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List-ology: the best ’learning lists’? | ||
Tags: Hit List | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6002 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 17 of 24 10 May 2011 at 12:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Q. Why do many teachers hate dictionaries?
A. Because many students spend too long looking through dictionaries rather than learning the words they should know. Q2. What's the difference between a dictionary and a word list? A2. A dictionary is bigger. For the most part, we use word lists as a substitute for learning. Clever teaching can keep the number of new words low, and reuse them in various contexts until they stick. Consider the alphabet itself as your archetype of a list. You could teach A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z and repeat ad nauseum. Or you could start with CD. Then go to DVD (revise D, introduce V). Then TV (revise V, introduce T). Lists do have their place, but as Jan Arjen Mondria quite convincingly argues, categorical lists lead to confusion. For a teacher, the best use for a list is to get students familiar with the words they're going to need for upcoming coursework. In general, you don't get natural pieces of writing that use 6 different colours or 10 pieces of fruit, so your lists shouldn't need these either. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5409 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 18 of 24 10 May 2011 at 12:51am | IP Logged | ||
Could you please try and relink that? It comes up with a file not found type error. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6694 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 19 of 24 10 May 2011 at 2:22am | IP Logged | ||
Well, yes and no. My wordlist layout is basically neutral when it comes to the choice of words, and it allows for different memorization techniques. But I see this as an advantage rather than a problem. You will learn the most common words in a language through the texts you read and (maybe) the talk you hear. You will get function words and irregular words from your grammar, if you use grammars. The strong point of wordlists, SRS programs and things like that is to teach you the rest of the words. And the order there is not very inmportant - a rare word may be more important than a more common one if it belongs to one of your interest areas. And learning 100 names of flowers in a row from a thematic list will just confuse you - read a book about flowers instead so that you can get some memorable information and a picture along with each word. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| palfrey Senior Member Canada Joined 5264 days ago 81 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 20 of 24 10 May 2011 at 2:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Cainntear may have been referring to this 2007 article by Jan-Arjen Mondria, Myths about vocabulary acquisition. Edited by palfrey on 10 May 2011 at 2:51am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JanKG Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5758 days ago 245 posts - 280 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 21 of 24 10 May 2011 at 7:34am | IP Logged | ||
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OK, ladies and gents, there is quite some interesting stuff in your contributions. The overall teneur (can't imagine what the English word would be) seems to be that we should not consider the contents of lists that important, I think; we should make sure they're useful and they're trained time and again. I agree, I think. I think they can be some kind of summary after a lesson, or a semantic network.
But I suddenly realize I have been working on special lists with comments, documents in fact. The kind of lists I have been developing are (a) lists designed to introduce students to a topic by giving them a 'semantic network' allowing them to discuss the topic (b) a list based on the same stem that might help them to integrate and 'internalise' what they have learnt before (c) lists of words linked with the same topic of even concept , often kind of synonyms but fairly different in use, sometimes only linked 'conceptually' - and they may in turn lead to (d) lists based on sequences, like seeing, judging and acting , very common in all kinds of formal articles, but never focused on communicational textbooks I must admit it is some kind of hobby for me in that it allows me to focus on a aspect of language or reality, and explore it - and it proves useful and/or interesting to both learners and native speakers, because the list is only part of a documents, containing texts where I discuss the words' meaning, semantic, sometimes cultural. I use them for interpreters and they like it. I have devised a list accompanied by loose sentences that I use to show the word in a sentence and give a clear hint of their meaning. That one is often found useful by students as well. While writing this I was reminded of the Englishman in Czechia, who used a children's encyclopedia to learn Czech; But where can I find that youtube-video again? [I found it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kzjn7kCAtU&feature=related] Reading Mondria has provided me with some very useful hints, and maybe Iversens' suggestion might be a first step towards the shoe-box method suggested by Mondria. Edited by JanKG on 10 May 2011 at 11:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6694 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 22 of 24 10 May 2011 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||
I have had good experiences with wordlists based on single words or word combinations (those which just as well could be single words), but less with lists based on expressions. There may be a need to learn "chunks", which have been discussed in an earlier thread, i.e. short expressions that turn up again and again in normal speech or writing, and which can be used to make your speech seem more coherent - I guess d) above refers to these constructions. Wordlists with wide columns or SRS can be used for this. But I don't believe in learning complete sentences en bloc. On the other hand a) and maybe c) are thematical, and as I suggested with my flower book example I think thematic words are best learned from works that describe the corresponding phenomena. Afterwards you can of course fill out your 'holes' by going through a thematical list, but only as a mopping up operation. Finally b) can be used in some case - for instance I once filled a sheet with words based on the Russian stem "пис" (all kinds of words for writing and writers). But I prefer taking a few words at a time. For instance I always quote perfective and imperfective words together in my Russian wordlists, and if I don't know all components of long words I try to look them up. It is much easier to remember a compound word after having memorized its root(s). In many grammars (especially older ones) there are long lists of words with a specific behaviour, and they can be learnt using wordlists or SRS programs. But even here I think that it is better to take them in small doses. For instance Latin irregular verbs can be learnt with their three or four main forms - but I wouldn't try to learn more than for instance a dozen of these form-sets at any one time. Edited by Iversen on 10 May 2011 at 5:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6694 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 23 of 24 10 May 2011 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | ||
My wordlists don't look like dictionaries, and that's because the idea is to write them yourself, dropping information which you don't intend to learn here and now. Besides I have built some repetition into the layout. However I guess you refer to wordlists made by others, typically just as long columns with words plus maybe a translation if you are lucky. And typically no other information, such as morphological hints or examples which every decent dictionary contains. I don't use such wordlists because they are uninformative and boring. Actually I have the same reservations about most of the 'language courses' on Youtube. Some native speaker rattles off 20 expressions that can be used for buying things or the names of 20 flowers or whatever. I would prefer either a real dictionary or a text of some kind about the subject. Edited by Iversen on 10 May 2011 at 5:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JanKG Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5758 days ago 245 posts - 280 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 24 of 24 10 May 2011 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, Sr iversen;-), let me just point out:
- d is not so much about whole sentences, only about verbs used, maybe chunks indeed - a/c agreed: not meant as introduction, meant for intermediate levels, and part of descriptive texts - d : mnemonic indeed There is a danger indeed about long lists. And integration into a text is what i try, but I admit: it is often an explanatory text based on a list. I still need to work on that... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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