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Adopt a language parent - literally? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5704 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 12 16 February 2014 at 1:04am | IP Logged | ||
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An interesting TED talk showed up in my feed - thought I'd share:
How to learn any language in six months by Chris Lonsdale I wanted to ask you all what you think about one of his suggestions - adopting a language parent. 15:10-16:28 in the video. He basically suggests finding someone who will speak to you and teach you in the same way parents teach a toddler - literally. He has some rules for this: the person should work to understand what you're saying and confirm understanding by using correct language, they should use words you know, and they should not correct your mistakes. What do you think? I've heard people talk about learning like a toddler would, but I've never seen anyone suggest this in such a literal sense before. It doesn't sound like something I'd want, and it's not something I'm going to try to do, and I don't know how you'd even find such a person... But it was interesting to hear him talk about it anyhow. I suppose this might work for some people if they could find an extremely patient person to work with them. Whether it would be efficient use of time for an adult learner is another matter. I'm not really sold on the idea to be honest... Anyway the video is worth watching in its entirety - good stuff. Good advice. Thoughts? Liz ----- For reference, in case it matters to anyone, his headlines were: Principles: #1 Focus on language content that is relevant to you #2 Use your new language as a tool to communicate from day 1 #3 When you first understand the message you will unconsciously acquire the language #4 Physiological training (talking takes muscle) #5 Psychophysiological state matters Actions for rapid language acquisition: #1 Listen a lot #2 Focus on getting the meaning first (before the words) #3 Start mixing #4 Focus on the core #5 Get a language parent #6 Copy the face #7 "Direct connect" to mental images Edited by Lizzern on 16 February 2014 at 1:31am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6392 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 12 16 February 2014 at 7:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Sounds creepy to me.
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5561 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 12 16 February 2014 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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... who'd be willing to do that job.
Now, a language family, that might work. I learnt much of my Spanish talking to the women in my au pair family - the mother, the 5 year old daughter, and also the household aide two or three times a week. For one, we had to communicate, and then, we wanted to. They adjusted their manner of speech so that I seemed to understand, and I gave my best to learn quickly. They didn't see it as their job to correct me (most of the time), but in order to understand they'd often take a guess, and ask back using correct grammar or native-like expression. It works. But I think it's not something one single person can do, because two people will establish a pattern to their interaction quickly, and that means talking about things the learner already knows well already. That's the kind of plateau people often find themselves on when they try to learn the language of their partner by talking to their partner. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4961 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 4 of 12 17 February 2014 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I never see the point in trying to teach adults like kids. Kids take decades till they
become fully functional. Why try to learn unconsciously while you can learn it all consciously like an educated native speaker? 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| andras_farkas Tetraglot Groupie Hungary Joined 4695 days ago 56 posts - 165 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, Spanish, English, Italian | Message 5 of 12 19 February 2014 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | ||
Children do not take decades till they become fully functional. A 4-year-old placed in a foreign language environment picks up the language in a couple of months, and may be indistinguishable from a native speaker in two years. Children learn their own mother tongue at amazing speed. They will often learn words on first encountering them, which is unusual for an adult. Some of the principles listed above make sense to me. I always felt that getting your hands on a lot of L2 material that you have an interest in is key. Few people have the mental fortitude to sit down and memorize words or grammatical rules for hours on end on a daily basis, but it's perfectly natural for people to spend many-many hours consuming books/films/radio shows etc. If you start doing that in your L2, you suddenly have great motivation and a massive amount of practice all in one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5561 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 12 19 February 2014 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | ||
You can't learn it all consciously. There's simply too many layers of information in a language to do that. Language instruction only gives you simplified and generalized rules to work with, and then you figure out the rest from using the language. Some people are naturally good at doing the latter, and they tend to say things like what you just wrote. Others need some pointers for how to do it, and that's okay, too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4961 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 7 of 12 19 February 2014 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not saying I try to learn it all consciounsly. On the other hand, there is a limit
for me when immersion starts to be effective. I can't measure it properly, but with Georgian, for example, I've been listening to videos for the past six months and learned almost nothing from them. I learned much more from reading consciously and comparing with translations. I don't think it's effective to learn totally unconsciously either. Besides, I don't want to study to speak like a child, but like an educated native speaker. The vocabulary I'd need to talk to Georgian children, for example, I've already achieved at my first year of study. I don't know what happens. I find it important to use paths such as textbooks and as translations or subtitles to follow along with, yet I don't go on at each topic advising people to study only consciously, trying to persuade them (just because I don't do that myself, I also use immersion partially, as can be verified at my log). On the other hand, I've met several people who defend unconscious learning pop up at every other thread to speak about the magic of learning through only listening and watching TV, like a child. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5561 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 12 19 February 2014 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Old argument. In short, it seems that some people gain more from certain kinds of exposure than other people do, or than they gain from other kinds of exposure. While some of it may be due to talent, I believe most of the difference boils down to the strategies you use when dealing with a certain kind of situation.
I also believe that people can learn to make more out of opportunities they thought would not help them. I myself do pick up relatively much from watching TV, as long as I can follow the plot and find it interesting; and it must be an original production, not overdubbed. I do this because I simply copy the actors, like I copy how people behave around me whenever I am in a novel kind of situation. But that's not immersion. Working in a foreign language environment and being surrounded by the language the entire day, having to rely on the language for all necessary social interactions, that is immersion. But with my previous comment I simply wanted to state that while remarks concerning "learning naturally, like a child" usually show that people are not aware of children's daily lives and the effort they make to learn everything they need about the environment around them and the social interaction in it, and how much they need people to talk to in order to do that, the other extreme -the idea you would learn everything consciously- disregards our aptitide for pattern recognition, heuristics, contextual learning, copying people's behaviour and the way we can learn from situations which were not intended for language instruction. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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