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Rosetta Stone, V3 Levels 1-3 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6360 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 9 of 29 12 November 2010 at 2:03am | IP Logged | |||||
Lil' off topic but
We know that one. It's the "Bob's your uncle" thing that confuses us.
Neither. It's a natural method of cooking:) Sleeping now.... 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nebojats Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5006 days ago 89 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Italian | Message 10 of 29 12 November 2010 at 4:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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@Magnus13:
What you say pretty much lines up with what I was guessing about Rosetta Stone. I've learned languages mostly through language institutes abroad where you have to hammer out understanding on your own... and I think that results in an intuitive manner of speaking. Like you say, it means you don't have to think about the rules constantly, it just sort of comes forth because it sounds right. What appeals to me about RS is it seems to sort of mimic that approach. Any suggestions on which materials to use in conjunction with RS to make for a fuller learning experience? @JustinJ: I definitely can understand where you're coming from. Even in the brief time that I tested RS, it did seem repetitive, culturally irrelevant, and laborious. So what is it missing exactly? Any suggestions for specific other programs that address RS' deficiencies and why? ...and now for the first and last time I'll respond to posts not dealing with the thread topic... @hrhenry: I think you must be right. @Cainntear: What I said was criticism, yes. I feel about the RS griping the same way I would about a review that judges a film by the first five minutes or a book by the first few pages (aside note: I am an American and I use the terms "movie" and "film" interchangeably). I hope you can understand where I'm coming from and not take offense. I think your sofa analogy might be accurate, and it might not. I simply don't know because I haven't used the program for more than an hour or so. The point of this thread is to ask people who have sat on the "sofa" through an entire movie, not to ask people who have sat on it for five minutes in the showroom. If anyone who has used RS extensively agrees with the sofa analogy, please say so. @Faraday: An iffy term that means many things for many people. I'm working for a fairly well-renowned development program, and the way that we were taught Thai was through "naturalistic" methods. These methods, along with cultural immersion, were by far the most effective language learning epxerience I've ever had. I also am working to train local English teachers to adopt such methods in classrooms. I would say that for me, the "naturalistic" approach to language learning usually entails the following: no translation, little explicit explanation of grammar (and if so, only in the target language), using the second language communicatively (always to express ideas to others, never in isolation), addressing different intelligicences (listening, speaking, reading, writing, total physical response). I may be forgetting some things... The general idea, though, is to mimic the natural language learning process as much as possible. I'd be glad to talk about it more in another thread. Edited by nebojats on 12 November 2010 at 4:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nebojats Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5006 days ago 89 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Italian | Message 11 of 29 12 November 2010 at 5:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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Also, another thought:
Can't you choose various courses? Like... condensing the lessons? I'm pretty sure that you get to choose different focuses (read, speaking, etc.) as well as time frames. Would that help with the repitiveness and slowness? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5821 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 12 of 29 12 November 2010 at 12:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
I know you're not going to listen to me, but as anyone around here will tell you I have an inflated opinion of my own self-worth and love the sound of my own voice so I'm going to tell you what I think anyway.
The idea of "mimicking the natural language learning process" is marketing, pure and simple. Anyone who has studied infant language development can tell you that. With Rosetta Stone or any "naturalistic" classes, you are being fed specific language points to learn at a specific time. RS mimics your earlier classes in one way -- it presents the language without explanation or translation. The majority of your class time was not spent on the presentation of language, though, was it? The majority of your class time was spent using the language in meaningful ways in games and discussion activities. You don't like rules. Well, if you get rid of "rules", you still end up teaching "patterns", and that's what RS does. So while you may not be learning and regurgitating a rule, you are simply learning and regurgitating a pattern. The testing in RS does not get you to apply the pattern creatively, it only asks you to prove that you can regurgitate it in the limited context of the software, which is identical to the teaching. Furthermore, the mechanics of Rosetta Stone restrict it to very concrete constructions. It is difficult to fully express the subtleties of time, desire and personal motivations in a little photograph, so they stick to very simplistic, direct language. What you liked about the classes you took is not replicated in RS, and sadly it's something that computers can't really do yet. (Although I took part in an experimental language class in Second Life with the Open University a year or two ago that showed some promise.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| carlonove Senior Member United States Joined 5796 days ago 145 posts - 253 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 13 of 29 12 November 2010 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
That sounds interesting. Can you share a link to more info about the project? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Magnus13 Triglot Newbie United States mybestwaytolearnspan Joined 4951 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 14 of 29 12 November 2010 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
I do agree with the other members of this board who say that there isn't really a "naturalistic" method of learning, and that methods that try to mimic it are not as effective as they could be. I still like RS nonetheless. Given that I have never studied Arabic I don't have any specific books to recommend to you. I have, however, had a good experience with the Practice Makes Perfect series of books. In my opinion it is good to have a grammar reference with RS, because some rules will take you 20x longer to infer than to read and learn (however, for the rules you can infer, I think it becomes easier to remember them through RS). For instance, it would have taken me forever to learn the subjunctive tenses in Spanish through immersion alone. And yet, I was able to learn them and thoroughly understand them after about a week of more "traditional" methods. I hope this helps. Edited by Magnus13 on 12 November 2010 at 4:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nebojats Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5006 days ago 89 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Italian | Message 15 of 29 18 November 2010 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks Magnus. Very specific and helpful advice.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6931 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 16 of 29 18 November 2010 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Is anyone else's shill-alarm going off? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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