|
 |
Finding your own way | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| janalisa Triglot Senior Member France janafadness.com/blog Joined 6882 days ago 284 posts - 466 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Japanese Studies: Russian, Norwegian | Message 1 of 5 04 December 2010 at 2:43am | IP Logged | ||
|
There are all kinds of great study methods out there, and it's easy to be convinced that any one of them could be "the right one" because they really did work for the people who came up with them, who all have amazing success stories. These people are the great polyglots who inspire us, who we all strive to be like-- and so we imitate their methods hoping to get similar results.
Now personally, I've tried all kinds of different things inspired by all kinds of different people, but I've always found that, whenever I try to follow a method prescribed by someone else, I slip up at some point. At some point the method starts to feel restrictive, and I just can't keep going with it. I think the reason for this is neither because these methods are insufficient, nor is it due to a lack of talent or motivation on my part. I think it's simply because I am not any of the people who invented these methods, and I cannot learn in the same way they can. I think the real reason these people have been so successful is because they've each found their own unique way to learn, that's best suited to them as individuals. And it's likely that no one will be as successful with any of these methods as the people who first came up with them. It's great to get ideas and inspiration from other people, and I think that's where we all need to start. We can build our own methods from variations of existing methods (which is pretty much all anyone does, really). But I think that ultimately, if we really want to be great language learners, we eventually have to step out and find our own unique way to learn. Only then can we join the ranks of the great polyglots we all admire here. What do you all think about this? Do you agree/disagree? Also, if you are someone who has managed to find your own unique study method, can you give us any hints as to how we can get there, too? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearX2 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5100 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Italian, English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 2 of 5 04 December 2010 at 4:26am | IP Logged | ||
|
You make a very valid point. The way I see it, it's unlikely that the same exact method
would work for two different people. This happens because people have different learning styles, time, ability to pick things up at different speeds, etc. People can recommend certain types of learning such as listening, reading, or learning vocab put not necessarily the specifics of how to study each facet of the language or how much. I, personally, am new to the language learning experience so I haven't yet perfected my learning method. I'm just using information from here and learning as I go along. In a way, learning how to learn a language, is just as important as learning the language itself. Otherwise, you would probably waste a lot of time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| arturs Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 5263 days ago 278 posts - 408 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English | Message 3 of 5 04 December 2010 at 6:49am | IP Logged | ||
|
I read and research many learning strategies in order to work out my own strategy and routine. I really like all the methods that the polyglots promote, especially I like Moses' FLR Technique, but I don't use it completely - I just take the elements I think will work for me.
But there is a concept that many people don't speak about. Since I'm also in to all the bodybuilding stuff I'd like to compare bodybuilding to language learning. In muscle building there is no big secret that it becomes ineffective to use one training program for more than 3 months and this is a thing that everyone should know about, since learning languages can be seen as training your brain and after 3-4 months the brain gets used to it, just like muscles stop responding when you workout with the same program for a long time of period. And when you change it, you're giving a shock to your muscles to grow again. Now can this be also true with language learning, that you must change something in order to shock your brain that was used to the same learning routine? I think YES!! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 5 04 December 2010 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I don't think the problem is that we all learn differently -- I think humans are more similar than they are different. I mean, heck, we share almost 95% of our DNA with chimpanzees.
What I think is going on here is two things: 1) People vary in their ability to tolerate the inefficiencies of suboptimal methods. For example, memorising a verb table is not "learning" the conjugations of the verbs -- it's just memorising the material to learn from later. Some people can learn successfully from memorised tables, but others have problems memorising the tables. In either case, memorising the tables takes more effort than learning the conjugations (because you have to do two things rather than just one) so is suboptimal. It is a useful strategy in certain circumstances, but it is still suboptimal. 2) People are quite bad at telling you what they're doing. Sometimes we forget that we've done something at all and omit it by accident. Sometimes we say "I do this, but it's not important" and omit it on purpose. Sometimes we make lists of the things we do, but neglect to mention the order we do them in. The end result is that when we try to formalise "what we do", what we're left with is often an inaccurate charicature. On this forum and elsewhere, I've had long arguments with various people about what works and what doesn't. Usually, the other person has picked a single activity or principle and defined it as the "core" of his method. But as the argument goes on, it slowly becomes apparent that both of us do pretty much the same things, but the other person believes these are side issues. In truth, most language learners do very, very similar things with a few superficial differences. A few extreme cases may have a radically different regimen, but you can't prove a general rule with a few outliers.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6143 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 5 of 5 07 December 2010 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree. You must use your own learning strategy to become competent in a language. I don't believe in the prescriptive approach, as in, "you must do X in order to learn". However, as authors use literary techniques to produce their great works, so should a language learner adapt various methods into his own study. As he does so, he'll probably stumble across a new technique, or adaption of an existing one, worth sharing with the rest of us. Eventually we'll develop the great canon of learning techniques. Edited by DaraghM on 07 December 2010 at 3:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
