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Krashen and beginners | ||
Tags: Natural method | Beginner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5822 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 17 of 39 24 February 2011 at 1:36am | IP Logged | |||||
I would be more open to Krashen if he stopped always demonstrating with the same subset of German that is practically 100% cognate with English and demonstrated how to begin teaching something completely with a different word order and a completely unknown vocabulary.... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 39 24 February 2011 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
Some grammars are better than others at this game. But generally grammars present tables without being eksplicit about patterns, which nevertheless is one step better than telling people to look for single forms in texts or just showing them one small part of the whole system. If you want to see a pattern you must be able to see the large area covered by that pattern - I don't write the whole area because some rules also apply in cases that for other reasons can't be integrated into a table. Whenever I have written about grammar studies I have proposed that people use more than one grammar, that they look for regularities even if that means that they have to push some elements aside as irregularities, and that they decide how they want to see the system - for instance by choosing one layout as the one they want to refer to. And if they think they can make something better themselves, then they should definitely have a go at it. Writing your own grammar is an effective way of learning the grammar of a language, although it takes some time. One example of this is that a decent overview over the morphology of nouns should show articles, adjectives and nouns on one single page - not each of these in isolation. I have made 'green sheets' for Icelandic, where there are both prepositioned 'free' definite articles and postclitic bound articles, which determine the ending set for the adjectives - while at the same tme there are 'strong' and 'weak' noun endings. If all that can be integrated in one sheet on one page then few languages would need more space. I have also made one (unfinished and in beta) for Irish which 1) shows what happens with the beginning of nominal phrases (with or without articles with different initial sound, cfr. our previous discussion in this thread) and 2) shows which happens at the other end, where you find the case/number-endings and the adjectives. Well, actually I still haven't integrated the adjectives into the 'end-of noun phrase' table, but that will be the next step. And then all I (as a beginner) need to know about the morphology of regular noun phrases is there on one sheet, and I can start thinking about the exceptions, irregularities and individual cases. Another example of how to apply the principle about finding the parameters before drawing your tables is the Russian verbs. There are a few patterns referred to via their 'stems', and for each one there are roughly two sets of endings in the present: hard and soft, and when to use them is dependent on the last consonant before the ending. And this functions more or less independently from a third parameter, which is the stress pattern: the stress can be at the end, before that or it can move around according to a small number of schemes. The way the endings change with or without stress is quite regular - the problem is to know whether the stress actually moves around. So instead of listing 117 patterns (some of which are limited to a few irregular verbs) as one of my dictionaries does, it would be far more instructive to specify 1) stem-group, 2) hard/soft, 3) stress-pattern. And this could be done directly under a headword instead of referring by number code to a list with 117 patterns. Thinking through how such things can be presented as efficiently as possible forces you to learn the forms. It also makes you wonder why the authors of grammars and dictionaries sometimes overlook obvious rationalisation possibilities. All this concerns morphological tables, but you can apply the same methods to syntactical problems, such as finding the most efficient way to present the different uses a certain case has. Nevertheless there will always be a lot of things that either have to be illustrated in their own tables (irregular verbs, pronouns) or maybe even as individual cases which you just have to learn one by one - which effectively means that they belong to the idiomatics of the language rather than its syntax. Edited by Iversen on 24 February 2011 at 1:39pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5241 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 19 of 39 24 February 2011 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with the first part of this part, and this is a key point here. Krashen does not address the needs of independent learners and certainly not those of people who frequent HTLAL. Krashen's audience is language teachers who are confronted daily with the problem of how to get learners to actually acquire the second language. Nobody says that learners do not need grammar. To speak a language you have to master the grammar. But wait a minute. When I use the word grammar here, I'm not talking about a body of explicit rules and explanations of the morphology and syntax of a language. I'm speaking about the intuitive ability to spontaneously concatenate the components of the language in a socially acceptable manner. This is the heart of the debate. Every native speaker of a language has an intuitive knowledge of that language's grammar. Admittedly, certain prescriptive forms, especially for writing, have to be acquired formally in school. But everybody acquires spontaneously a correct knowledge of how the everyday language works. At the same time, very few people can talk about the grammar of their language. How many people know what a subordinate clause is in English? The problem that language teachers face in classrooms is that the formal study of grammar is very boring and usually quite inefficient. Frankly, I would not like to stand up in front of 25 12-year old children and say, "Listen up kids, today we're going to look at pronominal verbs in French. These are verbs whose infinitive forms have se in front of them. There are four kinds of pronominal verbs: reflexive, reciprocal, passive voice and, finally, a catch-all category of lexicalized forms. Open your grammar book at page 125." Maybe, I'm exagerating a bit. The challenge here is how do you get the children to be able to use pronominal verbs spontaneously without boring them to death with arcane explanations of the grammar of French verb morphology. I would also point out that the linguistic explanation of pronominal verbs in French is far from complete in academic circles. So what do we do? The other extreme is to say, "To hell with pronominal verbs, I'll expose the kids to tons of fun input with lots of pronominal verbs and the kids will spontaneously and intuitively learn the rules by imitating what they hear. And I'll correct them as they go along" Obviously, it's not that simple and I'm caricaturing a bit here, but I think this is the gist of the debate. Now, for sophisticated adult independent learners like Caintear, Iversen and maybe myself, who are comfortable reading grammar books, the second approach is slow and inefficient. Actually, I personally am in between. But Krashen is not talking to us. Edited by s_allard on 24 February 2011 at 7:28pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5241 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 20 of 39 25 February 2011 at 6:29am | IP Logged | |||||
I was interested in this note on the Berlitz method. From my own talking with teachers of the Berlitz, I would not say that Berlitz uses a no-grammar approach. I think their approach is based on conversational interaction in small groups and an ad hoc approach to grammar that does not rely on the formal study of grammar. This is typical of the communicative approach. To me the real issue is not whether Berlitz teaches grammar or not but what are the results of the Berlitz approach. How well do their students perform? I haven't seen any serious studies in this area, but a lot of people seem to be satisfied. Berlitz does have a big name and reputation in the area of language learning. After being around for nearly 150 years, they must be doing something right. Edited by s_allard on 25 February 2011 at 6:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5822 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 21 of 39 25 February 2011 at 11:42am | IP Logged | |||||
As you say: you're in between, which just goes to show there is middle ground between the extremes. One of the big problems in language acquisition is that it is full of extremists, and people at one extreme attack other extremes, and if you are in the middle ground, you suffer the indignity of being repainted as an extreme so that the other person has something to attack. So formal approaches are generally attacked on charicatures like yours. The problem is, this is an example of bad teaching, not a problem with grammar itself. But sadly, bad teaching is all too common at the moment. Your example leads from the mantra of "say everything three times: tell them what you're going to say, say it, tell them what you said". Before you've taught something, how can you tell them what it is? The normal result is a stream of meaningless terms, exactly like in your example, but that is worthless. Good teaching involves using the introduction to prepare the ground for new information. For example, in the introduction to his courses in French, Spanish and Italian, Michel Thomas demonstrates certain cognates (-ation words, -ant/-ent words, -ary words). The student isn't expected to learn directly from these -- they are an introduction to the concept. The student isn't expected to "know" anything until after the rules are presented, and they are presented one at a time, not in a single dedicated "how to transform Latinate words" lesson. You can teach conscious grammar to 12 year olds, but only by comparison to English. Many formal grammars are too technical, and specifically avoid active comparisons to English for exactly the same reasons as teachers like Krashen espouse immersion: the belief that "English gets in the way". Let's get one thing straight: I do not like grammar books. But I do know how to read them, so I can use them to build a conscious framework with which to teach a language. I would say that I do not "learn from grammar books" -- I teach myself with the information I extract from grammar books. But that is an extra step, and should be unnecessary. It is an inefficiency. A teacher shouldn't be presenting information in an unprocessed "grammar book" form, as that means the students still have to teach themselves. A teacher should be extracting the information and teaching the students directly. I'm in the middle ground too. Edited by Cainntear on 25 February 2011 at 11:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Vytenis Newbie Lithuania Joined 4618 days ago 8 posts - 16 votes | Message 22 of 39 27 September 2011 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"What does Krashen say about how the beginnes should organize their studies? If you point
to where I can read it, I'll be very greateful." You can watch S. Krashen himself demonstrating this: youtube.com/watch?v=BA7FfdNeAp4 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Vytenis Newbie Lithuania Joined 4618 days ago 8 posts - 16 votes | Message 23 of 39 27 September 2011 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"I would be more open to Krashen if he stopped always demonstrating with the same
subset of German that is practically 100% cognate with English and demonstrated how to begin teaching something completely with a different word order and a completely unknown vocabulary.... " First of all, I do not think that German is 100 percent cognate with English. There are many words in German which an English speaker does not readily recognize. Secondly, even if the words were very different, Krashen does not base his method on similarity of words, he uses sign language and pointing to different parts of the body or drawing pictures etc. So it does not matter how similar or different the words are - it matters what visual aids are brought into to facilitate understanding. I admit that with a language completely different, it would take much more work and time to make this input comprehensible than with a language as similar as German. Still, it doe snot mean it is impossible. It just means more work on the part of learner, better preparation on the part of the teacher. And what's most important: the words and grammar features picked up in this direct way sticks in one's memory much deeper that if they would be just translated or explained by some horrible abstract grammar rule incomprehensible to most ordinary people. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Vytenis Newbie Lithuania Joined 4618 days ago 8 posts - 16 votes | Message 24 of 39 27 September 2011 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
Come come, no need to be so uncompromising. Even if you are not a fan of Krashen (for whatever reasons), you simply cannot deny that many of his ideas are true. Of course, I am ready to admit that some of this more extreme pronouncements may be a bit extreme and controversy they rase is legitimate. However, just consider: how many frustrated studeents learn English (and other languages) at schools, colleges and universities for years and years but still are unable to use it in real life. I meet such [eople every day. They study all possible grammar rules, they know such metalinguistic monstrocities as "past indefinite", "present perfect continuous" or "gerund" and could rap off their explanations when woken up at three in the morning, they know by heart all irregular verbs and conjugation tables and what not (a feat at which even many native speakers would fall short) and still after all these years they are such a far cry from a simple immigrant who has learned a language just by living and working in the UK and US. Does that not suggest you that at least some of Krashen's ideas must be up to scratch even for the most die-hard fanatical skeptics? Or consider me and my English writing. I am not a native English speaker. In fact, I am from the former Soviet Union. Do you know what that means (in terms of real-life contacts with English language)? I did not hear a word of English until I started learning it at school. And even at school most of our "learning" was a sort of mental torture I described a few lines above. Now, I am not claiming that my English writing is perfect. I am sure a well-educated native speaking grammarian would find lots of nits to pick. However, what I want to stress is that all these rules and expressions I am now using did not come to me as a result of conscious learning of abstract rules and authomatizing them by soem drills. I am sure I have just picked them up subconsciously by reading and listening a lot of English input, not by learning sentence structure tables, spelling rules, phonics and similar time-wasting nonsense. If even that does not convince you that Krashen has the point, then consider another example of Soviet life. All Soviet students at secondary schools had to learn Russian as a second language (here I mean those whose native language was not Russian and who lived in the areas of USSR where most people used languages other than Russian in their everyday lives like Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Georgia etc.). We all learned Russian and English as compulsory subjects at school. However, the results of years of studying these two languages couldn't be more different: while Russian was picked up by everyone and you would have had a really hard time finding anyone of our generation in the whole former USSR who did not speak Russian, with English the matter was completely different - hardly anyone could speak it even with one third of the level of the fluency of Russian, despite all these years of instruction. Why could this happen? Of course, some may explain that there were more weekly lessons devoted to Russian, there were better teachers etc etc. However, I am convinced that one of the main reasons was that every student received enough input in Russian in real life: Russian language movies, books, TV stations (which were not exactly numerous in USSR), communicating with Russian neighbours living next door etc. While learning English was like learning Latin or another dead language. For all practical purposes, English was a dead language in the USSR. No real-life communication, no English language movies, very few books (which nobody read). Does that not demonstrate more clearly than anything else how important real life comprehensible input is in acquiring the language and that all grammar instruction in the world would do nothing if you are not USING the language, but merely learning ABOUT it? As they say in America, you can learn until the cows come home, without using the language for real communication, it is a waste of time. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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