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Vera Birkenbihl method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Rycerz Newbie Poland Joined 5754 days ago 33 posts - 33 votes Studies: Ukrainian, Polish* Studies: English | Message 1 of 32 27 August 2009 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi
I look for interesting language learning method. I found Vrea Birkenbihl method. I bought her book yet. "fast language learning". Does someone heard about this method or used/using it? What you think about it? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lingua Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5575 days ago 186 posts - 319 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 2 of 32 27 August 2009 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Needlessly complicated. Language learning is actually quite simple - Listen Understand Internalize Speak 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Rycerz Newbie Poland Joined 5754 days ago 33 posts - 33 votes Studies: Ukrainian, Polish* Studies: English | Message 3 of 32 27 August 2009 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you are gifted to learning language you can think that.
But I'm dyslexia and I must find something unusual 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5573 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 32 28 August 2009 at 3:55am | IP Logged | |||||
No, you must stop thinking that way if you are to progress any further. There is no such thing as being "gifted" in language learning, but rather there are some people who choose to be introspective enough to analyze their own system to act on that knowledge. Blame your methods, but never yourself (dyslexia or not). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 32 28 August 2009 at 11:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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Rycerz,
I'm with maaku. Don't focus too heavily on your limitations and instead think of the incredible abilities you have. You can speak. You can write. For that, you are part of a vanishing small minority of existing lifeforms. I mean, as humans we rarely lament not having wings as a limitation, but it is a massive limitation. Birds, bats and bees can get around so much easier than us. But we can walk and crawl and run and climb, and they are good enough. A dyslexic has about 98 or 99% of the human ability for language -- focus on the 99%, not on the 2% and you'll see that you've got most of what it takes. Now I'd disagree with Lingua in principle -- I do not believe that learning by absorption is either particularly effective or efficient in the general case, and I would certainly not see pure listening as a sensible strategy for a dyslexic (assuming you have not been misdiagnosed). Dyslexia is a deficiency in the part of the brain that distinguishes phonemes (meaningful sounds) from each other, and it's well established that simply listening to more native language doesn't cure this, so it follows that listening to a foreign language isn't going to be much use. I always believe that a well-structured course is vital to learning. Those who learn from just input are just more skilled at extracting the relevant information and making their own structure. It isn't necessarily a "gift", but it is certainly not a universal skill. If you think that this is the most useful skill for the language learner, then propose a way to develop that skill -- it is well demonstrated that only a minority of learners independently learn that strategy, so if you want to recommend it, you'll need to find a way of teaching people how to do it. Anyway, Rycerz, the main thing that you need to do as a dyslexic is learn to pronounce the different sounds. Saying them differently makes it clear to your brain that there is a difference, and once it knows that there is a difference, it can start to try to work out what the difference is. The other thing to look into is high-variability phonetic training (HVPT) -- studies have shown that using immediate "right/wrong" feedback on large numbers of words in quick succession improves the ability to distinguish sounds. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lingua Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5575 days ago 186 posts - 319 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 6 of 32 28 August 2009 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
In my experience it is extremely effective and efficient. I'm not just talking about myself, I have lots of experience observing language learners learning by "absorption" - and I have seen far too many who have failed to learn by traditional learning methods. But this is only one prong of a two-pronged argument for the importance of "learning by absorption" in language learning. The other is that there is simply too much to be learned to learn it consciously, bit by bit. Language is also more complex than the simplified - and sometimes wrong - "rules" taught in language courses. Any language learner who has become proficient in a language will have learned far more than they have been taught or have consciously learned. All successful language learners can and do learn by "absorption" - otherwise learning a language would be a hopeless task. Listen, understand, internalize, speak is the "bare-bones" description. Input can and should also include reading, explanations about how the language works can be given when they are helpful, and an input-based course can and should be well-structured. Edited by Lingua on 28 August 2009 at 8:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Rycerz Newbie Poland Joined 5754 days ago 33 posts - 33 votes Studies: Ukrainian, Polish* Studies: English | Message 7 of 32 29 August 2009 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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O.K. I understand what you want to say about dysexia and approach to learning.
But what you think about Birkenbihl method? I believe that learn can be easier and faster if we choos good learning method. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 32 29 August 2009 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
True. However, just because most courses are badly written does not mean that courses are a bad idea in principle.
Then your previous post was oversimplifying the rules, which is just what you accuse language courses of doing. But it appears that we are pretty much in agreement. There is more to language than is in a course book, but knowing at least some of what's in the course book will help you to discover what isn't. When you say: "I'm not just talking about myself, I have lots of experience observing language learners learning by "absorption" - and I have seen far too many who have failed to learn by traditional learning methods." I don't think it's necessary to have a "two-pronged argument" for absorption, because what you're really arguing for is a "two-pronged approach" -- conscious study plus exposure. People are rarely fail because a method is completely useless, but because the course is not complete. If there are gaps in the teaching, it cannot be complete. Much traditional teaching is incomplete, and so it fails students, but statistically, it seems like just as many people are failed by "absorption" methods, and the majority of people (NB, I am not saying all of them) I've met and heard of who have "succeeded" with natural/direct/absorption methods have previously been "failed" by more rule-orientated methods (I find the word "traditional" misleading) in the past. The evidence as I see it only supports the idea that these both these types of method are incomplete and that they therefore complement each other rather than one being a suitable replacement for the other. And looking at what you've said, you appear to feel the same. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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