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Foreign Language Acquisition Workshop | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5410 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 17 of 24 14 March 2011 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ha ha ha! "Really Johnny, you have to stop this. Getting Rosetta Stoned won't do you any good. I'm disappointed in you." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| polyglossia Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5396 days ago 205 posts - 255 votes Speaks: French* | Message 18 of 24 15 March 2011 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
Could anyone explain what this means??? Sorry, I dont get it! I'm just French ::)) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5410 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 19 of 24 15 March 2011 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
No problem at all, I can understand how it might be confusing for non-native speakers of English. We might sometimes refer to something as being "cheesy" meaning it is a little bit trite or cliché, for example the lyrics of some old romantic songs from the 1950s might now be considered a little bit cheesy. I made up the word "cheesy-sloganometer" to create the image of a device which measures the level of how cheesy a slogan is. If you add the suffix -meter or -ometer to a word, then it would mean it is something which measures the word before the suffix, like a speedometer measures speed for example. I expect it is similar in French with -métre like thermométre? Essentially that sentence you were confused about is just my silly way of saying that my slogan was cheesy. I hope my explanation helps. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 20 of 24 18 March 2011 at 2:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not sure if a generic workshop on learning foreign languages is a good idea. Although I might be interested in something like this, I'm not sure how many people would attend.
That said, I must say that lately at our regular French-English weekly meetup group in Montreal one of the members who really knows his stuff has been conducting 30 minute workshops in specific points of English and French grammar. A few of us go off to a corner of the room and this guy walks us through the topic of the day. I enjoy these mini-workshops because the topics are usually at quite a high level and it's stuff that I can take and use immediately--and I mean this literally. As much as I enjoy just talking at these meetups most of the time it's really learners talking to other learners. Good but not always very useful. These workshops add a little substance to the conversations. Along these lines, what I would enjoy something like a half or whole day workshop on "How to learn Spanish efficiently" where we would focus on techniques for learning the language. This would be an alternative to taking a weekly class on the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| accentreduction Newbie United States accentreduction Joined 5000 days ago 9 posts - 5 votes | Message 21 of 24 18 March 2011 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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i am also suffered from this kind of problem but now my understanding level and some speaking level is growing up ...such workshops are somehow beneficial for me...
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| etracher Triglot Groupie Italy Joined 5326 days ago 92 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Modern Hebrew, Russian, Latvian | Message 22 of 24 25 March 2011 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Arekkusu, I think that your idea for such a workshop is an excellent one, although perhaps s allard is right that few people would be interested in attending such a workshop. I have recently been considering organising something of this sort myself, but have not got around to doing it.
I have been teaching English in Italy for about ten years and one thing that I have noticed is that very often people are just not sure what exactly they ought to do when they are "studying" a language. In many cases it seems that people come across information, in their texts, in the classroom, in conversations, but that they don't know what to do with that information. Many seem to think that studying a language is more or less the same as studying for a history exam. One important aspect of this job is helping students to become more effective learners. Of course there are many people, such as many of those on this forum, who have experience and have developed their own way of doing things, but Sprachprofi is right when she says that "the average Joe" often doesn't know where to begin. Thus I think this sort of workshop would be useful. Here are just a few practical things that come to mind as far as what I might do for such a workshop, in no particular order: 1) Different ways to use materials. For example, various ways to use the listening materials in a textbook or from some other source: listening with no text, listening with text, listening with L1 text, shadowing, listening and then summarizing in L2 everything you have understood, listening and taking notes in L2. Even with very ordered and programmatic textbooks, there are many ways that they can be used and many people don't realise that. 2) Information about using technology, internet, SRS, searching for online resources. 3) Different ways of studying vocabulary. 4) Using the language in their daily lives, formulating sentences in their heads in order to begin "thinking" in the target language and putting the things they have learned into practice in a meaningful way. 5) Dispelling certain misconceptions that people might have about learning a language. What sort of ideas do you have for the workshop, Arekkusu? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5373 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 23 of 24 25 March 2011 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with you; most people see language acquisition as a scholarly and intellectual task, when it's actually quite a practical, hands-on process. Although everyone speaks a language, the vast majority of people know absolutely nothing about languages and readily make the wildest, unfounded claims. So I would first present a very quick overview and debunk some myths. Because most people don't know where to start, I hope that I after the workshop, they have a better idea of what they need to do. My goal would be to provide them with a sense of autonomy. I believe that no matter what method you use, if you maintain a sense of control over your studies, you're more likely to succeed. I think the most common mistake people make is to forget that the language needs to be meaningful in their life. If they have no idea what kind of language they need to know to express themselves, or if they fail to avoid the language that they don't need, they are bound to waste time -- and wasting time is a huge demotivator. I would try to cover all the things you mentioned. Earlier this week, I wrote a post about what I do when I learn a language, and I think you'll find it's surprisingly similar to the things you list above. While I want to present my vision of what works, it's obvious from this site that many successful polyglots have conflicting views, so I want to cover some of their views as well, hoping the students form their own opinion. Again, autonomy is my goal. I've also considered doing an experiment. I'd ask half the class to leave for 5 minutes, present them with some vocab, which they'd probably instinctively write down, then send them out and bring in the other half, and teach them the new information with a more meaningful approach. At the end of the whole workshop, I'd test them to see the difference. The only problem is that I'd need to test this before so I don't look like a fool it it fails !!! Edited by Arekkusu on 25 March 2011 at 11:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5552 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 24 of 24 26 March 2011 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
You could just be honest, and say you are conducting ongoing research into finding the best method. I imagine there are a few different methods you could try. Or do a test on the whole class at the start, and then an equivalent test at the end, after they've benefited from all your coaching (now that could be embarassing if it went wrong, but obviously it won't). You should also get them to fill out questionaires beforehand, on how they traditionally go about language learning and vocabulary acquisition, and then you will be able to do some interesting comparisons. And then you could continue to monitor their progress over the decades that follow, to see how they progress, in comparison to your control group. Then write a book about language acquisition. Don't forget to mention me now. Edited by schoenewaelder on 26 March 2011 at 5:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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