoided contact with my compatriots (whom I didn't like a lot anyway) at all costs, so I greatly benefited from focusing on the language, which is why I went abroad in the first place. That's when I realized I had learned for real and not only theoretically and I kept learning more, on my won this time, ever since. My partners spoke terribly badly in comparison before that, and they didn't improve a lot after it. Why? I have to guess, but I feel the answer is: because they were not interested at all. Even I was only mildly interested, and the instruction we all had been given was more than enough--at the time I did nothing other than homework after class! I started my second FL class shortly after (right after?) that, when 'total immersion' was all the rage. Fortunately, my teacher was quite sane, and despite that, I took two years of pretty much the same stuff as before, only in a new language, imparted in the same language. Grammar points and vocabulary were chosen well enough, so I struggled a bit because of the damned immersion but went through all the steps and learned. Listening / speaking was a bit better than before because cassette players were way less bulky, CDs were around, etc. so audio materials were more accessible in an environment that still completely lacked interaction with natives. Those among my partners for whom that was their first FL dropped out (my parents!) or struggled considerably more than me (my Chemistry teacher). Then we were through yet another language teaching revolution —or maybe there were several, who cares— and classes went upside down, while I devoted my time to things other than languages. I returned like 12 years later, when the 'communicative approach' was the new King. I've dropped out of every class after that because they focus exclusively (which is the killer nuance here) in making you communicate: 'speak' and 'practice', instead of teaching you something before, so you can actually say something, articulate it some way and then really communicate after some practice. Total immersion yadda yadda, native level speakers yadda yadda, role playing yadda yadda, student centered yadda yadda, activities for 5 year olds, no grammar, no nothing useful. Speak partners like indians movie, write what is? Read children like small like read. Later two year one. Me out. For classes of languages I managed myself in, it was even worse: if that was teaching I could do it better with a blindfold and one hand tied to my back. For God's sake, I could have learned three month's worth of classes in three days, tops. Not to mention the money. Amusingly enough, that's what most people want / expect from a class today: to start by speaking, and to learn to speak without studying, because kids don't need to and adults are smarter, right? It serves them well, if you ask me. The reason, or an important one, why such balderdash is so widespread is because it puts everybody's minds at ease: 'I'm attending classes so I must be learning' the student says, 'I made them communicate' says the teacher, and everyone is happy. As a ripe old teacher now, I always try to find out what students expect, and if they really want to learn, then I subtly but steadily move them towards a productive regime. Which is, by my definition, anything that makes them learn as long as they put some effort to it (so, something slightly different for everyone). Any real student should ask himself after any doubtful class such as any modern language class: 'what did I learn today?'. If the answer is 'nothing' or 'very little' too many times, it's time for a change. That's why I reluctantly dropped out of so many classes, that's why I make some of my students learn (and almost all of them happy). A class is not the be all, end all of language learning, just as self-study isn't either. If you're motivated, you will learn. If you find the right class, you'll learn faster. Simple as that. The interesting thing about languages, and what makes them different from other subjects, is that real learners who reach some 'upper intermediate' level (tricky definitions, anyone?) are better off studying on their own by not studying any more and simply using their new language as they use their own, because no course or classes will make them progress any faster beyond that point. How is that possible? Because languages are easier than sciences, and they're because, unlike sciences, languages have evolved with us. But that's another story :) Edited by mrwarper on 02 February 2011 at 2:03am 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5782 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 28 of 36 02 February 2011 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that this whole language forum with all its posts is evidence enough that doing language self-study is a valid method which can lead to good learning results.
Before I came to this forum I had never had met anybody who did language self-study succesfully. I only encountered people who started self-study and gave up very soon. This was of course before the internet age. It was about people sitting at home working through a book, no language logs or blogs available. No MP3 - players either. I have a special personal history of learning: Very succesful at school even with a for me difficult subject as maths. And afterwards 6 years at Law School full of learning discipline ploblems. Which led to the failure of my studies. I also had discipline problems in language courses at that time, when I was a law student. In such circumstances you don't even get the faint idea of doing self-study. I started doing language learning self-study two years ago with Danish in October 2009. I did this because there was no alternative available and because I wanted to continue my log. Also for me it works. Nowadays I have no discipline problems at all. A disadvantage of self-study is that it doesn't get me to the thinking level of a language at beginner's level. Another disadvantage is that it brings me into the "Einzelgänger" (How do you call this in English?) role-model, which is against my nature. So as a conclusion I decided to continue my wellknown method of class learning, which is more expensive than self-study and is 100 % dependent on the quality of the teacher and his / her methods. My courses have lots of holidays (AmE: vacation), so I find it efficient to do self-study during these "empty" weeks. And that suits me perfect to combine both methods during the year. This gives me a lot of learning satisfaction and I don't get frustrated, if for example a class is to slow or I miss a lesson. So what I would recommend is combining both: class-learning with self-study! Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 02 February 2011 at 6:47pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Beysic Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5001 days ago 20 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 29 of 36 03 February 2011 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||
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The best thing about learning in a classroom is the teacher - they're trained to answer your questions and understand the nuances of their language's grammar. Many times, asking a native speaker just isn't enough - most of us simply know our mother tongue - we can tell others what sounds best, but we can't tell them why, and the why is vital for non native speakers picking up the language.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5035 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 30 of 36 04 February 2011 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm keeping my self study a bit of a secret from most people right now, but if anyone does criticize me for not taking classes, I'll ask how classes worked for them. And when they admit that they can't string together two sentences my point will be proven.
6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| yawn Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5361 days ago 141 posts - 209 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, FrenchC2, SpanishC2 Studies: GermanB1 | Message 31 of 36 20 February 2011 at 5:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Honestly, I usually need to take a class at school or have a private tutor come to my place regularly for me to have
sufficient motivation to consistently practice a language. It's just too easy for me to lose motivation when I hit a hard spot in my learning, or to get distracted by something else going on at school or even my regular schoolwork that has nothing to do with foreign languages (think calculus and science problems or English papers...). As much as I hate to admit it, I'm still a normal teenager! :D Edited by yawn on 20 February 2011 at 5:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7056 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 32 of 36 21 February 2011 at 6:50am | IP Logged | ||
I tell them that, no matter whether they attend classes or not, they are still, in essence self-learners. If you want to get good at a language, you have to put in a lot of time into learning outside the classroom too, to seek out opportunities for practice and expansion. If you know what you're doing there is no reason why you can't learn a language without formal classes. There are tons of books out there to help you do just that! I think some people might need classes, if they want to be guided through a program and have a teacher on-hand to explain things, or if they are complete beginners at language learning, but it can be done without. By the way, I am a teacher. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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