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Review of earworms Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 5948 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes  Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 1 of 16 10 November 2009 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here's my take on earworms Spanish:
Earworms by Berlitz, for those who don’t know, are a set of CDs that attempt to teach you aspects of a language through music. The concept is taken from research into accelerated learning and brainwave entrainment. The CDs are structured like any ordinary music CD and Included in the package is a phrasebook with all the words and phrases on the CD. The song format follows an English/Spanish sentence pattern. For example, “coffee with milk…café con leche” (imagine the theme tune to a 1970s school science video in the background). Essentially you’re supposed to learn the language as easily as you unconsciously memorise the lyrics to songs in your native language. I found the course inadequate and here’s why: Berlitz say “The earworms concept draws on the latest research into accelerated learning and memory enhancement and takes advantage of the scientifically proven capacity of the mind to memorize words far better in melodic patterns. Our own trials point to the phenomena being even more powerful than we had anticipated. With earworms, students usually get over 90% in difficult vocabulary tests, compared to less than 50% with conventional book learning.” That’s a 40% increase. Very impressive! But do the statistics tell the real story? What exactly were their trials testing? The effect of music on learning? Or the effect of relaxation through music on learning? Research has shown that particular brainwaves seem to be more conducive to accelerated learning. These brainwaves can be induced through music but they can equally be induced by creating a relaxing enjoyable learning atmosphere. Also, changing how a learner psychologically frames the learning task from negative (books) to enjoyable (music) has a big impact on learning performance. So if we were to imitate Berlitz’s study but replace earworms with an all round pleasant learning environment and compare that to “conventional book learning” would we still get an increase in performance. Just about every study on accelerated learning would say yes. My main issue with earworms is the underlying assumption within the following quote:” The earworms programme not only anchors words and phrases into your memory in a very short time, it also fits in with busy lives, also saving time. You can learn in a traffic jam, on the Underground, while jogging, where and when you want to”. The basic presupposition is that you can learn a language without ever paying attention to it. In fact, later or on they explicitly state that the learning “is of course without effort, as you are only listening to songs”. Ask any independent language learner if you can learn a language without any conscious effort and you’ll get a very different response. In fact, if I ask you to sing me the lyrics of a song you know well without the music or any other cue you probably wouldn’t be able to sing it flawlessly all the way through. Furthermore, the songs that we could do this with we would have listened to literally thousands of times. Would I really want to listen to earworms thousands of times? No chance! On top of this, although I may know the words to a particular song, nine times out of ten I couldn’t tell you what it’s about. I’m just mindlessly parroting with no awareness of meaning. That’s not really a good idea for language learning. Now, Lets see what Berlitz say on how often you should listen to the CDs. Surely with such an advanced system you wouldn’t have to listen to them too often for them to be ingrained into your memory! Berlitz say: “In practical terms this means listening to the whole album the first day, in order to ‘tune your ear in' to the sounds of the target language. Then listen regularly, several times, over a period of one or two weeks, making sure that you listen to every song equally as many times. After this, go through the booklet and test your knowledge, picking out any gaps that you may wish to concentrate on. Lastly, the review phase. As we all know, memories fade, so it is important to refresh your memory by listening to the CD at your leisure, say, once a week for the following few weeks. Thereafter, monthly. This review phase is crucial as it consolidates your knowledge and transfers it into your long-term memory. “ So you are advised to listen to it several times over two weeks, then test yourself via the booklet, then listen once a week for three weeks, then monthly (lets say six months). Well since I don’t know what several means I’m going to say every other day. So in a six month period we are expected to study it 17 times. Is this good or bad? Well given the fact that each track contains barely 20 words I don’t find that impressive at all. I’m confident that I could memorize a word-list of 20 words in less than 17 goes. All in all I think this course may be of some use to the typical tourist but for serious language learners I’d recommend learning some accelerated learning ideas and finding a more comprehensive course or two. Edited by Jimmymac on 10 November 2009 at 3:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dizzycloud Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6393 days ago 88 posts - 109 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Turkish | Message 2 of 16 12 November 2009 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I second this, I also tried the same product. If you're a serious language learner, don't buy this! If on the other hand you want to flirt with the language or memorise some words for a trip (without grammar), then this is ideal (of course with active studying and not sitting back and expecting it to go in...).
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6232 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 4 of 16 18 November 2009 at 5:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting.
I have some pop Korean CDs and I can sing along even tho I have no idea what I'm saying. I'll randomly find myself "knowing" the words to songs and just singing them out of the blue while I'm doing work or something. Of course, because it's Korean, I'm way off, as even after 10 years my native-English ear still cannot accurately hear the sounds of Korean. Was that ka or kha or k'a? I give up. They have some cool music, though :D edit - I should add I'm a very musical person, however. This same situation may not work for other people. Edited by IronFist on 18 November 2009 at 5:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hobbitofny Senior Member United States Joined 6028 days ago 280 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 16 18 December 2009 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have the Russian volume. I like the way the voices of the man and woman are used. There is a playfulness about it. However, I did not learn from this faster than using Vocabulearn. I would say you would need many disks to be useful to really learning the language. It might be a nice way to get your first 200 words in a language, but it really to limited. At least the words are essential for travel.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Huliganov Octoglot Senior Member Poland huliganov.tvRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5150 days ago 91 posts - 304 votes Speaks: English*, Polish, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Esperanto, Czech Studies: Romanian, Turkish, Mandarin, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 6 of 16 14 January 2011 at 8:50pm | IP Logged | ||
I tried it today, for Chinese, and I have to say I agree 100% with your view, and share your reaction. I could not listen to more than 5 minutes of it without getting seriously irritated. Utter waste of money, but evidently one of a series of products tailored to appeal to people who'll buy anything once and try anything once. Thankfully I didn't buy my copy, and I wouldn't buy it, or recommend it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6174 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 16 15 January 2011 at 9:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it depends on the speakers. The two speakers on the Mandarin version have good chemistry and timing and nice voices. I find it pleasant to listen to. The others versions I've heard are pretty bad, and I wouldn't be able to use them.
Of course, it's not a hard-core method. Still, I've found that I've learned some words and phrasings with it. And as an added bonus, when I play it on my Ipod while in bed, it has me asleep within 5-10 minutes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5360 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 8 of 16 15 January 2011 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I found them pretty helpful to get some tourist vocab when starting a language - they work best if the chemistry is right between the speakers - to my ears they are certainly as good as, and less painful, than other phrasebook audio methods like the Pimsleur method.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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