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Total Immersion is a Crock! | ||
Tags: Immersion | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6225 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 17 of 40 01 July 2007 at 8:48am | IP Logged | |||||
Hah. I'm not super-human, and I am being serious. It wasn't significantly more than you postulated, but it was slightly more. Listening while paying attention is surprisingly effective. I think there's some benefit in doing it right at the start, as word boundaries in most languages I've heard become very clear within a few hours of listening, though what things actually mean doesn't. Caveat: I find this approach next to useless for actually learning a significant amount, from a beginner's level, without other materials. TV/movies are much easier to understand, but it's also easy to get to a point where you comprehend the basics of what's going on and mainly ignore the language beyond that, relying on the visual cues to fill things in, or so I've found, in my limited use of them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| johntothea Senior Member United States Joined 6414 days ago 193 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, Polish, French | Message 18 of 40 01 July 2007 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've always thought about that. haha. Or someone asking the question 'I grew up bi-lingual in english and [insert language name here]. It's a serious problem for me, how do I forget [insert language name here]?' 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6233 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 19 of 40 01 July 2007 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Monolingualism rules! One language ruling over millions of miles, how reassuring, how wonderful! In a way we're all studying languages and annexing new territories to our own language empires because multilingualism sucks and because we want more of that wonderful American monolingual feeling. Whenever a language dies, an angel gets its wings. Edited by reineke on 01 July 2007 at 1:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Silvestris Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6350 days ago 131 posts - 136 votes Speaks: English*, Polish*, German | Message 20 of 40 01 July 2007 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
I can almost hear the screaming and gnashing of the teeth, haha!
Haha! That sounds a little like Mongolianism to me. You guys are awesome. I know exactly why I love this forum so much now. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tmesis Senior Member Mayotte Joined 6434 days ago 154 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* | Message 21 of 40 01 July 2007 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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- Edited by tmesis on 17 February 2008 at 3:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jerrod Senior Member United States Joined 6289 days ago 168 posts - 176 votes Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 22 of 40 02 July 2007 at 1:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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I like the immersion style technique, even from the beginning. In my Russian classes in the USA we used the immersion technique except when it came to complicated grammar topics. Our book was in English and that was reserved solely for home study. Once you do get to the intermediate stage though, you should strive for nothing but immersion. Even with complicated topics.
I do think it is ridiculous that you can learn a language just from hearing it without the material being graded. I.e. just turning on Oprah in French and understanding. Even with graded material in the beginning why watch two videos with the same 15 words and try to guess their meanings and hope you get them right? I will simply look up the 15 words and watch the videos over and over till it is second nature. Surely this reduces the time needed and you advance faster; even if you do some translation in your head (that will fade with time). 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6404 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 23 of 40 02 July 2007 at 2:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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"I should have softened that post up a bit by mentioning that I've been reading the incredible wealth of info here for a couple months and really do appreciate it. Wow, I come back here a few hours after posting, and there are 138 views and 8 replies. I've dabbled with a bunch of languages off and on (mostly off), using an even bigger bunch of different resources. I'll detail that in a later reply. "
Terry, dabbling with a bunch of languages is the reason why you're not really learning anything new. Now, I'm not saying that you should watch Spanish TV for 10 hours a day. But if you're serious about learning a new language, then the people on this bulletin board can help you find some good material for learning a new language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6489 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 24 of 40 02 July 2007 at 4:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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It all boils down to the notion of comprehensible input. For a total 100% novice nothing is comprehensible, so either you 'cheat' by offering a few words with translations in the beginning or you indicate the meaning by non-linguistic cues. In my opinion there is nothing gained by avoiding the translations.
After that there comes a stage where you can learn new words or expressions if they come in a context where their meaning is clear. For a 95% novice this means that you only can use special prepared texts, graded very carefully, or contexts where there are sufficiently clear non-linguistic clues ("this is a..." pointing to an object). Even at this stage I find that that it is unnecessary masochism to avoid two-way dictionaries and other external sources of information. Besides I don't trust guessing, especially not the guesses of a novice - Kikenyoy's example with the soccer player pinpoints the problem. Besides I personally abhor the situation where I depend on a teacher or textbook for providing meaningful input, and every trick that can bring me out of that situation as fast as possible is permissible. For a person who already is fairly advanced it is less harmful to rely on monolinguistical settings because you already have some idea about which guesses are credible, and you are capable of processing much larger quantities of input. Nonetheless I still trust a good dictionary or grammar more than my own judgment even at this stage. So basically I don't see the advantages of a 100% monolingual setting for vocabulary or grammar learning. Where it does have a role to play is in training fluency (=fluent language production). It is much easier to think in a foreign language and maybe even utter a few sentences here and there when you are immersed in a monolingual setting, for instance when you visit another country. Besides it is a perfect setting for training how to pronounce the language, especially if everybody around you are native speakers. Edited by Iversen on 02 July 2007 at 4:57am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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