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Which learning methods are most indelible | ||
Tags: Memory | Learning Technique/Method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| 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 25 of 28 14 June 2011 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Certainly, learning phrases is an essential part of learning any language -- my point is simply that it's not the most appropriate strategy for beginners.
I'd disagree on what may seem to be a small, fiddly point: the fact that the learner memorised a sequence of sounds is beyond dispute. But while to you and me that sequence may be a sequence of words presented in certainly grammatical forms and constructs, the speaker doesn't share that model. As far as she is concerned, she may as well be saying one great big single word.
Speaking the language properly is spontaneously constructing sentences. Parroting a memorised sentence may be a useful skill as a survival strategy, but it has very little value in the long term as it doesn't train you in the process of constructing the sentence. Constructing language is about choosing components, and with a fixed phrase you have no "decision points", or at best one. That's not language! Edit:
That's not the only option. Phrase-based learning is a way of providing false confidence, and it works for a while, but the learner runs out of options. Teaching well will prepare the learner to cope with more situations. As always, "people who have studied languages in school for many years" are subject to bad teaching, so to blame it on a lack of phrases isn't really justified -- after all, many schools do teach phrases. In fact, this is one of the biggest complaints I'm hearing in 20-somethings: they know lots of phrases, but they don't know how to just speak! Edited by Cainntear on 14 June 2011 at 8:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 26 of 28 14 June 2011 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I hate to keep quoting myself but I hate more when I'm not quoted properly. Here is what I said:
"Without getting carried away, we can say that the person has started to speak the language correctly. Of course, we ultimately want the learner to spontaneously create correct phrases. And voilà, that is exactly why I believe a combination of set phrases and analytical study can be so effective. You want the encouraging feedback of immediate communication with the analytical capability to infinitely generate new phrases." I never said that learning a language is just learning a set of phrases. But, unlike Cainntear, I do believe that learning meaningful phrases from Day 1 is helpful. How the learner decodes them initially is really quite irrelevant. That will come with time. What is more important is a) getting used to articulating the phonology and b) acquiring a repertoire of things to say. Let me point out that this is not really new. I'm looking at the 1969 printing of Charles Duff's Spanish for Adults. (It later became Spanish for Beginner). It's an excellent book, by the way. The author combines analytical study with lots of examples that are basically set phrases. And by page 123 introduces some very serious early Spanish literature. The work does not emphasize phonetics, as a more modern work would do, and does show its age. Still, the basic principles are basically the same as what I outlined. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5316 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 27 of 28 15 June 2011 at 1:51am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
For the record, she said something along the lines of "je marche dans la rue". Because there was a slight pause after "je marche", and because we visited a few verbs with different subjects, and a few nouns with a few prepositions, I believe she understood what the various parts meant; at the very least, it wasn't perceived as a single unit by the speaker. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6485 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 28 of 28 16 June 2011 at 1:59am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Sorry to get back on topic, but I find the words I learn when I first start using a tutor to be pretty indelible.
Basically, when I start a language I use Pimsleur/Michel Thomas/Learn in Your car/Podcasts/Movies and have a pretty good starting point to begin real conversation. Then I use a tutor to pick up a couple thousand words. I really like this because I know the words are "real", they come with lots of context, they are the words I grope for, and they are the first words that I truly employ to the max. Maybe that's why they stick so well. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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