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Language classes do NOT work | ||
Tags: Class Learning | School Education | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5797 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 41 of 116 13 December 2011 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | ||
Not every time. The point is that every time you correct the same mistake it should be less and less obvious. If they don't understand the language point in question, I explain it. Sometimes I might make a joke of what they've said (particularly amusing when you mix up boyfriend and girlfriend, son and father, my wife and your wife). Then I move to indicating the mistake directly -- which sometimes means repeating the mistake, yes. But I don't do this a lot, because what I'm actually doing is training the student to anticipate my corrections -- I'm conditioning a new reaction to the error. I proceed to make the correction vaguer and vaguer, because the student's own reaction to the error is getting stronger and stronger, so needs less prompting from me. When you can just twitch slightly and someone corrects their own mistakes, you know you're getting somewhere -- that mistake will be completely gone soon enough. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Domi333 Tetraglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4925 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, French, Creole (French), Portuguese Studies: Turkish, Ancient Greek | Message 42 of 116 31 October 2013 at 2:01am | IP Logged | ||
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I know this is an old thread but I felt like contributing.
I studied French at high school and in a private class on Saturdays. The standard on Saturdays was much higher, I don't believe that had French continued at high school people would have advanced that much. Having a private class where people came from a French-speaking country (Mauritius) raised the bar (we had a French girl in too for a few years). I know there's been a lot of 'language classes are pointless' discussion on polyglot blogs and forums but I can still remember my French rules which were drilled into me on Saturdays (e.g. Conditional tense, si j'etais plus sage, je serais moins paresseux, hehe) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4230 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 43 of 116 31 October 2013 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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You are not alone. I took French for interest through high school. The experience had not been positive. In a class
of about 30, less than 10% spoke French outside the classroom. The teacher didn't think this was an issue as long as assignments were handed in and we got good test scores. If I had a choice, I'd drop French which was an elective for something else like Economics which is also an elective. The only way to learn a language is to take it outside the classroom. Everyday or time permitting, put on radio, TV programs and movies in your target language. At first you need TV programs & movies with subtitles. Stop to look up words and put it on a list on paper or the computer. Run through the list from time to time to refresh your memory. Take an immersion course if possible to focus on communication. The other choice is to go to places where your target language is spoken on an exchange program. Stay there long enough and away from your own circle of friends who speaks English or 1 that is not your target language. In my younger days everybody thought some people are naturally gifted. This is true to some extent but the rest of us can also benefit by being exposed to the language like a child learning to speak before writing a single word. Although my mother-tongue is Chinese, I am more fluent in English. The past year I spent half as much time watching TV in English and the other half Chinese videos with subtitles. When I come across a word or phrase I'd look it up and put it on my list. The other day I came across 2 Chinese terms (both loan words). The first I've seen before: 脱口秀 tuōkǒuxiù for someone in a TV talk show. The phonetics "tuōkǒu" sounds like "talk" and the other sounds like "show". The other term was UFO or flying saucer. The Chinese term is: 幽浮 yōufú. Yōu sounds like U and the other sounds like "fo". In a language class you learn a set of fixed responses that you would start a greeting with "Hello, how are you", "I'm fine, thank you and you?". In a Chinese phrase book you'd see 你好 nǐhǎo or in a French book "Bonjour". The Chinese radio show I listen to involve real dialog but tend to begin not with 你好 (singular) but in the plural 大家好 dàjiāhǎo for "Hello everyone" or "How is everybody?". And a common phrase would come up before the end of the show "以下的广播节目内容全属嘉宾意见, 与本台立场无关" which roughly translates into English as "the views expressed in the following program are those of our sponsors and do not necessarily reflect those of this station". This is as predictable as you'd get in a radio program. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alamo Joe Newbie United States Joined 3846 days ago 17 posts - 31 votes | Message 44 of 116 03 November 2013 at 4:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Language classes work if you supplement them with self-study sessions. The classes can be the foundation to language learning by teaching proper grammar, pronunciation, and expression and understanding through group conversation. Classroom time is limited, so it's up to the students to build on that foundation and continue working on the language on their own time. A lot of that can be learned without enrolling in a language school, but it's probably a better way to get a solid grounding in a language than through self-study. I think that's especially true with tonal languages. It's important to get feedback early on so that common mistakes can be corrected before they become fossilized, as some of you have already alluded to. But nowadays with the internet and VOIP so popular it's probably just as easy to find a native speaker for a language partner and get feedback on your target language.
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| Leurre Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5211 days ago 219 posts - 372 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Korean, Haitian Creole, SpanishC2 Studies: Japanese | Message 45 of 116 10 November 2013 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
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I never quite got the 'language classes don't work' thing.
I learned Korean, for the first 2 years, exclusively through language classes, and (my estimate) I was pushing basic fluency around then (2010). The better question is 'what kind of classes?' I took 20 hours a week in a class with Japanese and Chinese students, in which no one would ever utter a word of French or English. I did homework for about 2 hours every day, excluding the weekends. There were other factors, sure: watching TV, talking with friends, speaking with strangers on the internet, being in the country, etc. But at no point did I take out a book and do exercises, or 'study' anything outside of the given curriculum. And now look- I just finished a 5 hour Skype conversation/debate with this Korean college student I met online, after which he told me that he thought I was a native speaker. Not a perfect foreigner, not a very good speaker, not a very natural speaker. He said he honestly believed I was a native Korean speaker. Okay, that doesn't mean at all that I am, but to me it means that there was something to the way I learned. And in the way I learned, my time spent in classes played a large part. So if I assume that the unequivocal capital 'NOT' of the thread title means that as a rule, language classes do not work, I wished to present my exception. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4614 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 46 of 116 10 November 2013 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, it's wrong to over-generalise I think.
And the fact is that for most people, until relatively recently, there weren't many other realistic options. I did my first German study via lessons at work at lunchtimes, which my then employer generously provided. Luckily the class size was small, so it was often not far short of one-to-one with the teacher. I then went on to an evening class, which also didn't have a massive class size, and managed to pass a GCSE exam with a good grade, without really knowing how little I knew, and how little speaking practice I'd actually had. I didn't really know much about language learning in those days, and it was (just) pre-internet. Actually, the internet existed, and I had access to it, but it wasn't like it is now, with resources practically jumping out at you. But anyway, it was not all bad, and there was quite a lot of good in it. And I've also had quite good experiences in French and Italian evening classes. But of course, on their own, they are not enough. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4408 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 47 of 116 10 November 2013 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Language classes most certainly DO work. But like any other learning method or resource, they don't provide
all the answers. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Domi333 Tetraglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4925 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, French, Creole (French), Portuguese Studies: Turkish, Ancient Greek | Message 48 of 116 11 November 2013 at 2:21am | IP Logged | ||
One-to-one and small classes provide a greater focus and work with the persons on an individual basis which can be good to work on what areas you might be lacking. My one-to-one Portuguese classes explored Portuguese on a formal textual level of which I had little competence and understanding(edit). I do think I can learn how to work on self-assessment for writing formals texts too though.
Edited by Domi333 on 11 November 2013 at 2:31am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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