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The Guardian Article on Language Learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| tomgosse Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3843 days ago 90 posts - 143 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 18 22 February 2014 at 2:41pm | IP Logged |
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I just read this article in the The Guardian about learning languages using only online resources. Three people will each attempt to learn a language online over the next six weeks. Should be interesting.
-- Tomás 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4473 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 2 of 18 22 February 2014 at 5:29pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for sharing this. Like you, I look forward to seeing the results. As far as I can tell, the three are:
A professor who considers himself "good at languages", who learned German and Mandarin in school, and who will use DuoLingo for Spanish. An editor who studied German in school, who lived in Spain and learned little Spanish, and who will use Rosetta Stone for French. A journalist who will use a skype tutor for Russian. (couldn't find the description of her language learning experience). Following the link you posted, I found that the Guardian has a whole series "The case for language learning", which has some interesting articles. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6554 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 18 23 February 2014 at 9:50pm | IP Logged |
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Can you learn a language exclusively through internet sources? Well you probably can, and it is in my opinion as likely as learning it through ordinary classroom teaching - provided that having direct human contact isn't too important for you. But not by following one single courseware system like the three persons in the article apparently are trying to do. You can get things like parallel texts on the internet, and there are sites where you can get corrections, and if you don't mind speaking to a camera you can get one-to-one communication with other learners and maybe even native speakers. For some languages the internet can give you access to information sources which simply weren't available without it, like television in exotic languages or translations on the spot (with errors yes, but on the spot, and that may be more relevant).
Why shouldn't that be as efficient as sitting in a class room with twenty bored teens reading their facebook updates or dozing off while a teacher drones along somewhere in the background? Edited by Iversen on 23 February 2014 at 10:00pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tomgosse Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3843 days ago 90 posts - 143 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 18 23 February 2014 at 10:02pm | IP Logged |
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This is the comment that I posted on the Guardian website:
I think the real question should be, how much language can you learn online? If you are truly interested in learning a second language and willing to put the time into studying, you will learn something. I'm currently studying Spanish and using mostly online resources. Among other things, I'm using Duolingo, Memrise, and watching Spanish lessons on Youtube. My favorite YouTube teachers are Señor Jordan, Spanish Is Your Amigo, and Butterfly Spanish. Sticking to only these resources I can certainly reach an A1 level on the CEFR guidlines. I can introduce myself, use basic expressions, ask and answer personal details about my life and someone else's life. But, to move beyond that requires more resources than what I've found online. I need at least one good grammar written for self study, and a good audio program on pronunciation. For the later, I use Pimsleur's Latin American Spanish. I've also come to realize that no one thing is going to teach me Spanish. The next thing I need to do is practice speaking with native Spanish speakers. Luckily, in the United States there is a large Spanish speaking population. I just need the courage to start a conversation. Looking forward to the rest of this series. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Onrust Newbie United States Joined 4270 days ago 14 posts - 42 votes Studies: German | Message 5 of 18 24 February 2014 at 5:07pm | IP Logged |
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Interesting story, though I wish they had chosen subjects of comparable ability and had them all tackle the same
language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5760 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 18 24 February 2014 at 5:21pm | IP Logged |
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Interesting. Hopefully they'll end up concluding that you can learn quite a lot from online sources - because anything else might be discouraging for other readers who are considering taking up a language. I wish they were doing it for longer than 6 weeks though. And I wish they would all use a variety of sources, instead of focusing on one each. I can understand why they'd want to use just one to be able to evaluate how well it works, but I hope they've put some thought into choosing the right one so that they don't end up with something that's not right for their learning style...
Anyway it'll be interesting to see how it goes. Hopefully it'll inspire people :-) Liz 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4679 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 7 of 18 01 March 2014 at 12:41am | IP Logged |
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Well I've added my usual plug for SSiW. But I'd emphasise, even more strongly than in my
comment there, that as well as doing the course, which is very thorough (even if it doesn't teach you grammar in the conventional sense), you are very very strongly encouraged to get out there and practice what you've learned, at any and every opportunity which presents itself, or which you can create, which might have to be via Skype/G+ Hangout, and also listen to Welsh radio whenever possible, and also watch Welsh TV (S4C). So one course does not do everything, but what SSiW does is give you a good foundation and confidence to then go out there and make your own waves. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4760 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 8 of 18 04 March 2014 at 2:04pm | IP Logged |
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SSiW = ?
And has anything happened since this started? When I look at the article, there's no link to any sort of updates. They are supposed to be blogging about it, but there is no link for that either. Edited by Jeffers on 04 March 2014 at 2:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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