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Total Immersion is a Crock! | ||
Tags: Immersion | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6873 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 33 of 40 03 July 2007 at 8:59am | IP Logged | |||||
Good point. I’m guilty of the above. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6228 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 34 of 40 03 July 2007 at 9:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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Perhaps because "tricky" grammar points like the subjunctive in Italian tend to be replaced by other forms or used less in the spoken language? Immersion should also be about extensive reading.
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| orion Senior Member United States Joined 6802 days ago 622 posts - 678 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 35 of 40 03 July 2007 at 9:18am | IP Logged | |||||
I learned to speak fluent English in a total immersion environment. Billions of other people also learned their native languages using this method. I've never tried learning another language this way, but it doesn't seem like a very efficient use of resources. Sure it works, but maybe not as well as a carefully planned approach. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| uman Diglot Groupie United States umanwizard.com Joined 6716 days ago 58 posts - 61 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 36 of 40 03 July 2007 at 11:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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But doesn't the human brain lose some of its language-learning elasticity after early childhood? It seems like this would imply the need to use different methods for learning.
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6690 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 37 of 40 03 July 2007 at 11:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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There's no doubt that you can learn a new language as an adult, I think the elasticity/plasticity has more to do with native-like pronunciation - which however can be acquired anyway, according to research:
Adults Can Be Retrained To Learn Second Languages More Easily, Says UCL Scientist That being said, it seems as if everybody doesn't learn languages the same way, and that immersions may be more suitable for a certain "learning type". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6138 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 38 of 40 02 August 2008 at 9:00am | IP Logged | |||||
OK, I'm coming back to revisit this thread, since I have now used French In Action a bit, and because this very week I saw this advice to a brand new French learner posted in another thread:
It's amazing to me that my first post here was over a year ago. I've probably checked in here multiple times every day since, and spent about 10x more time reading here than studying languages. "Bad Terry! Bad boy!" A couple months ago at work, I was told that I'd be going to France for a week on business in September. Perfect opportunity to give me a few months to work on French, of which I'd only done Pimsleur French 1 eons ago. Unfortunately, because of travel budget restrictions at work, the trip recently got cancelled, but I am enjoying the differences and similarities from Spanish and Italian, so I'll probably stick with French for now. After 2 Units of FSI French Basic and about 7 lessons of Assimil French With Ease, I thought I'd check out French In Action again. I started watching about 1 a day, some days repeating. Yes, it is very effective when showing a dozen video instances of "Sick. Not sick. Sick. Not sick..." and "Thin. Fat. Thin. Fat..." But for most of the 25 minute lessons, I was pretty lost. When I got to lesson 5, and couldn't understand a single sentence that Prof. Capretz said in his opening 10 minute monologue, I was totally disgusted. He could wave his hands around all he wants while talking, but I was clueless. Then I found an old "Where are some good French resources?" thread on here. Thank you, thank you, thank you "dmg" for posting this:
http://www.mchenry.edu/faculty_pgs/ecorneli/digitalwarpaint/ html/fre151/fre151assign.html FIA transcripts Wow, what a difference. Comparing the English and French transcripts to the video gave me a huge power boost, and I was quickly able to understand 90% of the video. Now I love it, I'm learning a lot from it, enjoy the characters, etc. To Farley's point earlier in this thread, it may have been a lot better learning experience for me if I used the supplementary workbooks and materials, but if the English transcript is not there for those who want it, I still say it's a stupid shortcoming. Look at some of the most recommended courses on here. FSI Basic has the endless drills only in the "foreign" language, but each Unit dialog gives you the building blocks in English to work with. Assimil certainly has the English translation for every line. Michel T. has (maybe too much) English. Lots of people here DON'T like Rosetta Stone, and surprise, no English in the entire course. Prof. Capretz, tear down that wall! Edited by TerryW on 02 August 2008 at 9:13am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5792 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 39 of 40 02 August 2008 at 9:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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I find it funny when people say things like "I studied French for four years at high school and got nowhere. Now I'm using Immersive LearnBooster GTi and I'm speaking like a native. I wish I'd known about this when I started out."
I don't think I've seen many quotes of any other form -- does it never occur to these people (or the course writers) that the success may be that the immersion has "activated" (to use the popular buzzword) that learned material? I understand the necessity of immersion to learn a language, but I'm a fan of knowing how to stay afloat before I jump into the deep end.... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alvinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 6015 days ago 828 posts - 832 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish | Message 40 of 40 02 August 2008 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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my best way to enjoy immersion process is to listen to radios....well, only in Spanish and sometimes in Italian.....as for English, I fear not to listen to words properly...it´s the kind of situation I sometimes cannot sort out.....even though they told me over time my ear will grapple with some words and sentesies....
as I´m not keen on spending money on language courses, Internet has become my best tool to acquire more and more words....this website, for instance, despite reading on PC screen bugs my eyes.... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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