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Best Method or More Time ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6740 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 217 of 430 01 May 2008 at 10:04am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The examples with immersion you gave make sense, although those of us living in countries with a lot of immigrants have met a number of them who only seem to master the new language partially. Perhaps, they just don't care to improve any further. The non-immersive scenario you propose involves a bit of cheating, however, since "immersion in their own country" by having access to "native speakers of his target language who don't speak English" is still a form of immersion. Many learners don't have regular access to such native speakers, so their needs vis a vis native materials-only approach are yet to be discussed. It seems likely that technique is a bigger issues for non-immersive learners. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ChrisWebb Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6060 days ago 181 posts - 190 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean | Message 218 of 430 01 May 2008 at 10:14am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I think you have a good understanding of why such an extreme and perhaps artificial scenario is in fact worthy of attention, it's worth lies in the questions it provokes more than in the answers it provides. Forming the question is often key to discovering the solution. Edited by ChrisWebb on 01 May 2008 at 10:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6472 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 219 of 430 01 May 2008 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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ChrisWebb, I really don't understand what are you arguing right now.
About evidence: 1-Scientifically speaking, if you tell us that some method is better than others, you had to prove it. If not, we don't have any meaningful differences. If you have a new drug, you had to prove this new drug is better than others. If not, we don't have meaningful differences. You can ask FDA. 2-Apart from point two, we have evidences in favor of my vision. The FSI article about fifty years of theory and practice in government language teaching. I don't know if you respect those people, but here you go:
I have used Assimil, Pismleur, Micheal Thomas and more. And I have used several non commercial methods you can find here. We are talking about reaching native or near native fluency. We are talking about that goal from the beginning. This can not be achieved in a short period of time. You can read the FSI article. If you need native Korean native fluency in six moths, you have a big problem. By the way, sooner or later you will need a lot of real materials and real interaction with native speakers. When you achieve your native fluency goal, the method you have been used will be of little importance. Listening, reading, writing and speaking (input and speaking) will be the main generic method for you.
If that is what you feel work the best for you, do it !!! However, are you sure you worked with PASSION and INTENSITY with the first method? Did you use output interaction with the first method? I am not so sure. By the way, if your goal is native fluency, most of your time will be spent with real native materials and real native interaction. Do you need any evidence? I think the problem is that some of you NEED that your method is OBJECTIVELY the best method and others methods are OBJECTIVELY worst. Maybe the Rambo method doesn't work for you, but it can work with other people. Maybe gifted or freaky ones, but maybe it even work for you in some moment of your life. Who knows? Edited by slucido on 01 May 2008 at 1:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6472 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 220 of 430 01 May 2008 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Sure
Yes. And without the intention of learning English. In fact, I like to use native materials from the beginning and translations as long as possible. Two opposite methods. Some people think the first is very bad and some people think the second is very bad. Funnily enough I like the combination.
Dictionaries are a linguistic device, but if you are studying a modern language, the preference it's more psychological than anything else. I remember a lot of discussions about dictionaries in this forum. When to use, if they are useless, useful and so on. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6472 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 221 of 430 01 May 2008 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Thank you. I can not believe you wrote I am writing something that make sense. I agree with you, but we are talking about people who likes to use the RAMBO method and they have strong motivation to learn the language whatever the reason. The point is that it can be weird, but possible. If you like one method, provided it has input and output, you will succeed if you have passsion. If you don't like the method, if you don't have passion, if you don't want to learn the language, nothing will do.
I think the same equation applies here: input+output+time. If you don't have native speakers, you don't have audio, you don't have nothing...you options are very small. You don't have the minimum to learn the language. This is not a problem of method, it's a lack or resources problem. If we like a lot one method, but we don't have the resources, we will have to fit our"input-output-time" equation to our resources. For example, people who likes L-R methods sometimes have problems to find resources to apply the method: parallel texts, unabridged audio,... They need to fit the method. Edited by slucido on 01 May 2008 at 1:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6740 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 222 of 430 01 May 2008 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I would be careful here. Just because there is an alternative to a tool doesn't automatically make it into a merely "psychological" device, as long as it fulfills a real ("non-psychological") need. The main alternatives to dictionaries that have been discussed are (a) using a translation of the text, (b) picking up word meanings from context. The context method with native materials assumes that one already knows some number of words - the discussions in this forum came up with the estimates of about 2000 for common European languages, and about twice as many for more distant languages. The question then is how to acquire this initial vocabulary, for which most people would use either a dictionary or a translation. To avoid both may require immersion where one can interact with people. Edited by frenkeld on 01 May 2008 at 3:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6740 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 223 of 430 01 May 2008 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I actually strongly prefer using native materials myself, and I also think that a method just needs to be sensible, beyond which point one can easily waste a lot more time trying out new methods than the amount of time they may save. I just have questions about some of the other things you said. We shouldn't forget that while some do, as your examples attest, many immigrants do not learn the language well after many years of living in the country, and it is only a speculation on our part that all of them simply "don't care".
Let's assume that one has a decent internet connection and enough money to buy books, movies, and the needed language-learning tools. One just doesn't have face-to-face access to native speakers on a regular basis. I think one would still have a rather hard time with just input+output+time in this situation (the available output here is talking to oneself and writing). Edited by frenkeld on 01 May 2008 at 3:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6244 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 224 of 430 01 May 2008 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I think the problem is that you and others said too many things some of which contradict each other. The thread is also confusing methods, language materials and language tools. The theme was best method or more time (regardless of the method) presumably to reach a desired level. We are also presuming there is a method or lack thereof. No mention about native proficiency. Why would a learner necessarily set this goal? No method will take you to native proficiency, and the FSI people state that “the best methods” will take you to level 3 after which the learner needs to go on his own. They do mention time on the job as the most crucial factor, but they do mention several methods. In no way do they advocate raw input without any organized approach. You advocate raw input which is basically total lack of a method and you downgrade all other methods, tools and adapted language materials to this faculty. Any benefits received on account of using a particular method or language tool are due to learner’s belief rather than intrinsic qualities (which is a definition of a placebo). The method itself is therefore a nonexistent quality and the language material provides simple input. You insist on love, belief and fun. You ignore other human qualities. Your argument can be turned on its head by saying that many people are achieving their goals despite doing everything the wrong (or long) way just because they are complicated creatures and need to believe that methods don't work. Or, not believing in methods, teachers etc. is ok, as long as you finish a respectable program and continue using the language and basic language tools. Love is optional. Not everyone is disagreeing that raw input alone may do it, even with exotic languages. I am arguing that even though input alone may do it, if it’s totally disorganized the time factor kicks in. It will take you a lot longer to reach a certain advanced level after which things level off and it is a matter of using the language. However even here language tools like dictionary, grammar etc. help making it a sort of a semi-disorganized “input”, shortening or rather optimizing the learning time. This is especialy acute with the "distant" languages. Relying on disorganized raw input becomes an impossible task for anyone targeting several languages. And here’s another problem, time and methodology are here unnecessarily opposed. Assuming a method works, it is supposed to produce results. The more time you put in, the better the results. A method should accelerate things up to a certain level. Using a method does not preclude spending more time for even better results. Methods are about efficient use of time. Assuming all methods and approaches are equal and it’s all about input, the more time you put in, the better the results. In short, you cannot oppose methodology and time, your beef is with methods and organized learning and the question should have simply been whether methods work or it’s all in people’s heads. Edited by reineke on 01 May 2008 at 6:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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