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Self-teaching methods declared useless | ||
Tags: Rosetta Stone | Self-Study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 1 of 81 23 June 2011 at 9:58am | IP Logged |
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I was looking at the French Today blogs, and found an article about learning methods. The author declares that self-learning methods are useless for French. Here is the quote:
3- Self-teaching methods Pros: Cost. Convenience. Fun to use. Cons: You will not learn French. No feedback. No grammar. No real person. Who has not seen a box of Rosetta Stone for sale in a mall? While self-instruction methods can be a great complement to a formal instruction, I strongly believe none of them can teach you French by itself. Why? No feedback. How will you know you pronounce the words correctly? The voice graph? Talk of a scam! They pick up your voice modulation, not your pronunciation... Worse, these methods often lack any solid grammatical structure, and you cannot master French without it. Other languages? Maybe. But not French. And everything is being "fed" to you: you'll never come up with a subject of conversation: that is not how real life works! So, again, let me reinforce my message: they make great complements of lessons: you’ll learn new vocabulary, they will reinforce things you’ve learned, they are fun to use. But they are not efficient on their own. Of course, whatever you get, audio is a must. This comes from http://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/how-to-pick-the-very-best-le arning-method-and-avoid-scams Edited by Jeffers on 23 June 2011 at 9:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6517 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 81 23 June 2011 at 10:45am | IP Logged |
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If the author's primary contact with self-learning is Rosetta Stone, I can hardly blame them for their conclusions. The "these methods often lack any solid grammatical structure" clearly shows very limited familiarity with self-teaching materials.
The first time I spoke Mandarin to someone I was able to hold a pretty good conversation. That is, I reached a conversational level with everything being "fed" to me. I see no reason why this would not be feasible in French. 19 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5353 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 3 of 81 23 June 2011 at 4:05pm | IP Logged |
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It seems to me she is just using the blog as an excuse to sell her own stuff. She only
cites Rosetta Stone as an example of a self-teaching method, points out the specific deficiencies in it, and then out of nowhere extrapolates them to every other self- teaching method. Funny how at the very end of the article she says, "I would get some simple, level- adapted audio self-teaching tools for self-instruction to study on the side", and then links to the self-teaching tools which she sells on the site. She seems to think that only classes will properly equip you for conversing with people which is utter nonsense. You just need to speak to someone who speaks the language you are learning and your speaking will improve, you don't need to speak to a teacher in order to learn how to speak, though it can have its advantages, price not being one of them. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 4 of 81 23 June 2011 at 6:09pm | IP Logged |
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Jazz, I think you've hit the nail on the head. It is a bit ironic that a website that sells self-learning material would have an article speaking out against self-learning material.
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6517 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 5 of 81 23 June 2011 at 9:32pm | IP Logged |
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Come to think of it, I studied French for six years in school (that is, with a teacher), but it wasn't until I took a Uni class that was full-time but with only two lessons a week (you were thus expected to study about 30 hours a week by yourself) that I managed to learn the language. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Ms. "self-study is useless"!
7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 81 23 June 2011 at 9:51pm | IP Logged |
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You made me laugh out loud Ari. Of course when you were taking a class in Uni, you were probably more motivated to succeed by that point, which is the one ingredient which makes the most difference, no matter what method you use.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| carlonove Senior Member United States Joined 5921 days ago 145 posts - 253 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 7 of 81 24 June 2011 at 10:14pm | IP Logged |
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I'm still amazed by the number of people that have never heard of the many wonderful series we take for granted on HTLAL: Assimil, Linguaphone, Colloquial, etc (even among language teachers and professionals). A lot of people simply haven't ever been presented with any alternative to the idea that you don't have to ship off to a different country or study 8 hours a day for years on end to gain a good proficiency in another language.
Edited by carlonove on 25 June 2011 at 2:30am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| petteri Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4867 days ago 117 posts - 208 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: German, Spanish | Message 8 of 81 27 June 2011 at 7:39am | IP Logged |
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Background to the statement 'self-learning methods are useless' is possibly that over 99 % of students who start self-learning language courses cannot complete them. I can hardly think anyone who has not previously learned at least one foreign language to advanced fluency to succeed without any teacher or group support.
To learn language to somehow useful (B1 or up) level requires hundreds of hours of practice, preferably at the rate of more than 10 hours a week. When studying language abroad it is easy to make such effort. From self-learner effort of over 10 hours a week for period of several months requires really much. I have studied three languages to advanced or intermediate level. I think languages have some kind of "intermediate plateau" to break. I think I broke the plateau in English when I was in language course in Brighton being 17 years old and having studied English at school for 8 years. In Swedish language I broke the plateau after 6 years of studying at school just before Finnish student examination, then I made quite a good study effort in pretty short time. In German language I broke the barrier after 6 years of studying when I worked in Switzerland for a summer. I started self-studying Spanish five weeks ago and have been able to make at least half an hour effort to learn the language every day and studied on average maybe 10-15 hours a week. I have used several methods, Pimsleur, which defines minimum effort (1/2 hour a day), listening Casa Rojas podcasts on the way to work, reading Spanish frequency dictionary, Platiquemos and bought Mario Vargas Llosa's novel for reading as well. To my experience self-studying seems to be far more effective than learning language at school. I know that I can break the intermediate plateau if I just go on like this but it is really hard to study language as almost part-time job, no wonder that really few self-learners succeed. Here is my list what self-learning foreign language requires. 1) High motivation - learning a new language requires consistent work for months 2) Time - bare minimum is five hours a week, over 10 hours a week is really required for good results 3) Extreme self discipline - studying every day is almost must 4) Good combination of learning material and methods - There really is no single language course which takes the learner there. 5) Previous language learning experience with good results. 11 persons have voted this message useful |
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