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How many people really teach themselves? | ||
Tags: Self-Study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 52 09 March 2011 at 6:44am | IP Logged | ||
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I often see posts from people asking for advice on how to learn languages. Of course, this is the place to ask for help. The subject did get me thinking, however, about the success rate of independent learning.
I'm particularly interested in the effectiveness of the various commercial products available. People here have their favourites, of course. And there is the one highly marketed product whose name starts with R, the mention of which usually unleashes a torrent of disdain here at HTLAL. At the same time, I'm convinced that the majority of self-study products lie unfinished, collecting dust in attics and basements because the buyers gave up pretty quickly. I have sadly come to the conclusion that self-study, despite its effectiveness that many of us can attest here, doesn't work for most people. Any thoughts? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6292 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 52 09 March 2011 at 8:59am | IP Logged | ||
I'm pretty sure you are correct in that statement, except for people who don't have attics or basements, whereupon their stuff is collecting dust elsewhere. ;-) As an unscientific study, in the past I've accumulated a LOT of "used" cassette courses in a lot of languages, since they are generally very cheap on eBay, in used bookstores, yard sales, etc. The overwhelming majority of them have the first cassette wound to somewhere in the middle (or missing, probably left in a cassette player then removed for a "Greatest Hits" tape without returning it to the course case). But the rest of the tape set is still in the plastic shrink-wrap, or all tightly wound to the beginning, obviously unused. As further verification, the book that comes with it may show creasing at the spine for only a chapter or two, and maybe the same for written notes or highlighter, with the rest of the book like new. I think most people who are going on a trip or are walking through a bookstore, etc. think to themselves, "Oh, it would be fun to learn Spanish!" and then when they see that it actually takes some effort to learn vocab and grammar and maybe some funny-looking characters, it gets abandoned pretty quick. I once went to one of those beginner Spanish "evening adult" courses at a local high school (where they also have cooking, Feng Shui, dance classes, etc.). The class was for 2 hours, one day a week, for maybe 8 weeks. I really had to laugh as I saw people dilligently copying down anything that the instructor wrote on the flip-chart ("green = verde, blue = azul..."), knowing full=well that they took it home and only picked it up again to bring to the next class. (There were no grades, this was a "fun" course) I think that the advertising for almost all lang courses (not just "The big R") try to make learning look fun and easy, when we all know that it takes a decent amount of effort, especially at the start when everything is so strange. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll have to go take an inventory of all of those courses I've accumulated and haven't looked at since I got them! Edited by TerryW on 09 March 2011 at 9:35am 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6040 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 3 of 52 09 March 2011 at 10:39am | IP Logged | ||
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'Languages are learned, not taught' [Gethin & Gunnemark]
Our natural curiosity enables us to ask questions about the language, and in the process we discover how it 'works'. But your curiosity is different from mine, and both of ours are different to the teacher's. The teacher cannot do the learning for us. But a language guide can help field our questions and direct our learning. I have practically learned everything on my own. What I'm looking for now is not 'a teacher' or 'a class' but a language guide. Someone with whom I can have one-on-one conversations and who can steer my learning, but not impose a dogmatic regime that I can't identify with. So in answer to the question: Yes, I do. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6638 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 52 09 March 2011 at 10:55am | IP Logged | ||
Actually your first post turn the discussion into another direction, namely "is it common that people buy expensive textbooks in the marketing-induced belief that you can learn languages without investing some time and effort?". And as TerryW I fear that this is seriously high number. But you could say the same thing about those who decide to take a language course. Some drop out, some just come for the social interaction. And both the text book companies and the course providers are of course aware of this. That's how they earn their money. I do however think that there is a substantial number of independent learners out there. The exact number is impossible to estimate because they aren't registrered anywhere, and it is impossible to say how many actually attain some kind of fluency in their target language(s). But most of those who already have learnt English in Denmark continue to use it (which implies that they learn new things). Some modicum of skills in English have simply become a necessity here. Those who have learned other languages ... well, having learned German in school isn't a guarantee for being able to keep it alive later. If I should guess then maybe fifty-fifty chance for keeping such a language at a level where it can be used. Languages which you don't meet often in Denmark - like Italian, Spanish, Russian: few have learned them, but if so then they probably learned them because of some special interest. So I stick to fifty-fifty even here. And the final group: how many actually decide to learn a new language and carry this through to at least basic fluency? Hm.. that's rare,- and I guess most try evening courses unless they already are seasoned langue learners. I actually think that the successrate is less than fifty-fifty here, with or without a course. And those who buy textbooks on a sudden impulse are almost certain to fail. Btw.: the number of students of foreign languages here in Denmark is steadily falling and this has been the trend for many years. Even though we have got the internet I doubt that it can compensate for the loss. Edited by Iversen on 09 March 2011 at 11:04am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6718 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 52 09 March 2011 at 11:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I think the reason people buy books and never use them (or soon abandon them) is because they have no idea where to begin, how to begin learning. In some cases a well written book might give you as much guidance in learning as you need, but in many cases they don't.
Thus when publishers market their goods, prospective learners easily buy into the idea that this book or software (or whatever) is what is going to open this wonderful door of a new language to them, because this is what they really want to believe. And they have no personal experience to rely on, so it seems like it's the way to go. Learners with a little experience are much better at judging the value of a product and better at not buying books that, although useful, they know they are not going to use, because the content might be too boring or it might overlap too much with something else they already have. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 52 09 March 2011 at 11:48am | IP Logged | ||
I would say that a well-written book would give you as much guidance in learning as you need, but that the vast majority of books aren't that well written. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Shenandoah Newbie United States Joined 4962 days ago 30 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 7 of 52 09 March 2011 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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From my experience and that of people I've talked to, it's not just self-study books that
are left collecting dust. It seems that most language classes complete their final day with half or fewer of the students they started with. I don't think it's a matter of self-study or not. I think if the student has sufficient motivation, they will learn, be it through self study or through a course. If the student does not, they will drop it, no matter what method they are using. I also think many (most?) successful classroom learners use self study material in addition to their coursework. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5142 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 52 09 March 2011 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with Shenandoah. Lots of people want to pick up a language (or a musical instrument or whatever) but don't follow it through, and even many of those that do don't stick with it when they realise how much hard work it takes. When I want something enough I'm willing to work hard for a long period of time for it, but people like us seem to be the exception. Whether it's self study or taught doesn't seem to make a big difference: a class may provide the structure and regularity that some people need to motivate them, but they still end up losing enthusiasm sooner or later.
For example, my mum keeps attempting to learn Italian, and she's been to a few evening classes and has some cheap book/software product on her shelf gathering dust. When I saw her a week ago she mentioned having been to a restaurant called La Cucina, which she completely mispronounced. I'm quite sure my Italian from a couple of weeks of self-study is better, purely because I had the motivation to go through with my chosen study method. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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