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Best Method or More Time ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| 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 297 of 430 04 May 2008 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thinking about the input-output-time, it seems to be different frames. Language learning approaches seem to boil down to: -Learn words. (intput-output) -Learn sentences with these words (input-output) -Repeat ad nauseam ( time) There are different frames we can use to explore the subjetive nature of this subject: 1-Working WITH translations: Assimil, FSI, Pimsleur, Learn in your car, Arguelles method, Listening Reading method... 2-Working WITHOUT translations: Total Physical Response and Storytelling-TPR, Silent Way, Rambo method... Which option is the best, the first one, the second one, the eclectic one? I think it depends on your mood, personality traits, circunstances, culture, stage... What do you think? Be careful because the frame... Regarding Rambo method, I am thinking about another frame: 1-Rambo method friendly: like the Spanish man learning Hebrew working in Hebrew Restaurant. 2-Rambo method unfriendly: like people who learn a distant language isolated in a foreign prison. I think everybody will rather the first one, but who will learn faster? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6654 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 298 of 430 04 May 2008 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think that you are spot on. For awhile, I thought Rosetta Stone was the best. I had shared my on-line version of Russian with a friend, who'd also been studying for years, and he said it was the worst thing he had ever used, for a multitude of reasons, all valid. I was SO bothered by that, but it just goes to show that while it had worked for me (but for Spanish), my experience was entirely subjective. I've reached a point where if I can learn about 7 new words a day, then I know 7 more words than I knew before. It doesn't matter what method I use. What does matter is that whatever I use, I have to use it every day. So whatever it takes to keep me going day after day is the best method. [/QUOTE] 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 299 of 430 04 May 2008 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
I share same experiences. I felt very frustrated. I thought DVD was very good. Suddenly a lot of people telling me this is very bad. I felt good with translations, but people told me that it was a bad thing after basic steps. I worked with keyword, but other people told me that words should be learn by context and keyword is nonsense. I felt happy with SRS recognition, but people told me it's inefficient and active production is much better. Other 'experts' told me that SRS is nonsense and need real context. Other 'experts' told me it's a bad thing working with native materials from the beginning, but others told me that it's the best. I felt good if I talked from the beginning, but some 'experts' told me it can be very dangerous... This frustration suddenly led me to be aware about all this gibberish. I became aware about all those contradictions are nonsense, the most important think it's time and the "NO-best method" hypothesis. Now I know I only need words, sentences, repetition and time (every day for a long time). Everything else is cosmetics. Maybe we can create a support group: "Best-method survivors" 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 300 of 430 04 May 2008 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
In the name of logic! Stop! You write: "Purely psychological effects are NOT equal to placebo". and a few lines further down "You are confounding UNSPECIFIC effects (placebo)..." and "Psychological effects can be placebo" Now, as much as I hold methodologies dear (and I don't), I hold logic dearer. So please excuse me while I drive my SUV through your arguments. First of all, I am not confusing things, you are. You seem to be confusing things like effect and technique and cause and effect. Application of a placebo may result in psychological and other effects. The result is often called the placebo effect. The definition of a placebo effect is "the measurable, observable, or felt improvement in health or behavior not attributable to a medication or treatment". So you're wrong there too. Now, measuring those effects is also not an issue, no one is disputing that feeling all fluffy about a particular method is beneficial. The issue is placebo/method itself. If the method does not work as advertised /accelerate learning because of its properties, it's a placebo. It is irrelevant whether you called it a placebo by name and I am not sure anyone suggested that you did, however others have felt that your argumentation points that different methodologies are a placebo since results produced are not due to any active properties/design of the method. Now if you realize the error in your logic we may proceed to deconstruct your other methodology-induced fobias. You know, if one is not a believer of a particular religion he or she may be just as fanatical as the worst of crusaders. Assuming all methodologies are cosmetic and you were happy with all of them for a while, I see little damage done as you "believed" and progressed in your studies. You also got to experience different methods. By challenging all methods you're basically doing the same thing others did to you - wholesale. However the experts actually believed their approach was the best and that they were doing good. Now if you're right, nothing really happens. If you're wrong, you and whoever lost the faith sort of gets punished. The punishment is of course an enormous loss of time, no fire and brimstone. Edited by reineke on 04 May 2008 at 5:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6654 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 301 of 430 04 May 2008 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Is the Spanish in Assimil really that much different than Pimsleur? If you chose one or the other, wouldn't you be learning the same language? Or if you moved to Madrid, and just suffered for a few months, wouldn't you learn Spanish then? Linguistically, the net result is the same: it's the same language. The difference is in the packaging of the method. Pimsleur comes in a nice box. The bookmark is attached to the book. It's portable. Pimsleur is bulky and isn't going to fit in your messenger bag that well. But if you used either of them, you'd probably learn some Spanish. What draws you to either of these products is psychological. You believe one or the other, or both, are going to work. So you use them. Or not. I have no idea what you do.
I'm trying to understand how people learned languages prior to the discovery of electricity. I know it happened, but based on everything I've read here, I'm not sure how. 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 302 of 430 04 May 2008 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
I will try to give a better account in the future of my Italian and German experience if anyone finds it useful. The little I wrote is thanks to luke. The level of comprehension was actually deep but the amount of time was certainly frightful. I was comparing the number of hours I spent on TV with class 'hours of understood listening" and AUA's Automatic Language Growth Program, based on a sort of a "comprehensible input" Krashen method and which includes a long silent period. The ratio is not so grim but I'm not sure I quite understand ALG graphs, study hours, or the final goal. I estimated 4800 (say 5000) hours of TV time (including just about everything and not just cartoons) to get to a high level of comprehension. That's still a lot or, putting it another way, you're looking forward to a whole lot of fun "input". 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 303 of 430 04 May 2008 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's called Grammar-Translation method. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8 Pronunciation suffered. It didn't help that some British students considered it ungentlemanly to imitate foreign sounds. It's not about the Spanish in those courses but about the method behind them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6654 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 304 of 430 04 May 2008 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Linguistically, they are the same. If you use either of these products, with any regularity, you will learn some Spanish.
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