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How do you learn best? | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5121 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 22 19 April 2012 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Two days ago I met my first live HTLALer, and we did of course end up in a lively discussion as for what the best learning methods are.
Now from my point of view, we are all different, which means that the best method for me, might not make sense for you and vice versa. And after having learned - or not learned - languages for as long as I have, I have come to the following conclusion: I do not learn well in a classroom situation, or a situation where I study grammar and vocabularly. I need to live and breathe the language. I can learn the rules, sure. I can even answer the exercises correctly. But the next day I will still make the same mistakes, and I may try to learn the same word for the 66th time with no success. I am like a fish on land. Now put in an immersion situation, on the other hand - I am the same fish in the ocean - and feel that I learn just as fast, if not faster, than anyone else. I learned Spanish, French and Italian immersion style - just fine. And I have been trying to learn German, and now lately Russian, the traditional way without much success. I do learn - eventually. It is just that for me it takes so much longer than if I learn without all the grammar and the rules. I have put so much effort into Russian over the last couple of years that I feel like I should have been able to not just read Tolstoy, I should have been able to write like Tolstoy!! Unfortunately I can just barely make basic conversation. Very basic conversation. So my question is: Am I the only one who is wired that way? Do you need the grammar and the rules in order to feel that you learn anything, or is it easier for you to learn directly from natural sources? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4475 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 2 of 22 19 April 2012 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure I've ever been able to push through learning with grammar and rules primarily for long enough to ever
really know, because it's so boring that I give up. So as a practical matter, I guess the answer is that it doesn't work for me either. The closest analogue for me is the four years of Latin that I took, but there the number of contact hours were very low, and we used Ecce Romani, which actually is a "reading course" where you get to read little stories, almost assimil style (without the audio and parallel English), and then later on they teach you the grammar to analyze what you just read. I really can't imagine how badly it would have gone if we'd used a more traditional approach. As is, I learned Latin a little better than the average student I think, which is to say, not too much, but definitely more than nothing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5892 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 3 of 22 19 April 2012 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I think I too need a stimulus to draw out my latent skills. With my language partner it usually takes a few minutes to warm up, but once I get talking I find that I make less mistakes and can remember more. I go away amazed. I crave more immersion so that my brain has to stretch with so many unfamilar things.
So, I'd prefer to be a fish, but maybe I'm an amphibian at the moment because I welcome the relief of sitting on dry land in familar environs! For pasive skills I'm content with reading a lot, acquiring vocabulary and listening to lots of podcasts / TV. I have to agree about taking grammar excercises, it can be so short-term! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4476 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 4 of 22 19 April 2012 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Personally, I have never tried to learn in a true immersion type environment so I cannot speak to it's pros and cons. I have learned 2 languages successfully through different methods though.
I learned French through 12 years of school (Kindergarten through 12th grade) and came out of it very fluent. I did have some opportunities to speak it growing up in Louisiana so it wasn't ALL classroom. To me, the only reason this was successful is that I WANTED to learn French. I connected with it and had a desire to do more with it than pass my classes. That was the difference for me. I had plenty of classmates who took just as many classes as I did and couldn't string together basic sentences. German was entirely self study via Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, textbooks, native materials, etc. This took me about 6 months to get to a comfortable B1 and basic conversational fluency. My German will not blow anyone away but I can express myself clearly, read native materials (with some dictionary help) and understand about 80% of movies or TV shows in German. I am very proud of this and continue to study actively everyday to progress. Contrasting the two methods, I would say the self-study method was BY FAR my preferred method of learning and without a lot of effort out-side of class, I would never be at the level of French that I am at now. I would love to try an immersion setting sometime and see how I respond to the challenge. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5319 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 22 19 April 2012 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I like to marinate in the language for as long as possible before doing anything that
resembles work. :-) I just adore Assimil, with its passive wave and hours of French CDs, and I get all twitchy when I open up an Icelandic textbook and see grammar explanations on page 1. I don't think I would like to be completely immersed on day 1, though. Too much frustration for everybody. And I recall your stories about your first French immersion, an experience which would probably have left me traumatized for life. But now that I can actually use the language, I like to mix partial immersion with exposure and study. And I'm not adverse to flipping through a grammar book or making Anki cards. Still, as Iverson suggests, this "intensive" work is really just enabling my "extensive" exposure: reading, listening and talking with actual people. My actual study hours are just the tip of an iceberg. I was feeling all poetic this morning, and wrote something about this subject in my log. If you're into that sort of thing, click on the tiny guillemet and scroll down to my third post on that page: » 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5328 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 6 of 22 19 April 2012 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I tend to learn very well from classes (that meet at least three times a week) assuming
the teacher is good. I also do a lot of my own work outside of class (which is expected in a college level class) whether it be finding listening resources, more grammar exercises, or a language tandem partner. If, for whatever reason, I can't take a class, which is what's going on with my Japanese studies right now, I learn well from good, generally college level, textbooks. Said textbooks also have to have a workbook and preferably a vocabulary list (that may or may not be translated). I also try to find a good grammar book whether or not I'm in a class. I generally learn grammar and vocabulary at the same time as that's what works best for me. I also try to do as much reading as early as possible. Unlike some people, it doesn't need to be from "authentic materials", I just need to be reading the vocabulary in context as that tends to really help cement the vocabulary words into my brain. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4475 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 7 of 22 19 April 2012 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||
Agreed. Having "authentic" materials can do wonders for motivation, but once you're motivated, the context is what allows the brain to do its magic. Accordingly, a witty Assimil lesson may seem "inauthentic," but be just interesting enough to keep you motivated. A series of sentences like "The pen is on the table" may provide context, but are so dreadfully boring that people such as myself simply cannot plod along with them for months on end, or even hours. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4655 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 8 of 22 19 April 2012 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm also more of an immersion type of learner, although I think good language instruction is irreplaceable (whether that be a book or a teacher). While I like to pick up words, phrases and even structures by extensive reading and listening I think to really become proficient most, if not all, people need focused (grammatical) instruction on the side.
Especially in a language like German or Korean with some complex grammar learning without focusing on forms easily leads to fossilized mistakes. I know that research in second language acquisition of German suggests this and I've seen it play out in reality, too. Refugees in Germany are a group that relies heavily on immersion, mostly because structured language courses they have access to are scarce. While they often achieve impressive results regarding their ability to communicate, many have problems with grammar. If I look back to my English study I know that I wouldn't have come far without immersion, but I did a lot of formal study, too, and I think that had an immense influence on my skills. My Korean study suggests the same. The past half year I've focused solely on immersion (by movies, conversation partners, books) and it's not always possible to pick up some of the subtleties of grammar this way. So I think that immersion is vital (after all, this is what language is all about) and study without immersion is a bit like a lifeless skeleton. But immersion only may lead to a wobbly mess of language (going with that image, I know, it's a bit gross), instead of a fully functional, well-developed skill with flesh and bones.
Nice description :D I do the same, though not with language courses. I've found that it is far less painful to first get a feel for the language by extensive listening. It speeds up the initial learning and keeps pronunciation troubles at bay. Edited by druckfehler on 19 April 2012 at 5:13pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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