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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes  Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 1 of 5 15 September 2012 at 8:10pm | IP Logged |
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Does anybody of you use schoolbooks (written for native kids) in their learning process? I've been using
schoolbooks for some time now and find them both useful and enjoyable. They've got a lot going for them: - Schoolbooks contain relatively accessible language, but are written by and for native speakers - Schoolbooks are entirely in your L2, and they don't focus on language itself (unless you pick that subject, but I usually leave that one out) - Schoolbooks teach the culture and world views of your target culture, which may be quite interesting - Schoolbooks often contain pictures, graphs, diagrams etc., visualizing the content - Schoolbooks present topics in many different ways, through text explanation, pictures, stories, exercises, group work etc. - Schoolbooks present topics in easily digestible chunks Schoolbooks can be used in many different ways: you can just read them, you can use them for scriptorum, you can mine them for vocabulary, sentence fragments and phrases, you can do the exercises given and consider it a writing (or speaking) exercise, you can use them as a basis for discussions with a tutor etc. As a random example, right now I've got a book on something like "Sport and Health" for primary school grade 1 Thai kids in front of me. It contains the following sections: body parts, parts of the mouth, how to take care of your body (washing, taking a shower, brushing your teeth etc.), family members, love and support in families, good and bad character traits, difference of boys and girls wrt. body, emotions and hobbies, motion and movement in humans, animals and plants, movements of body parts, physical exercise, games, safety when exercising, usefulness of physical exercise, five types of food, how to stay healthy, how to behave when being sick, dangers in and around the house, dangers at school, dangers when playing sports and games, how to call for help when something has happened. The section on motion and movements, for instance, introduces various forms of movement seen in animals and plants. Then it continues with human movements like crawling, jumping, standing, running, swimming etc., and at the end it discusses the usefulness of being able to move for animals, plants and humans. Along the way, they introduce the profession of a vet in their "professions worth knowing"-section. There are quite a few pictures of moving animals and humans, and a few questions to discuss in class. As you can see, this is a gold mine of comprehensible input. Just wanted to share the idea... Edited by Bakunin on 15 September 2012 at 8:11pm 11 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 5 15 September 2012 at 8:36pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, Gunnemark also recommended them, especially those for history and geography.
I've not tried them but it seems cool! Will probably look for something like that in Finland when I finally get around to learning Swedish:) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4490 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 5 16 September 2012 at 4:32am | IP Logged |
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This is an interesting idea, especially for languages for which there may not be a good series of graded readers made explicitly for foreign language learning.
The only downside I can see is the fact that it might be easy to underestimate the passive vocabulary of even grade school children, which might make even the lower level books not really comprehensible (90%+). So they might best be used after some intensive vocabulary learning rather than immediately after learning the script and pronunciation. However I think the OP knows this and is using them a little later in his learning process. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5845 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 5 16 September 2012 at 8:29am | IP Logged |
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I find it an excellent idea, but I generally don't have access to school books in my foreign languages. The only exeption is that I bought in the Netherlands training books for pupils to prepare the Dutch school exmans in German, English and French. These books are full of exercises for texts comprehension and text interpretaion (by using multiple choice questions).
Fasulye 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| grunts67 Diglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5300 days ago 215 posts - 252 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 5 of 5 17 September 2012 at 6:11am | IP Logged |
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It could be interesting since I find reader so expansive. You can pay 15/20$ for a reader with the audio CD but it's only 40-50 pages. If you study a romance language, you could possibly finish that in less than 2 weeks. Not the best value for your money in my opinion. School text book will be bigger and probably a better value.
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