Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Best Method or More Time ?

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
430 messages over 54 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 6 ... 53 54 Next >>
leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6347 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 41 of 430
23 April 2008 at 2:03pm | IP Logged 
slucido wrote:
The error is not using native and real resources from the beginning.

slucido, are you saying you disagree with the input hypothesis:
wikipedia wrote:
The input hypothesis states that only comprehensible input will result in acquisition of the target language. Krashen says that learners must be exposed to input that is just beyond their current level in order to make progress. This concept is called i+1. If the level of input is at i+1 the learner will make progress. If it is too high, for instance i+7, the learner will be unable to acquire it.

or are you saying that (for you) movies are i+1?
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 42 of 430
23 April 2008 at 3:38pm | IP Logged 
frenkeld wrote:
slucido wrote:
Nevertheless, in the long run, TIME and dedication are the real and underlying factors. Nothing more, nothing less.


OK, but do you care about how long it will take you to get to the stage that can be qualified as "the long run"? For that will depend on how you go about it.


In my opinion, if you want native fluency, most of your global time will be spent with real native input. In the long run, for the same person, will be always the same time whatever the method he uses.

The only meaningful difference will be the TIME and intensity you spend every day with your target language.

Native fluency= a lot of time + native materials.

If you want faster results, put more time every day.

frenkeld wrote:

slucido wrote:
They are good with the language because they use REAL, NATIVE resources from the beginning.


Does it mean that someone who uses simplified readers before moving on to reading unabridged literature will end up with a poorer knowledge of the language than someone who starts out directly with unabridged sources?


No, at the beginning we can use crutches as long as the main method is exposition to real native materials.


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 43 of 430
23 April 2008 at 3:42pm | IP Logged 
leosmith wrote:
slucido wrote:
The error is not using native and real resources from the beginning.

slucido, are you saying you disagree with the input hypothesis:
wikipedia wrote:
The input hypothesis states that only comprehensible input will result in acquisition of the target language. Krashen says that learners must be exposed to input that is just beyond their current level in order to make progress. This concept is called i+1. If the level of input is at i+1 the learner will make progress. If it is too high, for instance i+7, the learner will be unable to acquire it.

or are you saying that (for you) movies are i+1?


I think we need a lot of input, output and time.

We need real native materials from the beginning. We need materials below our level, above our level and at the same level.

We need input, we need eat a lot of input, we need to be voracious and insatiable about input and WHATEVER the level, from the beginning.



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 44 of 430
23 April 2008 at 3:46pm | IP Logged 
Leopejo wrote:
slucido wrote:

All this products are developed by marketers and their goal is selling. About the personal methods, I think they are a huge smokescreen.

We absolutely disagree here. Behind most methods there is someone with a passion for languages and teaching them. Sure, this globalization, where tens of languages are teached with the exact same method and even the same photos (see Rosetta Stone) is not as nice. But for another example, even the despised Dr. Pimsleur started as a researcher, not marketer.
Do you read a book in your target language? The goal of the publisher is to sell those books. Do you listen to radio in your native language? The goal of the radio station is to have many listeners and sell much advertising time.


Commercial courses are full of hype and they mislead people stealing a lot of time that people can use with real native resources.

I am more and more surprised reading about people who learn Spanish and they work with Pimsleur, Platiquemos, Rosetta Stone, Learn in your Car, Assimil, Spanish like crazy, Rocket Spanish, Synergy Spanish and so on.

People ask about several commercial methods and how they can mix several of them, in what order and so on. I think this is the max of delusion.

What a waste of time of money! And more waste if they live in USA with huge real resources of real Spanish.

I'm not totally against commercial courses,You can use crutches at the beginning. You can use free introductions or free dictionaries. but I think it's much better approach to start with real Spanish from the beginning.


Leopejo wrote:

Maybe you get the "false sense of achievement". I know exactly what I get and how. About "real", I know: I have helped make those tapes. Let me tell you this: they are real. Do you never speak slower? Do you never care what words you use? Every word you hear in a movie or a TV series is artificial, it is recited. So what?


It's not about speaking slowly, taking care, reading a script or to perform a script, is about learning from the beginning HOW NATIVE speakers do all this when their aim is OTHER NATIVE speakers. You can only learn this when you use native material used by natives to other natives. Real native books , audio books , movies, TV , radio in your target language and aimed to native speakers.


Leopejo wrote:

Quote:
I think If you want to become a native-like speaker , it's best to train your brain just DOING it, FEELING it and keep it REAL from the beginning.


You are welcome to do that. In my opinion (and we disagree here, I know) doing that alone is not the fastest way. As I said in another topic today, the best way to become a Real Madrid or Barcelona player is not to play football all the time. No, you will exercise your technique, speed, endurance, tactics with a different, specific training - alongside real or training games.



You don't need to do only this, you need to do MAINLY this and a lot of time.
On the other hand, if you want to be good in whatever (sport or language) you need just do it and do it consistently and a lot of time.


Leopejo wrote:

Quote:

What building blocks?
Maybe biological blocks, because babies doesn’t know anything about language courses, language methods, language or anything . They are exposed to the REAL language, massively , from the beginning and without any assessment about the percentage of comprehensible input.
Three or four years later they are talking like parrots and they are told to shut up. Babies are absolutely ignorant. They don't know about language courses, techniques, methods or comprehensible input. They only are there and interact with native speakers.

Sure. If you want to spend three, four years hiring two "parents" and some "friends" to talk their language with you, and you parrot them, you are welcome. There are better ways out there (again, in my opinion). Anyway, do you agree that those 3-4 years are very important for those children? Exactly the same, the first 1500 words you learn are more important than the next 18500. So, saying that these courses only teach a tiny amount of a language is nonsense to me.



What courses kids use? None.

What building blocks they use? None. Only the biological building block and natural brain skill to learn languages from scratch.

As adult, you can go much faster.

Leopejo wrote:

You are welcome to your opinion. It's good that people have differing opinions. For me, they are not smokescreens. They are instruments which you can use or not. My opinion is that most of them are useful instruments, one more useful, one less.


I agree with you. This personal methods are useful, even the commercial ones can be useful to a limited extent , but I don't see any meaningful difference between them, because everything is about input and output. A lot of them, a lot of TIME.

The most significant difference is TIME.



Edited by slucido on 23 April 2008 at 3:55pm
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 45 of 430
23 April 2008 at 3:49pm | IP Logged 
Let's summarize my question and my hypotesis:

My question:

What's the common factor between successful polyglots who use (seemingly) opposite methods?

My hypotesis:

I think that methods are not that important.

1-What is the most important factor?

TIME, love and dedication working with the language.

So time management is extremely important.

2-How they work with the language? What's their common factor in their approaches?

-Dedication with input (comprehensible or not), but output as well:

listening, speaking, reading and writing.

I think everything else is smokescreen and non-meaningful differences. I include here commercial and personal approaches.


TIME MANAGEMENT:

Thinking about that, I think the best methods are those that manages to scratch more of your time without you been aware..

For example:

-Having fun with your language is a very important factor, because people devote more time to the language without been aware.
Time flies when you're having fun.

-Using hidden moments, scratching minutes here and there is very important. Using mp3, PDAs, pocket books or whatever.

Methods that manages efficiently your TIME are the most important factor and not the specific linguistic methods. The specific method you use, commercial or personal, is much less important.


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 46 of 430
23 April 2008 at 4:21pm | IP Logged 
slucido wrote:
In my opinion, if you want native fluency, most of your global time will be spent with real native input. In the long run, for the same person, will be always the same time whatever the method he uses.


Let's say one person takes 6 months to get from a beginner to intermediate stage, while the other takes 1.5 years. After that each one needs 10 more years to reach "native fluency", whatever that means. The first will have spend 10.5 years, the second will have spent 11.5 years to reach "native fluency". 11.5 is not equal to 10.5, which invalidates your last statement.

1 person has voted this message useful



leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6347 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 47 of 430
23 April 2008 at 5:29pm | IP Logged 
slucido wrote:
We need real native materials from the beginning. We need materials below our level, above our level and at the same level.

I agree that in the end, if we have acheived fluency, we have spent the majority of our time using the language (real conversation, movies, books, etc).

Where we disagree is in the beginning. Everyone is different, but I get almost nothing from material above i+1. So I'm glad that you can start your studies by using real materials, but when I try that, I get nowhere. I don't doubt that it works for you, but based on my testimonial and that of others, don't you agree that this method is not for everyone?
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 48 of 430
23 April 2008 at 7:23pm | IP Logged 
leosmith wrote:
Everyone is different, but I get almost nothing from material above i+1.


Also languages are different - one can survive on cognates better with some than others.


Edited by frenkeld on 23 April 2008 at 11:26pm


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 430 messages over 54 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.4375 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.