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New learning methods in the near future | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 1 of 42 23 June 2011 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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As technology continues to progress at an exponetial rate, new advances will permit more sophisticated language learning systems or methods in the decades ahead.
What kind of advances do you foresee or would like to see? How could we improve today's methods to allow for more efficient learning? How do you envision the next generations of learning methods? Edited by Arekkusu on 23 June 2011 at 9:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5981 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 2 of 42 23 June 2011 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think modern technology has done a lot to help with the cheap and easy transmission of information. I have access to a whole range of native materials that simply wouldn't have been possible fifteen or twenty years ago. But I'm not sure if technology has actually made the act of learning any more efficient. Technology is really just a tool for searching and sorting the information, the methods of putting this information into your brain have probably not changed so much.
Unless you want to cast the net wider into the world of science fiction. If you could simply inject a language into your brain, would you? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 42 23 June 2011 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||
I would, but then that's no longer "learning". And it's probably not for the next few decades. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 4 of 42 23 June 2011 at 10:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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20 years ago I had great hope for computer assisted language learning. There have been some good programs, for example the version of Transparent Language and Anki. I have really been disappointed with most software though. I think the problem is marketing and sales. In order to sell well, the software has to promise to make learning easier, not more efficient or more intense. Other software has suffered from cookie-cutter approaches, like Rosetta Stone, which will teach you the word for Kangaroo no matter what language you study.
I think the best language software will be game oriented. "Who is Oscar Lake?" was a good idea, but was just too slow for you to learn much from it. Hopefully someone will develop software which is fun and efficient, but not easy. Edit: I can tell you that the Hindi word for kangaroo is... kangaroo (कंगारु). Hurrah for Rosetta Stone! Edited by Jeffers on 23 June 2011 at 10:42pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5981 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 5 of 42 23 June 2011 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Jeffers, I think many of your criticisms about software could equally apply to paper-based courses as well. But I think with software in particular, those who don't know better may get drawn in by something that looks pretty and shiny, but it ultimately fails through lack of content and/or functionality. I've seen this happen with systems in the workplace too as people are sold on flashy presentations and end up wasting money on something that doesn't deliver what was promised.
On the other hand, programs like Anki are just a convenient tool to serve a very specific purpose and you could probably achieve similar results with a pen and a box of index cards. I still think the internet is amazing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5827 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 6 of 42 23 June 2011 at 11:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think (and hope) we'll increasingly see products that integrate more different methods together- for example an
audio course with an accompanying e-book that uses software to highlight the words you're reading at the same time you hear them, or an e-book with built-in pop-up dictionary that allows you to click on an unknown word and instantly add it to an SRS program. Right now, we can do a lot of those things but have to use multiple programs or courses to achieve them. I think the future is in streamlining the self-teacher's experience by compressing it all into one or two courses or software programs. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 7 of 42 24 June 2011 at 12:10am | IP Logged | ||
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@ g-bod: I agree many books are affected by the "quick and easy" promise, but it isn't
universally so. Software seems to be nearly universally rubbish, which is disappointing. @Luai lashire: There is a program which you can use to read an ebook with audio, with the sentence you hear being highlighted. And if you want you can click on any word and get the translation. The program is Transparent Language, and its earlier incarnations were absolutely wonderful. Unfortunately, over the years the software has become overburdened with awful and useless components to the point that it is no longer user friendly and is over-priced. I did manage to buy a copy of "Teaching You French" for only £2. It is the basic version of Transparent Language (with video), but with only two texts. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s0fist Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5045 days ago 260 posts - 445 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French | Message 8 of 42 24 June 2011 at 3:02am | IP Logged | ||
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While we wait for direct brain-computer feedback interface - sigh!, maybe in 100 or so years, or at the next singularity, or the second coming of your favorite spaghetti monster, it seems to and is eagerly awaited by me, we will see integration of eye-movement tracking hardware and software (which btw already exists in labs, read costly and inconvenient) combined with a wealth of textual and audio-video information (which btw already exists, google "internet"), multiplexed with sophisticated heuristics allowing for detective and predictive algorithms, so that you will more easily, conveniently, and efficiently be provided information (word, idioms, expressions lookups with relevant definitions, native pronunciations, pretty pictures, cool audio and interesting video examples) optimized by technologies for more efficient learning (anki++-on-steroids-type memory research technologies for continually interval based reinforcing of knowledge that you want or need) that is directly tailored to your interests and habits and personal strengths (all automatically determined by statistical analysis software mining your past actions, emotional reactions and other behavior) making the the whole process appear like you're playing a massive multiplayer online virtual reality games with all your friends from linkedfacebaidu (geographically, culturally, or linguistically selected personally for you by the microgoogle-adsense program that pays you back money for every eye movement) all at the cost of micropayments (only for content you consume or a million dollar per view per second depending if RIAA-lly sponsored snipers sit on virtual-rooftops) allowing you to view cool fun thingumajigs on your favourite topics in any language, forever and ever, amen. Either that or the matrix.
tl;dr P.S. Not really kidding, the wealth of information becoming available will be made more easily and freely accessible, in the process making language learning more easy and fun for those who want (yes before google-translate headshots all interpreters). Read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson or Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep - the concepts of the Primer in the former and the library-device (name of which I forgot) in the latter, only better and real is what I'm thinking. [/DREAM] 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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