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Methods based on real-life frequency? | ||
Tags: Word Frequency | Language Program | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 1 of 7 07 April 2011 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The order in which words and grammatical structures are presented in most language methods seems skewed to me. While I want a system that presents info in order of frequency or usefulness, they all seem to present it based on the level of difficulty. What if we created a lesson based entirely on real-life usage and frequency right from the start? Or has this been done?
Grant it, the task of learning a new language is daunting enough and it would seem only logical that we should present information as simply and gradually as possible, but what about seasoned learners or people seeking to refresh their knowledge? With the use of a large and varied corpus, we could establish the hierarchy of vocabulary and grammatical structures (tenses, verb forms, etc.) that are most frequent and build a lesson based on this. Would this not be the most effective way to acquire the language? Or would the complexity of the task slow down the acquisition process beyond the usefulness of such a real-life based presentation? I’m actually looking at this particularly from the point of view of Québec French. On the one hand, self-learn methods always concentrate on France French, thereby presenting words and expressions which almost never surface in QF, and on the other hand, the frequency of words and structures vary, not to mention new words and grammar points. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 7 07 April 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I would have thought for most grammar, differences in frequency of occurrence would be minimal.
My general philosophy is to teach grammar as quickly as possible (there's not a lot of grammar in any language) and let vocabulary build up over time. And if you want to teach vocabulary by frequency, you need to start with grammar anyway, because the most frequent words in any language are various "function words" -- pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions etc -- that only exist in certain grammatical situations. At this risk of sounding like a fanatic, this is why Michel Thomas's courses were so effective (and the courses produced by other people under his brand weren't). At the starter level, Thomas didn't teach vocabulary for it's own sake, but rather in order to facilitate the learning of grammar (you can't learn to conjugate regular verbs without conjugating regular verbs, after all. Teaching grammar strictly by frequency seems inefficient to me -- there's very little of it, so it can be taught quickly in a structured way. In some situations, it seems like a pointless exercise, too. As I said, there's very little grammar, so most of it is very common indeed. Why worry about whether we talk in the past more often than the future or vice versa -- we use the past, present and future every day of our lives, so the difference in importance is really negligible. But it's also dangerous, because if you delay teaching certain features, the student can make incorrect generalisations. The simplest example would be regular verbs. The vast majority of regular verbs are -er verbs. Delay the introduction of the -ir and -re verbs and learners may develop a habit of conjugating them like -er, because although they're massively less frequent, they're still common enough to be a day-to-day requirement. But that's not as bad as the situation with -ir verbs. There's two types of -ir verb. Teach one but not the other and the student will definitely learn his conjugations wrong. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 7 08 April 2011 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Grammatical features of spoken QF are typically never tackled in any teaching method, except perhaps in some advanced courses. As a result, the most common features are ignored, such as the -tu question marker. Without any frequency analysis, how can I determine when I should introduce it? "mais que + subj." means the same as "quand", but how frequent is it really? Should I rely on my gut feeling?
I agree that many of these will appear more or less equally frequently, so they would -- if we follow frequency -- need to be tackled more or less simultaneously.
Not sure I agree with you here. We always make incorrect assumptions; it's not a danger, it's inevitable. As for irregular verbs being "massively less frequent", I'm talking about frequency in speech, not in absolute numbers. 98% of verbs could be regular, but if you look at the 100 most common verbs a large portion of them are bound to be irregular. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 7 08 April 2011 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I didn't mention irregular verbs -- yes, they are the most frequent verbs (and it is widely accepted that a rare verb cannot be irregular).
My point was about teaching regular verb conjugations by frequency of occurrence. The -er conjugations are several times more common than the -ir conjugations, and one -ir conjugation is presumably more common than the other (traditional -ir versus <adjective>-ir). A strict frequency-based course order would therefore present almost all conjugations of -er before presenting any conjugations of the others. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 7 08 April 2011 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
The course needn't be strictly based on frequency. Still, if it's true that most verbs a beginner will encounter are regular (I'm not saying that's the case), then the implication is that learning irregular verbs is not particular urgent.
I'm assuming that's not exactly what you meant. Irregular verbs tend to be either very frequent OR very rare. The further away you get from both extremes, the less likely they are to be irregular. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 7 09 April 2011 at 2:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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No, that is what I meant. If a rare verb is "irregular", it's dead to all practical purposes, and the irregular form is a footnote in a dictionary.
The brain only remembers irregular verbs through frequency of use. If a verb is rare (but extant) in vernacular use, it will regularise -- the brain will generalise the rule to apply to it. If I have to look up a word every time I use it, it's not a living word.
And in the end we get to the point where we realise that in terms of grammar, frequency is practically irrelevant. I reckon 75% of grammar in most languages is needed for everyday use, so relative frequency means nothing -- it's all important, so teach it in the most efficient order. The remaining 25% is all hypotheticals and rhetoricals and, fair enough, you can leave that until later. My view is that you should teach that 75% of grammar early, and that it's only in vocabulary where relative frequency should come into the equation. Incidentally, what's the "-tu question marker"? My French is strictly Metropolitan.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 7 of 7 10 April 2011 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
-tu is added after a verb to create a question. je peux-tu = est-ce que je peux It originates from "-t-il" and it was expanded to all persons, although it's not very common with tu and vous. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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