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Response to past Pimsleur discussions | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| mike789 Newbie United States Joined 6326 days ago 39 posts - 51 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 89 of 148 31 July 2007 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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As a new member of the forum and someone who is almost thru the 3rd level of a Pimsleur program, I was happy to find this thread. Some of the comments to Mr. Heinle have not been very civil, which I find distressing and certainly not in the best interests of the forum users. After all, if we want to ask questions from someone intimately familiar with the program, who could think insults will smooth the way?
On the other hand, I'm a bit distressed by the certainly professed by Mr. Heinle, as in the post from July 30. I get the sense of "we know what we're doing, don't question it" from that post. And I find that unfortunate. You'd think it would be worthwhile to at least listen to and consider comments from people who have used the product, perhaps along with competitive products. Personally I am glad I found Pimsleur. I took 2 years of language in HS and learned almost nothing. With 45 hours of instruction (which took me longer to complete; I find I need to do each lesson a few times) I think I can say some things intelligible to a native speaker, and understand some of what they say. Yet I can't say I"m a completely happy camper. One drawback is the haphazard explanation of grammar; sometime they explain something that seems obvious, yet never bother to explain trickier points. The biggest gripe I have, though, is I feel I have ended up in the opposite end from many language learners who feel they can understand far more than they can say. Pimsleur is prompt/response. Given an english prompt (from the program, or me thinking of it) I can produce the appropriate sentence in the target language, which is great. However listening comprehension in the program is limited to about 30 seconds at the start of each episode where you hear a conversation between the native speakers. So 98% of the practice I have is converting english, almost none in listening to the other language and figuring out what it might mean. When I practice with foreign-speaking friends (who are natives, BTW) they understand me just fine but I struggle to understand what they reply even when they use words all of which I know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mcjon77 Senior Member United States Joined 6610 days ago 193 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), French | Message 90 of 148 01 August 2007 at 3:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Mike789,
I'm on level 3 of Pimsleur Spanish, having completed the three levels of pimsleur French about 4 years ago. The problem with listening comprehension stems from a lack of vocabulary IMHO. Think about it this way: If you have an idea you want to express in a certain language you really only need to know 1 way to say it. However someone speaking to you may uses several different methods to express the same concept using words you don't know. Thus it requires more effort and knowledge to be able to understand a foreign language than to speak it at the same level. This is why it will be necessary to use additional tools if you wish to obtain fluency in the language. Edited by mcjon77 on 01 August 2007 at 3:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6537 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 91 of 148 01 August 2007 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I went through the first 6 lessons of Pimsleur Hebrew as sort of a "review", but more importantly to see if these "comprehensive programs" really are comprehensive. In 3 hours this is what is covered:
1. excuse me 2. hello 3. understand(distinction between talking to male and female) 4. you(male and female, nothing else explained) 5. American/Israeli(distinction between male and female) 6. good 7. very 8. to speak(m. and f.) 9. want(m. and f.) 10. yes and no 11. so 12. to eat 13. to drink 14. something 15. here and there 16. street and square 17. too 18. but 19. it 20. English and Hebrew I might be off by 1-3 words, but I think I covered them all. Now, I wouldn't be questioning this method, if the Pimsleur program went heavy on the grammar like Michel Thomas, but it doesn't. No explanation as to why one says, "I want(m. or f.) to eat(no distinction for m. and f.) something, please." I think the learner would better remember not just the vocab, but the grammar as well, of course, if he or she understood it in the first place. Here the learner is simply "guessing", going by what sounds right. Guessing on grammar should be discouraged, at least according to Michel Thomas. Guessing on vocab is harmless, but can the same be said for grammar? Edited by Kugel on 01 August 2007 at 1:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mcjon77 Senior Member United States Joined 6610 days ago 193 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), French | Message 92 of 148 01 August 2007 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | ||
EXACTLY! EXACTLY! EXACTLY! THAT is a major part of the Pimsleur method. Rather than being given explicit grammar rules, through a series of examples the learner implicitly learns the grammar. He may not know the explicit grammar rule, but instead goes by what "sounds right". In doing so, Dr. Pimsleur found that students learned grammar much more quickly and thoroughly than had they been given the rules explicitly. In his book "How To Learn A Foreign Language", Dr. Pimsleur talks of using this method to teach a group of students at UCLA French pronoun use. If you haven't taken French, this is one of the hardest parts of grammar for students to learn. For example Je le lui donne means "I give it to him". He says it normally takes a week to ten days to learn this in class. As an experiment he took to groups of students. One group learned in the traditional, classroom method. The second did not learn it in class at all. Rather, they listened to about 30 sentences demonstrating the grammar pattern WITHOUT explicitly being told what the pattern was, and practiced a series of pattern drills (like the ones done on the pimsleur CDs now) for 2 30 min sessions. To qoute Dr. Pimsleur: "The outcome wast that, when both groups were tested on their ability to say and write French sentences containing pronouns, the students who had spent only 60 minutes practicing in the lab did slightly better than those who had spent more than a week on it in class." Continuing my qoute from Dr. Pimsleur "The reason for their advantage is simple. They had heard and said a large number of correct French sentences, and their ears had become so attuned that only a correct sentence "sounded right"(emphasis added) to them. The conventional group, having to rely on the rules, was obliged to figure out each sentence with painstaking care. Not only did this take them longer, but they were much more apt to make trivial errors by slightly misapplying the rules, since they had no "sense of correctness" to fall back on." He goes on to say that this "sense of correctness" is in every native speaker's ear, regardless on whether they explicitly know the rules of grammar for their native language. They may not know the rules, but they know when a sentence doesn't "sound right" and when it does. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 93 of 148 01 August 2007 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can see the value of what mcjon77 points out as the strength of Pimsleur's method.
My counter to this is that one can acheive similar results with FSI which uses a similar method of drilling / prompting (substitution drills) and then "semi-free translation" of sentences that allow the student to practice in the variation drills) those grammar topics dealt with in the chapter and substitution drills. All the while, the student is exposed to dozens of correct sentences that eventually lead the student to a sense of what "sounds right" in the foreign language. The biggest differences are that FSI courses cover much more ground than Pimsleur and some may be downloaded for free at gdfellows' site. As daristani mentioned, Pimsleur offers a rather poor "bang-for-your-buck" compared to FSI and this will always be the case so long as full FSI courses remain in the public-domain. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6537 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 94 of 148 01 August 2007 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe "sounding right" is a dangerous thing to rely on. Cultivated speakers, people interested in linguistics, polyglots, language hobbyists,...etc probably should know the grammar rules explicitly. Does a student learn that 12 * 4 = 48 because it sounded right? Maybe, but isn't it more beneficial to know that 12 * 4 means 4 10s plus 4 2s?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mcjon77 Senior Member United States Joined 6610 days ago 193 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), French | Message 95 of 148 01 August 2007 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||
The math example is a really poor one (no offense intended). Infact the math example you give is the EXACT opposite of a grammar example. In multiplication one must explicitly understand how multiplication works BEFORE doing drills such as writing "times tables" (do they still do that in school?). Once you can explicitly perform 1 and 2 digit multiplication, then it becomes useful to perform drills where you memorize the fact that 11 * 12 = 132. Grammar learning is the opposite. Did your parents sit you down one day when you were an baby or a toddler and say "Kugal, now we are going to learn the present indicative of regular verbs. Next month we will work on the imperfect". Learning those rules explicitly, eventually, is definately of value. It just is not necessary to learn them first. You say certain people should know the rules explicitly. I completly agree. I just don't believe that the rules should always be taught explicitly first if they wish to develop spoken competency as efficiently as possible. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 96 of 148 01 August 2007 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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The only thing is that adults (as are most members on this forum) don't learn the same as children. (Or do they?)
It would indeed be absurd to make a toddler learn a language as in the sequence that mcjon77 indicates. However, what do you with an adult who is already a native speaker of a language, and now learns a different language from scratch when his/her mind thinks in that native language? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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