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Growing Participator Approach

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Anno
Triglot
Newbie
Israel
acquiringkorean.word
Joined 5627 days ago

29 posts - 41 votes
Speaks: English, Korean, Dutch
Studies: Turkish, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, French

 
 Message 1 of 9
27 November 2011 at 3:41am | IP Logged 
This is a cool resource -- "Growing
Participator Approach".
They have a whole bunch of fascinating articles on language learning and culture
hacking. One of the neat things about their approach is that eventually you get a to a very high cultural and
linguistic level without really studying traditionally at all.

I've been using their ideas extensively when I studied Korean and now I'm using it for my Hebrew study. Because
they view 'language' as 'culture' they put a heavy emphasis (in my opinion too much) on using a language helper
and communing with people in local communities rather than studying sentences ala
AJATT. However, they have incredibly good ideas for language practice
sessions with language helpers. They also have a whole bunch of tips on integrating into the culture of the
language you're learning.

They argue that instead of learning a language you should re-learn the world. Like a child, you should first learn
concrete objects and then slowly get
more and more abstract
.

They map out a six phase
programme
where the participator participates more and more in the speech community. All the phases you
have to use a language helper, or nurturer as they call it.

1st Phase: -- Learning
concrete words and phrases (the first part of this phase is just listening). . . using puppets,
TPR, props, Lexicarry
2nd Phase -- Using
Picture Books to
start making sentences and then telling stories with the picture books. This phase also uses
series descriptions to generate comprehensible input.
3rd Phase -- Retelling well
known stories and also using movies like Mr. Bean or Charlie Chaplain -- watching them with a friend and practice
retelling the story together.
4th middle
phase
and the 5th & 6th
Phases
focus on ethnographic interviewing of your language helper or nurturer and using native-to-native
discourses with your language helper.


----
Hebrew Learning Blog
Korean Learning Blog

"The key to success is making a million mistakes. . now let's make as many as fast as we can!"

Edited by Anno on 27 November 2011 at 12:10pm

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fiziwig
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4863 days ago

297 posts - 618 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 2 of 9
27 November 2011 at 6:24pm | IP Logged 
It started out promising, then I hit the religious proselytizing and didn't go any further. There's no way I'm going to bother to plow through the superstitious muck to find whatever pearls of wisdom might be hidden there.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Anno
Triglot
Newbie
Israel
acquiringkorean.word
Joined 5627 days ago

29 posts - 41 votes
Speaks: English, Korean, Dutch
Studies: Turkish, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, French

 
 Message 3 of 9
27 November 2011 at 6:42pm | IP Logged 
Don't worry about the religious paragraphs. There are only a few and far between and not relevant to the method at
all!

I think the method was initially designed by SIL linguists (thus the somewhat religious slant) who were helping their
people learn difficult languages in far away remote places where there were no language books or audio courses.

But its amazingly helpful for other hard languages. . . particularly because it focuses on cultural integration rather
than just learning a language surgically. In my extensive use of it for Korean and Hebrew study I've generally
skipped the sermonizing sections and devoured the rest.

----
Hebrew Learning Blog
Korean Learning Blog

"The key to success is making a million mistakes. . now let's make as many as fast as we can!"
2 persons have voted this message useful



Cainntear
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Senior Member
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linguafrankly.blogsp
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Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
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 Message 4 of 9
27 November 2011 at 7:08pm | IP Logged 
I'm not impressed. It's a lot of handwaving and waffling that says very little.

The core concept is "learn like a child", and that's an inefficient way to learn. Kids learn the way they learn because they've got no choice. As adults, we can employ more efficient strategies.

For instance, kids learn concrete language before abstract language, because they don't understand the abstract concepts. As we understand concepts such as thinking, we are perfectly capable of learning them early. A lot of the fundamental grammar of a language is revealed with this sort of language.

Edited by Cainntear on 27 November 2011 at 7:10pm

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Anno
Triglot
Newbie
Israel
acquiringkorean.word
Joined 5627 days ago

29 posts - 41 votes
Speaks: English, Korean, Dutch
Studies: Turkish, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, French

 
 Message 5 of 9
27 November 2011 at 8:52pm | IP Logged 
kk You must have not read that much if you think the core concept is 'learn like a child'. . . means that you don't
take advantage of the the ways we can learn as an adult.

It's one thing to learn about a language, quite another thing to learn a language. To learn a language you
have to actually use it. . . and because language is intricately linked with culture you have to use it with other
people.

In the first stage perhaps it perhaps seems a bit childish. However it depends on the individual but a lot of adults
are also
kinesthetically oriented -- and using props, TPR, and role play are just another way of strongly enforcing the
language to talk about real things.

When you don't know much language there isn't much you can say -- that's why you use visual scaffolding ala what
Krashen does in his German teaching example. When you know more you can focus more on the culture, doing
extensive ethnographic interviews with people. I've never met a child who does ethnographic interviews. . .

Throughout it all you are using the language primarily to communicate, which has the happy byproduct of learning
the language and the culture. The goal is communication, whether it's communicating your interpretation of a
picture book story or talking about your language helper (aka nurturer's) life story.

----
Hebrew Learning Blog
Korean Learning Blog

"The key to success is making a million mistakes. . now let's make as many as fast as we can!"


Edited by Anno on 27 November 2011 at 8:53pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Anno
Triglot
Newbie
Israel
acquiringkorean.word
Joined 5627 days ago

29 posts - 41 votes
Speaks: English, Korean, Dutch
Studies: Turkish, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, French

 
 Message 6 of 9
27 November 2011 at 9:01pm | IP Logged 
This article (phase 4)
has a bunch of info on using life stories of the nurturer (aka language helper) to learn the language and
expand into even more topics to learn about the life and culture of the people whose language you are learning.
They included a bunch of ethnographic interviewing ideas. . .

----
Hebrew Learning Blog
Korean Learning Blog

"The key to success is making a million mistakes. . now let's make as many as fast as we can!"

Edited by Anno on 27 November 2011 at 9:02pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Anno
Triglot
Newbie
Israel
acquiringkorean.word
Joined 5627 days ago

29 posts - 41 votes
Speaks: English, Korean, Dutch
Studies: Turkish, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, French

 
 Message 7 of 9
22 January 2013 at 2:08pm | IP Logged 
The Growing Participator Approach
website has updated a lot of their articles, and included a bunch of new ones as well. There seem to be a
new list of resources.

This includes new 5 and 6 phase guides (before it was just one guide) as well as a couple rather interesting
articles on colloquial arabic versus MSA.


Teaching colloquial Arabic and MSA


Thoughts on Arabic Diglossia from GP perspective

Edited by Anno on 22 January 2013 at 2:11pm

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emk
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United States
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Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 8 of 9
22 January 2013 at 2:55pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
I'm not impressed. It's a lot of handwaving and waffling that says very little.

The core concept is "learn like a child", and that's an inefficient way to learn. Kids learn the way they learn because they've got no choice. As adults, we can employ more efficient strategies.

For instance, kids learn concrete language before abstract language, because they don't understand the abstract concepts. As we understand concepts such as thinking, we are perfectly capable of learning them early. A lot of the fundamental grammar of a language is revealed with this sort of language.


Note that if this is originally inspired by SIL, then they may not have had access to more efficient strategies. One of the goals of SIL was to translate the Bible into as many languages as possible to support Christian missionary work. In some cases, this meant inventing a whole new writing system and teaching native speakers to read. And SIL is one the world's authorities on incredibly obscure languages, to the extent that linguists and international standards bodies rely heavily on their catalog of languages.

If you have no access to dictionaries, grammars or native texts, then you're going to need to rely heavily on one-on-one interaction.

Now, if you're dealing with an actual written language that has courses, reference books and bilingual texts, there are a lot of ways to bootstrap quickly up to A2 or so, and not all of them require full-time access to an incredibly sympathetic native speaker.


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