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Drawbacks of Major Language Materials | ||
Tags: Textbooks | Language Program | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Eternica Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5071 days ago 24 posts - 74 votes  Speaks: Cantonese, English*, French Studies: Hungarian, Spanish | Message 1 of 38 17 October 2012 at 1:31am | IP Logged | ||
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The question is: what are the disadvantages of each of the major language learning
materials? When it comes to language learning, we all love discussing which resources are excellent and share advice on how to better facilitate the entire language learning process. However, I want to delve more deeply and in a more organized manner on the shortcomings of common language learning materials. So why this negative question? First, I would like to say that I believe that persistence, consistency, hard work, passion, and attitude are by far, the key to success in language learning. No amount of language learning software or materials will ever make these irrelevant. Now the answer to the why: my main interest is in how to IMPROVE language learning courses. No matter how responsible to individual learner is, the teaching side can ALWAYS make things easier. Otherwise, you wouldn't have loads of students complaining that "the foreign language education in country X sucks." I don't want this to be a post filled with sympathy, but the reason why I am interested in this so much is because I've been inflicted with a medical condition that prevents me from leaving the house, so that rules out most careers. It's been over a year and I haven't been handling this well. In addition, I suffer from self-esteem issues due to having failed at nearly everything I've tried. Upon very deep reflecting these past couple of weeks, I realized a large portion of this is because I did not have a deep passion in any of these areas. I tried them mostly due to societal and family pressure. Then, it hit me. Why haven't I considered what I spend nearly half my day doing? Languages. I recently graduated from university. Despite my medical condition, I am thankful for two things: no debt (actually a small amount of capital to develop my ideas) and understanding parents providing me with a roof over my head despite being jobless. I want to create a language learning program/product that carefully addresses each of the shortcomings of the major language learning resources out there. Since beginning a language is the hardest point and I strongly believe in the value of learning a foreign language, I plan on making my beginner resources completely free. I am already in the process of making these resources in French, Cantonese, and Hungarian, though I'll probably develop the Cantonese course first since it is my second native tongue (so I can personally record audio, whereas I will need native speaker help for other languages), and Hungarian second due to my love for that language. Alright, so let me start with my thoughts: Assimil: one of the best resources for an experienced language learner. However, the only audio source are the dialogues. Very few drills. No further help on how to "learn" the dialogue (or what the goal of the dialog is: should the listener learn the important phrases? All the phrases? The grammar in the phrases? The important words? Memorizing the dialogue by heart? Understanding the dialogue perfectly?) Teach Yourself/Colloquial: two also great resources for the experienced learner. Could be a bit grammar heavy at times. Only audio for the initial dialogue in each chapter. More drills, but still has the same potential problem as in Assimil. FSI: BORING. Drilling is also "predictable", which makes it lose a bit of effectiveness. You need iron will to go through this program. Beginner language learners often don't have this. Otherwise, still a great resource. LingQ: again, great for an experienced language learner. However, R-L for beginners is troublesome: there is very little direction. Pimsleur: effective in "printing" material into the minds of the listener. Lacks in depth of material. Material is also overly formal and touristy. Michel Thomas: his non-native pronunciation (though some may argue about this for certain of the languages)! Slow (not as slow as Pimsleur). Many say it does not cover much material. The students may be annoying. Rosetta Stone: everything. Okay, half joking, but lots of useless sentences. Complete TL approach not necessarily the best. Grammar knowledge is also slow. Many online packages (Fluenz, Babbel, Tell me More, Rocket Languages, even DuoLingo, etc.): someone please tell me: why do these language courses always have an "animals" category near the beginning? It doesn't take a team of 90+ people to realize that this represents horrible prioritizing. I really don't care how to say "kangaroo" or even "dog" in the beginning. Besides that rant, there's the same problem as Assimil: they throw you material, but they mostly don't have (besides gimmicky games, in my opinion) drills that make it super easy for the beginner to memorize them. Also, I feel the structure of most of these courses are inefficient. I don't know if anyone agrees with me (if you disagree with anything here and explain why, I will appreciate it to no end), but starting with how to say "I don't speak X" and then introducing myself is so predictable as to be boring. I'd rather throw myself right in to some decent authentic small talk material like "What's up?" and then "Where do you want to go right now?". Other inefficiencies: not much focus nor explanation on informal language (speech reductions, for example) and slang. So, I feel the main problem is bridging the gap between "here's the material" and "how do I memorize this?" This is why Michel Thomas and Pimsleur are effective. This is why Assimil and TY may be a bit too difficult and discouraging for the language novice. In my opinion, most of my language learning philosophy shares characteristics with the Michel Thomas Method. I strongly believe in starting slow, focus on "building blocks", and tons of concentrated practice. I am VERY surprised that very few people have emulated such a method. There are indeed two excellent Spanish courses out there: Synergy Spanish and Learning Spanish Like Crazy. However, I have not seen such an approach in ANY other language. Although many argue that Michel Thomas doesn't cover much material, I am an extreme advocate of Quality over Quantity, especially when it comes to language. I believe that one should know how to use a phrase/word with 120% proficiency before learning too much stuff. That, or at least be super proficient in a core group of phrases. This may give you an idea on what I'm planning on doing. Anyways, I'm looking forward to hearing the perspectives of each one of you guys in the forum. I just want to emphasize to evaluate these language learning programs from a holistic perspective. You may love a certain program, but try to pick out what POTENTIAL problems there are, especially for beginners, like most of what I did. Edited by Eternica on 17 October 2012 at 11:01am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4431 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 2 of 38 17 October 2012 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd say there are many language courses like Assimil and Assimil itself which are actually ace. It's how I
plan to learn Hungarian, a rather difficult language to learn considering it's an agglutanative language and I don't speak any yet. I learned Malay in a method very similar to Assimil. The thing about a resource is that it seldom if ever could be perceived as a complete resource. No spoken language is limited to a single book, and so long as the student work through the majority of a single resource, he can devise ways, with only a little curiosity, to find other resources to fill in the lacunae of his knowledge. Categories of vocabulary, by the way, are totally arbitrary and aren't easily bungled by an awry order of introduction. I read one resource that said numbers should be introduced last along with time-telling expressions. This can only be decent advice if the student plans to avoid numbers for a month or two. Eventually, if the student is working actively (re: daily) on his language, the order shouldn't matter much because the way that he learns should strive towards an ideal of eidetic memory. The way I remember specific words, like numbers, whose names nearly always have to be memorized between zero and ten, is by using them. Writing them in context, hearing them, telling the time to native speakers who pass me at the bookstore. Categories as a whole are more helpful than a phonebook of words. But my personal philosophy is that it matters less what the resource propounds and more what the learner can discern. Sometimes resources, whether written or audio-visual, are wrong, or use expressions or contexts which are infrequent or outdated. The student will correct his knowledge on his first encounter with it. But there is limit on perfection, and as time passes, perfection will be eroded. Any language I have ever been totally serious about I have plenty more than one primary resource for learning and the pitfalls of one are never so grave that I do away with it. I just choose to heed the level of understanding that the writer is imparting and make a mental note that there is more to learn about the particular subject at hand, like learning the simple past tense in English. Add -ed. But just for this week. Next week we get into the irregular verbs in the simple past (i.e. am/was). Until the student can immerse himself into the language through pop culture, visit or move to a speech community of the target language, or contact native speakers of the language, formal language will persist and be perfectly understood by native speakers. Often, I find that they are polite enough not to point out any formal language that is seldom used in the speech community and just emphasize their usage of the more common, colloquial phrase. How about in Québéc where people call lettuce la salade, not la laitue? Where else but in any one of the hundreds of classic québécois films or québécois dictionaries am I apt to find this before witnessing it? Nowhere. But I can't seek out every québécois film that features a scene of adolescents ordering at a Subway restaurant to glean the unexpected colloquialism nor can I seek it in a dictionary without prior knowledge of its occurrence. There are gaps in language learning that must be overcome by direct participation with a language culture. There are speech communities and media. But I have never expected any number of resources to be complete, let alone any singular tome or series. My suggestion is that you write a journal or log about your own language-learning method and see if there is something novel to sell. Otherwise, I suggest you produce a language learning resource all the same without the presumption that there is any necessarily novel method of learning that will allow your resource to triumph over the many many others that you may never even come across. In business terms, it is a red ocean market. Edited by mahasiswa on 17 October 2012 at 2:49am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 38 17 October 2012 at 2:53am | IP Logged | ||
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One could probably say that I've gone past this stage ever since I've come to accept that the "big names" in publishing aren't all that interested in providing courses that deliver on their implied promises. The only grand slam that I've experienced in a course from one of the "big names" is TY Estonian. The rest have been usable (and recommendable with some qualifications) to middling to absolute POS.
Consider courses that are typically published outside a subsidiary or imprint of the Anglosphere's publishing oligarchy as in these examples. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Eternica Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5071 days ago 24 posts - 74 votes Speaks: Cantonese, English*, French Studies: Hungarian, Spanish | Message 4 of 38 17 October 2012 at 3:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for these excellent responses so far. Assimil is one of my favorite language
learning resources. I'm just tearing it apart because I love it so much and to note why a beginner might have trouble with it. A good point made is that a successful language learner will always utilize a variety of language learning resources. This is why it's not a big deal if a certain resource is not perfect. One of the hardest parts of language learning is starting, and a beginner would typically try to concentrate on one resource. This is why I'm so interested in picking apart all the possible drawbacks. I'm mainly concentrating on how a resource can serve an ignorant beginner. I am fully conscious that no resource is by any means perfect or anywhere close to any reasonable definition of perfect. I know many of the big names have questionable quality. However, they are still successful in certain ways (apart from the marketing), which explains why there are still many buyers beyond the trial period. I want to take the best elements of these and try to forge away from their flaws. I also know that I might seem to be trying to make a completely revolutionary product, but I will never lose track that the product must serve its purpose. I know I'm not going to take over the language learning market. If a modern technique works, I'm not going to rid of it just for novelty sake. Anyways, thanks for giving me some ideas for lesser known names. I'll be sure to check them out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6150 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 5 of 38 17 October 2012 at 10:04am | IP Logged | ||
Paul Noble was "inspired" by Michel Thomas, and addressed some of these issues in his courses. He doesn't use students and he also uses native speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 38 17 October 2012 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd disagree with the idea of Michel Thomas not teaching much material. You learn an amazing amount in just 8 hours, especially considering that almost all of it sticks. The advanced courses are even more dense, although I found that I retained less of the material afterwards. Although most of it is structure and verb forms as opposed to diverse vocabulary, so maybe that's where the idea comes from.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 38 17 October 2012 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | ||
Woohoo! Cookies and hugs for creating Cantonese material! I'd say the major drawback of almost all language learning materials out there is that they don't adapt to the student. They're one-size-fits-all programs. None of them say "Oh, you like cars? Let's talk about cars!" or "You seem to have problems with the subjunctive. Let's do some lessons that focuses more on that" or "How about we try a lesson with quicker speech? See if you can keep up". The one program I know of that does some of that that is ChinesePod, and they do it by having literally thousands of lessons and letting the students choose for themselves what to study. I think the future of language programs is in using software that adapts to the learner, but I also think that's something you need a big company and lots of cash to be able to produce, so it might not be the thing for you to focus on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 8 of 38 17 October 2012 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||
Someday we may be able to sit down in a comfortable spot and say "I want to learn German". Up will pop a hologram or two of Georgian speakers with a Berlin backdrop. A tried and true method will be used to impart the basics and the "course" will be individualized and personalized by the computer. I don't think I'll live that long. There's a lot of room for improvement in what exists out there. I think language learners should stop expecting or waiting for the perfect or near-perfect course and develop their own approach using multiple sources with a course serving as a mere foundation- not the begin all and end all. Look at what emk is doing with subs2srs right now and the super-challenge with its emphasis on massive input. Someday a computer program will be developed that is advanced enough to provide those customized multiple resources to learners so that the learner doesn't have to do that work him or her self. For now, I believe it is more than worth a language learner's time and effort to create that environment. Many learners aren't willing or, feel they are not able, to put in that amount of time and effort. As a result, they rely too much on their course and are unprepared for the real world of the language outside the course. Courses should explicitly recognize and ideally integrate native reading and media along the way. Eternica, cheers to you for trying to build a better course. There's definitely a need out there and I wish you the best of luck. Edited by iguanamon on 17 October 2012 at 1:44pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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