|
 |
Trying to be too clever | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6490 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 49 of 74 29 October 2013 at 9:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm with Tarvos on this one. Why should I learn to greet people many months before I meet any native speakers? If I buy a trip to some place where they speak on of my weak languages I can spend a day on learning the greetings, some 'connectors' which can keep a conversation running and the names of some basic food items, and then I'm ready to go. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5217 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 50 of 74 29 October 2013 at 9:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think most course designers know a thing or two about what words a beginner should learn. This is not rocket science. Why do most learning materials start with greetings and salutations? The logic of course is that this is one of the first things that learners will encounter. A method will have section on the human body, food, clothing, transportation, going to school, etc. Is this surprising? Isn't this whatt some people want? The only alternative that I've heard so far is to teach football and umbrella in the beginning. Now the implementation can be faulty. With today's technologies things can be done very differently. That's another question. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5217 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 51 of 74 29 October 2013 at 10:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't disagree totally but remember that textbooks are designed for classroom use and things like greetings and salutations are usually taught first because they will be used by the teacher and heard quite soon. But the real solution is to have a totally modular method where you can choose and pick what you need and not have to go in any particular order. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4494 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 52 of 74 29 October 2013 at 10:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Most course designers clearly don't know jack shit about it because they're not selling
me what I want. A course designer designing a classroom course is one thing. But I'm using self-study materials and I want something way more personalized and suitable to my needs. Yeah it is useful to know "my arm hurts" but I generally use this twice a year when I bump my arm or head into someone or if I have to go to the doctor. What course designers have is marketing data that is generalised across a lot of people. So you're talking about words that are generally likely to come up a lot, but will not necessarily come up in each individual case at all. The most important word I have to know is "scientist" or "science communication" because it's my job! I far too often have to replace it by "engineer" (which is correct in truth but doesn't give you the whole picture). I am much more likely to use this word than "my arm hurts". Besides that I don't care about reading those actual texts. Like I said, a good course programme is something that can keep a reader motivated and enticed - generic tripe designed to hold my hand because I am assumed to be a fool is not a part of that. I do not want my hand to be held. Like I said - I want lots of audio, lotes of transcription into TL and NL (but no transliteration) and interesting texts that become longer and more complex the further you in - i.e. Assimil. The only criticism I have of Assimil is that they need to make their grammar overviews more thorough and not so disjointed across their textbooks (and simply state them more up front) and also that they need to check how much of their texts are actually funny (the Breton ones were terribly unfunny for example. The Romanian, Hebrew and Russian dialogues are hilarious without fail.) Edited by tarvos on 29 October 2013 at 10:07am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4796 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 53 of 74 29 October 2013 at 10:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Since some people have trouble getting over their arrogance, let me rephrase it: Of
course the phrasal verbs are extremely common in most types of native material. Yet, there are many things where the phrasal verbs are less common or even actively avoided. In general, the phrasal verb is more colloquial while the "normal" verb is more educated. People need to learn both as the time goes, sure. But speaking of the need and easiness to learn them right away, that is just misguided. Just as explaining the obvious. quote:"For example learn to at least recognize that in English verbs may be made up of one, two or three words." Most people with intelligence higher than that of a cabbage don't need to learn that. They need the details and those can wait a few months. Noone asks for an entire course on the phrasal verbs, sallard, you just may be interested to learn that generalizations like "students quickly learn" are totally wrong. Especially when it comes to things like the phrasal verbs. Yes, minority of students learns quite fast the basic set of most common phrasal verbs. But vast majority needs time to learn them especially when more and more are added to the pile. And division of the idioms from the phrasal verbs is no panacea. Both are intermedite students' nighmares, just differently named. Again, what is "simple". I could continue for a few more pragraphs but it wouldn't be a good use of my time. Anyone with the experience knows that even the simplest and most logical phrasal verbs are simple until the moment you put them to the mix of all the mess students at that point of their studies need to face. Just one real life example: I knew a girl who went to the UK as an au-pair. She learnt to use the five or six basic verbs perfectly. In combinations, with prepositions, in phrasal verbs and in idioms. The result was her host family totally disappointed as her English was deteriorating noticeably with every month. So, of course you can speak a language with just a few words. But if you keep to it for too long, you will only look like a worthless idiot noone wants to speak with. The quality of your speech is closely tied to how you are perceived as potential source of ineresting or fun conversation. I always wondered why all the course designers start with greeting and describing your family tree. Even the basic phrases like introducing yourself sometimes include grammar that can be postponed. And the vocabulary usually included in first chapters often tends to be the most useless of the whole course. I totally agree with Tarvos. If the average audience is on authors' mind, than why are the first five or so lessons usually filled with useless crap? Or do you think lists of family members or all the nationalities are necessary for survival? I totally agree with Tarvos that marketing is much more important to the designers than the results or inner logic of the course. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4409 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 54 of 74 29 October 2013 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I guess if you start a course with all the conjugations of the verb "to be" along with an introduction to the gender of nouns, it wouldn't appeal to casual learners. Courses are commercial products designed to tempt as many buyers as possible (hence the often ludicrous claims on the cover). Edited by beano on 29 October 2013 at 1:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4494 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 55 of 74 29 October 2013 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
But that would be a boring course. You just need interesting material, and it's better to
have Assimil which introduces these elements step by step in a good sound order, but doesn't do them thematically like TY or Colloquial, but integrates them into hilarious stories, newspaper articles and other things you would actually want to read as a student. My only criticism is that the grammar appendices are lacking and need to be substantially enlarged in order to give a comprehensive overview, so that if you're looking for a table, it's actually there. I don't mind having these compiled in an appendix at the back as long as the rest is a set of x amount of genuine texts with audio and a bilingual translation. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lykeio Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4031 days ago 120 posts - 357 votes | Message 56 of 74 29 October 2013 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
So what if the course is boring? From where are you expecting to tske your enjoyment?
from a textbook you're meant to spend minimal time on or in interacting with people, reading literature and so on? It really doesn't matter. Personally I find crap like TYS and Assimil very boring due to the amount of time each are meant to take, very inefficient ways of learning. I'd rather get to native materials as quickly as possible. 3 persons have 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. |
