|
 |
Systematic study to reach higher levels | ||
Tags: Advanced Level | Learning Strategy | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4345 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 17 of 52 17 April 2013 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
As someone who is only intermediate in a second language, I can only rely on my knowledge of my L1 here. But what I found as I started writing professionally was that what really mattered was not low frequency words, but a really detailed understanding of high frequency words, which I could only achieve by reading a lot. And I don't think you need to read high literature to get there. I mostly read scifi which was find to build up a decent vocabulary. My vocabulary in English is actually reasonably high, but sad truth is that it really doesn't matter whether I know 15000 words groups, 25000 word groups or 50000 word groups in English. When I write I have to use words that others understand, so you end up using high frequency words where ever possible (in spoken language this is much more pronounced as the vocabulary is much more restricted). What matters is that you have a very precise knowledge of these high frequency words. I don't believe a tutor in any reasonable time period could have taught me subtle differences in the use of various words. Reading did. I do wonder about the 17 year figure to reach competence. I find that surprisingly long at one level, at another it seems completely reasonable. It seems reasonable as 17 years language study in your L2 is equivalent to a native of say 22 years of age. It seems odd, as I know plenty of people who have achieved this level in less than 17 years in English, but of course this may not apply to Europeans learning Asian languages. What were the L1 and L2s of the people in the study you mentioned? I also think that the 17 year figure must cover a lot of sins. Many of the people in the group will be hanging out in bilingual communities, using their L2 to a greater or lesser extent. Some people will be getting a lot more L2 input by reading, others not reading much at all. Edited by patrickwilken on 17 April 2013 at 8:06pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4978 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 18 of 52 17 April 2013 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
17 years? Even though I'd be happy with B1 at Mandarin, that is quite discouraging. Anyway, they didn't take into account how much exposure you get nowadays thanks to the internet: chatrooms, youtube videos, text chatting, Skype, sites with billingual translations. I think the middle ground is still the approach I'd take. I've been studying Chinese for almost two years with little result and sometimes I think I had better look for my former tutor back in 2005, who opened his own school, but then I don't have time or money or a priority for that right now. I still am optimistic about reaching a satisfactory level in 5 years, the one that would allow me to watch a movie, read short stories etc. I don't know what I'd do next, but for other languages I'm considering informal instruction for a while, like hiring a tutor for French.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6662 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 19 of 52 17 April 2013 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
One reason I like the ILR scale is that it describes specific thing that you should be able to do at each level of
proficiency. Granted, it's fairly skewed toward professional needs at the expense of some daily life things, which I think is a fairly natural state of events around ILR3-4. I only recently learned how to tell someone that their fly is down in Chinese, for instance, even though I can talk ancient phonology and excavated texts to no end. Then again, the latter is why I'm in Taiwan in the first place, not the former, so I can accept having to say "your pants aren't done right" (褲子沒有弄好) when a native would say "your pull-chain hasn't been pulled" (拉鍊沒拉). But that's just me. :) Anyway, here's the description of reading ability at ILR4:
I'm not sure one could cheat his way to that ability. At this point, you're either there or you're not.
It varied. I believe most were native English speakers, but there were native speakers of other languages as well. Target languages varied, as the author simply looked for people who had achieved ILR4-5, no matter the language. Given the fact that her own language of expertise is Russian, it does seem to me that Russian learners are over-represented in the study versus in real life. One thing mentioned in the study was that nearly everyone mentioned broad, extensive reading as being absolutely critical to achieving that level. I think we can assume that that's across the board, both people who participated in "Beyond-Three" type programs and those who didn't. So I think it's safe to say that while it doesn't seem to play much role in how quickly one reaches that level, it is a crucial element of your study plan if you plan on reaching it whatsoever. Of course, you're free to pick up the book and read it for yourself (it was US$15 for me brand new), and then decide whether you believe it or not. Leaver has a lot of other books out there on the subject, and there's a group of other authors she works with frequently who have also written extensively on the subject.
What they took into account was what the participants said had worked for them in reaching that level. Since the study was conducted nearly a decade ago, and given the average "time-to-proficiency," if you will, I think it's safe to say you're right. Then again, most of the participants had lived, worked, and/or studied in their target country for years. The internet is no substitute for that kind of exposure, and I don't really see what it has to do with it anyway. Watching a movie in your VCR or DVD player is not any less effective than watching it on YouTube. Listening to a radio play on a cassette tape is no less effective than on an iPod. I don't believe the training programs at FSI, for example, have gotten any shorter since the internet became popular. They're still churning out ILR3 students at a steady rate. It's easier for a self-studier to find the materials now, granted, but there's no reason for the amount of exposure you get to them to be different once you have them in your possession. Edited by OneEye on 17 April 2013 at 8:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4821 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 20 of 52 17 April 2013 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I think systematic review is needed as some "details" or less used things get lost over
time. And as you are mostly using the language at this point, you are often not corrected and therefore might "unlearn" some pieces of grammar. I find systematic study useful during preparation for language exams. My usual input doesn't provide me with vocabulary and phrases related to some areas and therefore I need to cover the gaps differently. It worked as well when I found myself using too basic vocabulary all the time and the gap between known and used vocabulary kept getting wider. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5344 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 52 18 April 2013 at 12:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
As far as I can tell, relatively few people trained by FSI ever reach ILR 4. From reading some blogs written by FSI students and the chapter on advanced students in Achieving Success in Second Language Acquisition (written in part by FSI staff), I get the impression that most FSI students rarely spend more than 5 years on a tour of duty (and usually only a couple), and much of that time is spent living and interacting with fellow English speakers. So this would be a very different situation than, say, a post doctoral student who immigrates to a new country in their late 20s, works professionally with locals, and lives with locals. People like that often make it from a solid B2 to C2 (at least in speaking and listening) inside of 3 years of round-the-clock immersion, especially if moving between European languages. Their biggest weakness tends to be writing, because most of them just haven't read enough books. (With papers to publish and possibly kids to raise, who could?) If you give them 20 years and assume they're voracious readers, then a significant fraction will become nearly indistinguishable from natives, except perhaps for a faint accent. And their accents will, in many cases, be closer to the regional standard than a native speaker from another part of the country. That said, the authors of Achieving Success in Second Language Acquisition claim that it's possible to significantly decrease the time required to reach near-native levels though targeted study. This certainly sounds plausible: Even native speakers can, say, vastly improve their writing skills if they make a focused effort and get lots of feedback. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6282 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 22 of 52 18 April 2013 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
FSI students may not reach ILR 4, but they are required to reach ILR 3 before they go
abroad, or their deployment will be delayed until they are at that level, meaning significant loss of income. I taught several of them and it's amazing: they started in September and by June/July they were ready to take the ILR 3 exam in German. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6662 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 23 of 52 18 April 2013 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Precisely. You reach the level of "educated native speaker" in your own native language through a combination of wide reading and targeted instruction. I know I had to take English classes in high school, and they consisted of literature, grammar instruction, and writing. We were required to write research papers every semester, which would come back to us with comments from the teacher. University students in the US generally have to take English Composition in their first year of undergrad. There is, generally speaking, a huge difference between the level of eloquence, in both speaking and writing, that a university-educated speaker of English has versus one who did not graduate high school. I'm sure the same is true in most major languages as well. To my mind, thinking that you can just "enjoy" your way to such levels in a foreign language is absurd. For one thing, standards for what constitutes good writing differ greatly between cultures, and that isn't something you can easily just pick up through reading. In the Leaver book I mentioned above, fully 76% of of those interviewed had earned a foreign degree, mostly master's and doctoral degrees, though there were a few who had done a bachelor's. They all said they felt it was one of the key factors in reaching near-native proficiency, because their instructors corrected their work as if they were native speakers. I personally find this very instructive. Edited by OneEye on 18 April 2013 at 2:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4345 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 24 of 52 18 April 2013 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
My own writing got vastly better when I wrote my doctorate. I was lucky enough to have a youngish professor as supervisor who was worried I would show him up, so he gave me tons of feedback on my writing. And if you write everyday for six months and are getting constant critical feedback of course your own writing improves. However, it seems to me that writing is both a general skill that generalizes across any particular language (the way arguments are made etc), and a more specific sense of the subtle differences between (often high frequency) words and phrases. It's not just about using the appropriate word, it's about using an appropriate word that carries with it a sort of invisible halo of other words and phrases. You use a certain word because you believe it will lead the reader in a certain direction. And this more subtle feeling for a language comes from having wide experience of the language (from reading and listening) and from knowing its high and low culture. I remember reading an interview with Andre Brink who writes in both Africaans and English, that he would sometimes lose entire chapters in translation when he rewrote his books from Africaans to English, as he felt that a direct translation sounded too emotional. But that could only come from a really deep feeling for the language. I am sure targeted critical feedback is helpful, but it's no substitution for lots and lots and lots of immersion in the language. Edited by patrickwilken on 18 April 2013 at 3:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
