When I learn a language, I have a rough rule that I follow to measure my progress.
It can be easy to get discouraged when learning a language and start to think "I haven't learned anything!". But I think we are often so focused on the final outcome and not the process.
As a result we become very critical of ourselves and then give up before we get anywhere. Language is like a building. We have to build a foundation, and at first it seems as though we are progressing slowly. But then when the foundation is secure, the rest of the building goes up quite quickly.
So when I try to get an idea of how well my foundation is doing, I use these 3 steps:
The first step: Recognition
This is the ability to be able to pick out a word or phrase in natural conversation, regardless of whether you understand the word or not. This is what I have been doing with my Chinese language experiment. After 50 hours I can pick out words if they are spoken clearly at a reasonable pace, for example like how a newscaster speaks. I can follow along with Chinese subtitles and if I know the characters I can learn words this way. This is a step that a lot of people underestimate the importance of and try to bypass. But without building a solid foundation in listening skills, ability to converse in the language is seriously diminished.
The second step: Familiarization
This is the feeling of "I know what that word meant the other day!" and can feel a little frustrating. But this is a good stage. It means that you not only can recognize the sound clearly, but that you also are starting to connect the sound to a meaning. The reason that you cannot recall it is simply that the connection isn't strong enough. With more exposure to the word, the connection between sound and meaning will become stronger. If this feeling of frustration increases, it means that you're progressing.
The third step: Comprehension
This is what everyone looks for straight away. But only when you can easily recognize the word, and it becomes familiar enough to you can you understand it properly and use it in an appropriate context.
Most formalized systems tend to try and get the student to step 3 without taking steps before it. Partly I feel this is because we can measure comprehension much more easily than the other steps.
If taught in an acquisition way, with lots of exposure to comprehensible input, this explains why people will listen for hours and hours, and then finally "get it".
It is important that all these steps are covered when learning a language; that a person can recognize the sound, become familiar with it in natural speech, and comprehend its meaning. But also can be a good measure for a student as to how well they are learning the language. Especially for those that try to use natural approach methods, it can make them less critical of themselves, and it can give them more confidence in the method.
Because even if they aren't "getting it", they may still be progressing anyway.
Showing posts with label LANGUAGE ACQUISITION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LANGUAGE ACQUISITION. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
How to teach a language wrong
After sitting through 8 weeks of some of the worst language teaching I've ever experienced in my life, I have been inspired to write a post about how you can maximize your students mistakes and demoralize them from future learning.
This ironic post is designed to highlight all the wrong things I've seen one person do when teaching, so if you want to do all the right things, I would suggest something close to the opposite of this. Follow on to see how you can "Maximize your Mistakes"!
Firstly, you need to seriously limit how much time students spend practicing. Because language is best trained like a sport, you need to steer students away from anything that will actually improve their skills.
But if you have all this scheduled class time with your students, what should you do?
You need to spend as much time as possible explaining unimportant nuances of the language elements you are teaching. For example, explaining how a single Chinese word is pronounced in different dialects, and the trivial details of how a character is written. But limit this to the unimportant details, or you may be in danger of teaching your students something. Another important point: Never, ever, give examples of how these words might be used in a real life sentence. In fact, never use realistic language with the students at all. This way, when they hear a native speaker talk, they will be completely unfamiliar with it.
Using the language in class is a dangerous slope as you risk putting real information into your class, so as much time as possible should be used for talking about things completely unrelated to language.
So secondly like our teacher you can spend a lot of time talking about your past issues in class. It's a captive audience. Therefore it's like free therapy, isn't it? Furthermore, you can spend extra precious minutes boosting your ego about how much you must know to be teaching a language to all those students.
Thirdly, to ensure the students don't start doing dangerous things like asking questions or experimenting with the language, you need to demoralize them. Here's some of the great ideas used by the teacher in question:
Finally once the students are demoralized and bored with your personal rants, then you can tell them you will teach them one thing, and then continuously change your mind. This will have them second guessing anything that comes out of your mouth and even the most dedicated student should be giving up by now.
So if you follow these 4 simple steps; teach trivial details, keep conversation away from the subject, destroy your students hopes, and make false promises, then congratulations! You have Maximized your Mistakes.
This ironic post is designed to highlight all the wrong things I've seen one person do when teaching, so if you want to do all the right things, I would suggest something close to the opposite of this. Follow on to see how you can "Maximize your Mistakes"!
Firstly, you need to seriously limit how much time students spend practicing. Because language is best trained like a sport, you need to steer students away from anything that will actually improve their skills.
But if you have all this scheduled class time with your students, what should you do?
You need to spend as much time as possible explaining unimportant nuances of the language elements you are teaching. For example, explaining how a single Chinese word is pronounced in different dialects, and the trivial details of how a character is written. But limit this to the unimportant details, or you may be in danger of teaching your students something. Another important point: Never, ever, give examples of how these words might be used in a real life sentence. In fact, never use realistic language with the students at all. This way, when they hear a native speaker talk, they will be completely unfamiliar with it.
Using the language in class is a dangerous slope as you risk putting real information into your class, so as much time as possible should be used for talking about things completely unrelated to language.
So secondly like our teacher you can spend a lot of time talking about your past issues in class. It's a captive audience. Therefore it's like free therapy, isn't it? Furthermore, you can spend extra precious minutes boosting your ego about how much you must know to be teaching a language to all those students.
Thirdly, to ensure the students don't start doing dangerous things like asking questions or experimenting with the language, you need to demoralize them. Here's some of the great ideas used by the teacher in question:
- Tell students that because they haven't studied linguistics or phonology, they are at a serious disadvantage in learning a language
- Tell them that because they are learning a language at a later age, they will never been really good at it
- If their language is very different to the one they are learning, tell them they will never understand the grammar or the nuances of vocabulary fully
- Tell them that if a sound doesn't exist in their native language it will be impossible for the student to make the sound correctly in the future.
Finally once the students are demoralized and bored with your personal rants, then you can tell them you will teach them one thing, and then continuously change your mind. This will have them second guessing anything that comes out of your mouth and even the most dedicated student should be giving up by now.
So if you follow these 4 simple steps; teach trivial details, keep conversation away from the subject, destroy your students hopes, and make false promises, then congratulations! You have Maximized your Mistakes.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The input vs output debate
If you get into conversations with people passionate about language acquisition, they tend to fall into one of two camps. Usually, they are an "outie" or an "innie".
That is, they either strongly believe that a learner should maximize their output, or maximize their input in order to best start learning a language.
I fall into the input camp. I believe it's important to maximize input as much as possible in the first 6 months to 1 year before the learner starts to focus on output. Without having prior experience with the language, then when it comes to production the learner has no reference to draw on to form utterances.
Often, rules just don't cut it.
I present my arguments for each of the four main components of language.
Pragmatics
This is the process of connecting language with context. In such a way something like "whatever" can have different meanings depending on the context of which it is used (such as declaring your indifference, or indicating that you want a person to shutup).
This is almost impossible to learn except by exposure to real life situations, or through TV shows and other video input. Most supporters of output place this kind of learning as a final stage. I suggest starting exposure to this kind of input from day one. Many complex sentences will not be understood at first, but simple ones can be picked up fairly quickly. For example, in 50 hours of Chinese exposure I've learned 2 ways of saying "let's go" depending on urgency and the verb "to go" which is different.
I feel that with enough exposure, this creates a link with certain phonetic patterns and situations (like identifying levels of formality by phonetics, describing an academic subject compared to describing a sport, etc).
Phonetics
The output argument generally tends towards a listen-and-practice approach. The idea being that phonetic sounds need to be practiced over and over again until the vocal chords and mouth learn to make the sounds required in the new language.
What inputters believe, and as my experience has shown, having a good level of input creates an instinct for the correct sounds of the language they are learning. It also gives them time to tune their ear to the phonetics, refining their ability to hear nuances in the sounds. This allows them to self correct in a far more efficient way than a listen-once-and-repeat method does.
Not only that, but often sadly most non-input methods tend to study phonetics in isolation, and not often how they combine together to make sentences.
The phonetics of a language involve far more than the individual consonant and vowel sounds. There is also syllabic stress (think of "REcord" and "to reCORD"), word liasons ("it's not" or "it snot"?), dropped vowels/syllables ("watchya doin?"), suprasegmental stress ("did YOU drink the milk?" or "did you DRINK the milk?"), emotional tone and formal tone, among other things.
These are all extremely involved and would be rather complex if studied in separate segments while trying to remember a rule for all of them. But they are present in natural speech, all happening at once. As such, the same input can be used many different ways to study the language from a different perspective.
Grammar
From a modern language learning perspective, this is considered the foundation of learning. It is usually the first thing you learn as it can be used to create comprehensible sentences straight away.
The problem with this is that often this can be so complex that it takes the main focus of the student away from comprehension of the language and the student starts to think of language in a mechanical fashion. Some grammar can be simple and can be practiced enough that it can become automatic. But there are some grammar forms that are context specific or difficult to explain in an explicit format. Sometimes they are classed as expressions, but the line is not always so clear. For example, "What's up with Matt?" may be considered an expression but "What is the problem with Matt?" may be considered a standard form of grammar, even though they are both interrogatives.
In addition, grammar cannot be separated from context. In the example above, "What's up?" is an informal expression inappropriate for some uses. If you learn this in a textbook it might not be clear. But with input, when this is viewed as only being used among friends or in casual situations, the person can intuit that this is an informal expression.
While learning grammar by rules can be useful, I believe it is best used to refine knowledge already present, like a native speaking child does when they go to primary school and beyond.
But even amongst native speakers, the strongest determinant of good spelling and grammar usage is how much the person reads. In other words, input.
Vocabulary
Lastly vocabulary is best learned by input when possible. A person can learn vocabulary through studying lists, through flashcards, picture cards, or through natural input.
Through viewing conversations in real life or even from TV or the like, the person has more senses engaged in which to remember vocabulary. Some people are visually focused, some auditory and some tactile. By giving the person something to look at, hear, and touch if possible it allows them to use the input method that is strongest for them. And by providing the context of the situation and supporting conversation it adds additional information (like when to use "ass" or "butt"; or "boat" or "ship").
What is the weak point of the input argument?
For language acquisition purposes, the language needs to be as comprehensible as possible, especially at early stages. As the guy that taught me TESOL said, "don't explain, demonstrate". It is not always very easy to find input like this, and it can be hard to convince native speakers to teach like this (with methods like TPR for example).
The debate is multifaceted and there are many justifications on both sides. Ultimately though, but input and output need to be thoroughly practiced. As a language learner what you need to make sure is that in the long term you are balancing input and output. Then focus first on what seems to work best for you.
That is, they either strongly believe that a learner should maximize their output, or maximize their input in order to best start learning a language.
I fall into the input camp. I believe it's important to maximize input as much as possible in the first 6 months to 1 year before the learner starts to focus on output. Without having prior experience with the language, then when it comes to production the learner has no reference to draw on to form utterances.
Often, rules just don't cut it.
I present my arguments for each of the four main components of language.
Pragmatics
This is the process of connecting language with context. In such a way something like "whatever" can have different meanings depending on the context of which it is used (such as declaring your indifference, or indicating that you want a person to shutup).
This is almost impossible to learn except by exposure to real life situations, or through TV shows and other video input. Most supporters of output place this kind of learning as a final stage. I suggest starting exposure to this kind of input from day one. Many complex sentences will not be understood at first, but simple ones can be picked up fairly quickly. For example, in 50 hours of Chinese exposure I've learned 2 ways of saying "let's go" depending on urgency and the verb "to go" which is different.
I feel that with enough exposure, this creates a link with certain phonetic patterns and situations (like identifying levels of formality by phonetics, describing an academic subject compared to describing a sport, etc).
Phonetics
The output argument generally tends towards a listen-and-practice approach. The idea being that phonetic sounds need to be practiced over and over again until the vocal chords and mouth learn to make the sounds required in the new language.
What inputters believe, and as my experience has shown, having a good level of input creates an instinct for the correct sounds of the language they are learning. It also gives them time to tune their ear to the phonetics, refining their ability to hear nuances in the sounds. This allows them to self correct in a far more efficient way than a listen-once-and-repeat method does.
Not only that, but often sadly most non-input methods tend to study phonetics in isolation, and not often how they combine together to make sentences.
The phonetics of a language involve far more than the individual consonant and vowel sounds. There is also syllabic stress (think of "REcord" and "to reCORD"), word liasons ("it's not" or "it snot"?), dropped vowels/syllables ("watchya doin?"), suprasegmental stress ("did YOU drink the milk?" or "did you DRINK the milk?"), emotional tone and formal tone, among other things.
These are all extremely involved and would be rather complex if studied in separate segments while trying to remember a rule for all of them. But they are present in natural speech, all happening at once. As such, the same input can be used many different ways to study the language from a different perspective.
Grammar
From a modern language learning perspective, this is considered the foundation of learning. It is usually the first thing you learn as it can be used to create comprehensible sentences straight away.
The problem with this is that often this can be so complex that it takes the main focus of the student away from comprehension of the language and the student starts to think of language in a mechanical fashion. Some grammar can be simple and can be practiced enough that it can become automatic. But there are some grammar forms that are context specific or difficult to explain in an explicit format. Sometimes they are classed as expressions, but the line is not always so clear. For example, "What's up with Matt?" may be considered an expression but "What is the problem with Matt?" may be considered a standard form of grammar, even though they are both interrogatives.
In addition, grammar cannot be separated from context. In the example above, "What's up?" is an informal expression inappropriate for some uses. If you learn this in a textbook it might not be clear. But with input, when this is viewed as only being used among friends or in casual situations, the person can intuit that this is an informal expression.
While learning grammar by rules can be useful, I believe it is best used to refine knowledge already present, like a native speaking child does when they go to primary school and beyond.
But even amongst native speakers, the strongest determinant of good spelling and grammar usage is how much the person reads. In other words, input.
Vocabulary
Lastly vocabulary is best learned by input when possible. A person can learn vocabulary through studying lists, through flashcards, picture cards, or through natural input.
Through viewing conversations in real life or even from TV or the like, the person has more senses engaged in which to remember vocabulary. Some people are visually focused, some auditory and some tactile. By giving the person something to look at, hear, and touch if possible it allows them to use the input method that is strongest for them. And by providing the context of the situation and supporting conversation it adds additional information (like when to use "ass" or "butt"; or "boat" or "ship").
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the weak point of the input argument?
For language acquisition purposes, the language needs to be as comprehensible as possible, especially at early stages. As the guy that taught me TESOL said, "don't explain, demonstrate". It is not always very easy to find input like this, and it can be hard to convince native speakers to teach like this (with methods like TPR for example).
The debate is multifaceted and there are many justifications on both sides. Ultimately though, but input and output need to be thoroughly practiced. As a language learner what you need to make sure is that in the long term you are balancing input and output. Then focus first on what seems to work best for you.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Chinese language experiment: 50 hours
Well, I finally did it.
I'm at 50 hours of listening practice.
A few events have happened in the time I logged 20 hours of listening, so I best explain what those are.
1/ I started university again 4 weeks ago. Because I've been busy with other things, I've not had the time and energy to devote to listening practice that I had before.
2/ I've started learning to read Chinese independently. I am focusing on learning the meaning independent of sound, however since most Chinese TV runs Chinese subtitles at the bottom, occasionally a word pops up that I recognize and this helps with learning.
3/ I started taking a Chinese class in university. However this is not a very big impact. The class is an example of what not to do in teaching language. Most of the class is given to explanations of where to put the tongue in the mouth to make a certain sound or repeating a sound as the teacher frantically rushes between 30 students to tell us if we are making the sound correctly. In four weeks I have learned only 20 words and 4 sentences. And in those 4 weeks I estimate that I have heard Chinese spoken in class for approximately 5 minutes.
So, lets have a look at my progress.
Here you can see a cumulative graph of my comprehension, hour by hour. You can see while it was volatile before, my estimates have plateaued out at about 15%. I don't expect these estimates to be extremely accurate until I reach higher percentages, but I will track them over time in any case.
As you can see, my comprehension for news, reportages and documentaries have gone up. This is largely due to the fact that these are what I've been listening to. I haven't been watching many entertainment shows, especially as they contain a lot of singing generally, and they aren't too helpful for my purposes.
The other category that stands out is dramas, which have actually gone down. I think I overestimated my comprehension earlier, and I want to be more conservative with my estimates.
That being said, I definitely have noticed a difference in my listening skills. It doesn't take much concentration at all to hear words clearly any more. And even when I don't know what they mean (which is most of the time), I can generally hear it and recreate it later on. I'm sure my pronunciation isn't perfect, but I feel that I can self correct to a pretty decent level.
I feel that this is an important skill that is mostly taken care of. I had estimated to have a good ear after 100 hours of listening, but it has come earlier than expected. Of course this is only the base and will need refining, but what this means is that I can now put my mental effort into understanding word order and connecting words with context in the storylines.
I will keep up with the listening, albeit it a slower pace. I will report back at 100 hours.
I'm at 50 hours of listening practice.
A few events have happened in the time I logged 20 hours of listening, so I best explain what those are.
1/ I started university again 4 weeks ago. Because I've been busy with other things, I've not had the time and energy to devote to listening practice that I had before.
2/ I've started learning to read Chinese independently. I am focusing on learning the meaning independent of sound, however since most Chinese TV runs Chinese subtitles at the bottom, occasionally a word pops up that I recognize and this helps with learning.
3/ I started taking a Chinese class in university. However this is not a very big impact. The class is an example of what not to do in teaching language. Most of the class is given to explanations of where to put the tongue in the mouth to make a certain sound or repeating a sound as the teacher frantically rushes between 30 students to tell us if we are making the sound correctly. In four weeks I have learned only 20 words and 4 sentences. And in those 4 weeks I estimate that I have heard Chinese spoken in class for approximately 5 minutes.
So, lets have a look at my progress.
Here you can see a cumulative graph of my comprehension, hour by hour. You can see while it was volatile before, my estimates have plateaued out at about 15%. I don't expect these estimates to be extremely accurate until I reach higher percentages, but I will track them over time in any case.
As you can see, my comprehension for news, reportages and documentaries have gone up. This is largely due to the fact that these are what I've been listening to. I haven't been watching many entertainment shows, especially as they contain a lot of singing generally, and they aren't too helpful for my purposes.
The other category that stands out is dramas, which have actually gone down. I think I overestimated my comprehension earlier, and I want to be more conservative with my estimates.
That being said, I definitely have noticed a difference in my listening skills. It doesn't take much concentration at all to hear words clearly any more. And even when I don't know what they mean (which is most of the time), I can generally hear it and recreate it later on. I'm sure my pronunciation isn't perfect, but I feel that I can self correct to a pretty decent level.
I feel that this is an important skill that is mostly taken care of. I had estimated to have a good ear after 100 hours of listening, but it has come earlier than expected. Of course this is only the base and will need refining, but what this means is that I can now put my mental effort into understanding word order and connecting words with context in the storylines.
I will keep up with the listening, albeit it a slower pace. I will report back at 100 hours.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Language is a sport, not a subject
In 2009 researcher Victor Ferreira conducted study showing that people form sentences with procedural memory.
To understand how big a deal this is, I have to explain some things first.
Procedural memory(n).
Also called implicit memory. Guides the processes we perform and most frequently resides below the level of conscious awareness. Retrieved and utilized for the execution of the integrated procedures involved in both cognitive and motor skills; from tying shoes to flying an airplane to reading. Accessed and used without the need for conscious control or attention. It is created through "procedural learning" or, repeating a complex activity over and over again until we figure out how to make all of the relevant neural systems work together to automatically produce the activity.
This study (among others) suggest that learning a language is like learning to tie your shoes, or to ride a bike. For anyone who's been in a language class before, does this sound like a typical class to you? If it does, tell me where you're learning. I'd like to speak to the teacher.
Most classes use a declarative or explicit approach to language teaching, at least in the early levels, and they usually never leave this approach.
Declarative memory(n).
Also called explicit memory. One of two types of long term human memory. Memories which can be consciously recalled such as facts and events. Declarative memory can be divided into two categories: episodic memory which stores specific personal experiences and semantic memory which stores factual information.
Ah, this sounds like language study! In language classes we can easily recall the drudgery of memorizing vocabulary lists and doing grammar exercises. The formula of A + B = Z. If we remember enough formulas, we can figure it out. The only reason it hasn't worked yet, we think, is because we haven't worked hard enough.
Except that the approach just doesn't work.
Memorization of rules follow a declarative path which can give a simulation of fluency up to a point. But it will never produce mastery. A native speaker learns through an implicit approach, and unless you do too, you are literally speaking a different language.
Victor Ferreira's study is one of a few I've seen about teaching syntax and grammar rules at subjects suffering from amnesia or Alzheimer's. Like his study, it is shown that people can remember how to construct sentence patterns even when they cannot explain how the rule works, or even that they had learned it.
If we think about our native language, we do the same. Most of us can't give explicit reasons for applying certain sentence structures, but we can do it continuously without error.
This shows that we use a different neural mechanism for learning languages than we do for learning academic subjects like science. Yet we continue to teach it as if it were an academic subject.
Why?
The assumption that adults cannot learn in a similar way to children is based on studies that compare explicit approaches with adults to implicit approaches to children. It's comparing oranges and apples. If more of Victors kind of studies continue, I hope there will be enough scientific evidence to appease the academic community that language learning should be trained like a sport, rather than an academic subject.
To understand how big a deal this is, I have to explain some things first.
Procedural memory(n).
Also called implicit memory. Guides the processes we perform and most frequently resides below the level of conscious awareness. Retrieved and utilized for the execution of the integrated procedures involved in both cognitive and motor skills; from tying shoes to flying an airplane to reading. Accessed and used without the need for conscious control or attention. It is created through "procedural learning" or, repeating a complex activity over and over again until we figure out how to make all of the relevant neural systems work together to automatically produce the activity.
This study (among others) suggest that learning a language is like learning to tie your shoes, or to ride a bike. For anyone who's been in a language class before, does this sound like a typical class to you? If it does, tell me where you're learning. I'd like to speak to the teacher.
Most classes use a declarative or explicit approach to language teaching, at least in the early levels, and they usually never leave this approach.
Declarative memory(n).
Also called explicit memory. One of two types of long term human memory. Memories which can be consciously recalled such as facts and events. Declarative memory can be divided into two categories: episodic memory which stores specific personal experiences and semantic memory which stores factual information.
Ah, this sounds like language study! In language classes we can easily recall the drudgery of memorizing vocabulary lists and doing grammar exercises. The formula of A + B = Z. If we remember enough formulas, we can figure it out. The only reason it hasn't worked yet, we think, is because we haven't worked hard enough.
Except that the approach just doesn't work.
Memorization of rules follow a declarative path which can give a simulation of fluency up to a point. But it will never produce mastery. A native speaker learns through an implicit approach, and unless you do too, you are literally speaking a different language.
Victor Ferreira's study is one of a few I've seen about teaching syntax and grammar rules at subjects suffering from amnesia or Alzheimer's. Like his study, it is shown that people can remember how to construct sentence patterns even when they cannot explain how the rule works, or even that they had learned it.
If we think about our native language, we do the same. Most of us can't give explicit reasons for applying certain sentence structures, but we can do it continuously without error.
This shows that we use a different neural mechanism for learning languages than we do for learning academic subjects like science. Yet we continue to teach it as if it were an academic subject.
Why?
The assumption that adults cannot learn in a similar way to children is based on studies that compare explicit approaches with adults to implicit approaches to children. It's comparing oranges and apples. If more of Victors kind of studies continue, I hope there will be enough scientific evidence to appease the academic community that language learning should be trained like a sport, rather than an academic subject.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Language developmental stages
After reading posts about language learning, I have come to a couple of conclusions:
One of the difficulties in a method like ALG is getting people to accept a silent period of 6-12 months before they start speaking in a language. We've been taught it is necessary to focus on production straight away, so classes have been geared to teach explicit rules and provide restricted exercises from the first day so the person feels they are progressing.
While they will gain some ability, it is not a natural progression, and may harm their progress at advanced stages.
The concept of ALG is to produce a methodology as close as possible to how children learn.
Discussions about language have made it clear however that most adults don't know how children learn languages. It seems amazing to me since I assume some of them have had children, and I assume some of those spent enough time noticing their kids learning to speak. These may be dangerous assumptions however.
Many websites such as this one lay out clear linguistic development stages for children. Sometimes they happen sooner or later, but all children go through these stages (except for severe learning disabilities of course).
Let me summarize:
0 to 3 months
Can recognize familiar and unfamiliar voices.
Can use meaningless sounds to convey urgent needs.
4 to 6 months
Can recognize commands with strong emphasis "No!".
Starts practicing with sound production.
7 to 12 months
Begins to recognize simple vocabulary, particularly nouns for objects they can see.
Baby starts producing first words. By this time they usually know between 5 and 20 words or so.
1 to 3 years
Can respond to simple questions ("where's the bunny?") and more detailed commands ("get your socks").
Vocabulary explosion stage. Children pick up words seemingly every day. By the end of this stage they normally know about 1000 words.
3 to 5 years
Fluency stage. By the end of this stage most children are able to understand and express themselves in most language functions about concepts they have learned.
When it comes to language learning, we are often impressed by the speed at which children pick up words at the vocabulary explosion stage, because it's what we see. We fail to acknowledge that for the first year there is virtually no production as the child is exposed to input.
This corresponds remarkably well to the 6-12 month (600-1200 hour) incubation period as experienced in learners of the ALG method.
Of course, babies are processing a lot more information than just language during that time. They have to understand the signals coming from their body, how to use their eyes, to move, to eat, etc. The speed at which they do all this is impressive.
But adults are also far ahead of babies in that regard. They know how to do that stuff already, so they can just focus on the language aspect. They also understand many concepts that are talked about in language already. They don't have to learn them for the first time like a child does. So again they are ahead.
While there is a demonstrated slowdown in neuroplasticity as we age, this research doesn't differentiate between people who have committed to lifelong learning and those who have been neurally sedentary. It also doesn't differentiate between implicit and explicit learning pathways. So the research that is often cited as a reason for why we cannot learn at the same speed as a child is usually not accurate or indicative.
Up to a year of silence may seem to be a large burden for a learner, but considering most people willingly spend 5 or more years learning a second language, the first year of silence is nothing.
All that is required is the faith to try it out, and the persistence to stick it out.
- There are a lot of unexamined assumptions around language learning, and
- There is a lot of ignorance about implicit learning methods in general
One of the difficulties in a method like ALG is getting people to accept a silent period of 6-12 months before they start speaking in a language. We've been taught it is necessary to focus on production straight away, so classes have been geared to teach explicit rules and provide restricted exercises from the first day so the person feels they are progressing.
While they will gain some ability, it is not a natural progression, and may harm their progress at advanced stages.
The concept of ALG is to produce a methodology as close as possible to how children learn.
Discussions about language have made it clear however that most adults don't know how children learn languages. It seems amazing to me since I assume some of them have had children, and I assume some of those spent enough time noticing their kids learning to speak. These may be dangerous assumptions however.
Many websites such as this one lay out clear linguistic development stages for children. Sometimes they happen sooner or later, but all children go through these stages (except for severe learning disabilities of course).
Let me summarize:
0 to 3 months
Can recognize familiar and unfamiliar voices.
Can use meaningless sounds to convey urgent needs.
4 to 6 months
Can recognize commands with strong emphasis "No!".
Starts practicing with sound production.
7 to 12 months
Begins to recognize simple vocabulary, particularly nouns for objects they can see.
Baby starts producing first words. By this time they usually know between 5 and 20 words or so.
1 to 3 years
Can respond to simple questions ("where's the bunny?") and more detailed commands ("get your socks").
Vocabulary explosion stage. Children pick up words seemingly every day. By the end of this stage they normally know about 1000 words.
3 to 5 years
Fluency stage. By the end of this stage most children are able to understand and express themselves in most language functions about concepts they have learned.
When it comes to language learning, we are often impressed by the speed at which children pick up words at the vocabulary explosion stage, because it's what we see. We fail to acknowledge that for the first year there is virtually no production as the child is exposed to input.
This corresponds remarkably well to the 6-12 month (600-1200 hour) incubation period as experienced in learners of the ALG method.
Of course, babies are processing a lot more information than just language during that time. They have to understand the signals coming from their body, how to use their eyes, to move, to eat, etc. The speed at which they do all this is impressive.
But adults are also far ahead of babies in that regard. They know how to do that stuff already, so they can just focus on the language aspect. They also understand many concepts that are talked about in language already. They don't have to learn them for the first time like a child does. So again they are ahead.
While there is a demonstrated slowdown in neuroplasticity as we age, this research doesn't differentiate between people who have committed to lifelong learning and those who have been neurally sedentary. It also doesn't differentiate between implicit and explicit learning pathways. So the research that is often cited as a reason for why we cannot learn at the same speed as a child is usually not accurate or indicative.
Up to a year of silence may seem to be a large burden for a learner, but considering most people willingly spend 5 or more years learning a second language, the first year of silence is nothing.
All that is required is the faith to try it out, and the persistence to stick it out.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Pragmatics, or context in language
All human languages consist of four elements that combine to convey meaning.
First we have lexis, or vocabulary which contain informational content to the listener. We define symbols such as "apple" to mean a certain type of fruit.
Secondly there is syntax, a set of rules (many implicit) that define how words are combined to form meaning.
Then there is phonetics, which dictates the sounds that constitute words (infrasgemental) and whole sentence or phrasal intonation (suprasegmental). Phonetics contains information that written language does not, such as emphasis, emotion and the speakers intentions.
In language study, most learners and teachers focus on these three. The idea is that if enough words are known, if the rules and pronunciation are practiced until they become automatic a person will have complete knowledge of the target language.
There is a fourth component in language that is often considered minor and omitted in the classroom, or at best included at the final stages of a language program.
Pragmatics is the study of the combination of context and sentences to create meaning.
Without provided context, language is provided in sentences. With included context, it is called an utterance.
In literal situations, context seems unnecessary ("the apple is green"). Many times that is fine.
But in languages that have very different social and cognitive norms, context may be essential, even in literal situations.
In Thailand, discussing money is a normal situation. In western cultures it is not. The myriad of different cultural rules like this are difficult to learn on an explicit base. But either explicitly or implicitly they form a part of the language that cannot be removed.
Here commenting on somebody's weight is fine, but only if they are of lower status or of the same level. Many social situations rely on context to determine what is and isn't appropriate to say.
Even cognitively, people can think differently in different languages.
English often uses pronouns to describe events "John broke the vase", whereas in Spanish or Japanese, speakers are more likely to say "The vase was broken", leading to a tendency for English speakers to blame others for accidental happenings.
English and French speakers think about time differently. In French, we have two main past tenses. One, the passé composé, refers to an event that happened in the past as a complete unit. Much in the way that we would use the past simple in english ("I did it"). The other, the imparfait, describes an action taking place over time. In English we can use the past progressive (I was -ing) to describe being in the middle of something when something else happens, and the imparfait can be used this way. But it also refers to something that had a long duration, such as "l’année dernière, je travaillais avec mon père", which we would translate as "last year, I worked with my father". However the French gives us an indication it wasn't a one off event, and it went on for a time, probably for the majority of the year.
Even simple situations such as the use of correct tense aren't always learned through teaching of explicit rules and the only way to learn these correctly is enough input of natural language until the learner can sense the correctness.
Once we get to ambiguous situations such as "you have a green light" as mentioned in the wikipedia entry, context becomes necessary to determine what is going on.
Most teachers and language learners probably don't argue with that. But for some reason they feel that it is an advanced subject and should be learned after vocabulary, grammar and phonetics. I believe differently.
A learner should be introduced to as much natural language as they can at early stages, even when deciphering vocabulary. The language that people are exposed to creates a memory every time. While weak, with repetition of comprehensible input, the mind uses its subconscious function of pattern recognition to create implicit rules.
It is this ruleset that gets created by the mind that the learner refers to when they seek to produce language. If high level of learning is to be achieved, the learner needs to build an accurate ruleset as early as possible. If the learner is pushed into production too early, they risk transferring the ruleset from their first language onto the language they are trying to learn.
This is how you get a person who speaks English like a Korean, or who speaks Thai like an American.
Once the ruleset is created (or transferred), it is very hard to replace, or perhaps cannot be replaced, depending on who is asked.
This is the reasoning behind ALG as a foundation method. And while some may not agree with the input only approach, serious learners of any language should at least try and maximize their input at the earliest possible stages, if they want to get to a native level.
First we have lexis, or vocabulary which contain informational content to the listener. We define symbols such as "apple" to mean a certain type of fruit.
Secondly there is syntax, a set of rules (many implicit) that define how words are combined to form meaning.
Then there is phonetics, which dictates the sounds that constitute words (infrasgemental) and whole sentence or phrasal intonation (suprasegmental). Phonetics contains information that written language does not, such as emphasis, emotion and the speakers intentions.
In language study, most learners and teachers focus on these three. The idea is that if enough words are known, if the rules and pronunciation are practiced until they become automatic a person will have complete knowledge of the target language.
There is a fourth component in language that is often considered minor and omitted in the classroom, or at best included at the final stages of a language program.
Pragmatics is the study of the combination of context and sentences to create meaning.
Without provided context, language is provided in sentences. With included context, it is called an utterance.
In literal situations, context seems unnecessary ("the apple is green"). Many times that is fine.
But in languages that have very different social and cognitive norms, context may be essential, even in literal situations.
In Thailand, discussing money is a normal situation. In western cultures it is not. The myriad of different cultural rules like this are difficult to learn on an explicit base. But either explicitly or implicitly they form a part of the language that cannot be removed.
Here commenting on somebody's weight is fine, but only if they are of lower status or of the same level. Many social situations rely on context to determine what is and isn't appropriate to say.
Even cognitively, people can think differently in different languages.
English often uses pronouns to describe events "John broke the vase", whereas in Spanish or Japanese, speakers are more likely to say "The vase was broken", leading to a tendency for English speakers to blame others for accidental happenings.
English and French speakers think about time differently. In French, we have two main past tenses. One, the passé composé, refers to an event that happened in the past as a complete unit. Much in the way that we would use the past simple in english ("I did it"). The other, the imparfait, describes an action taking place over time. In English we can use the past progressive (I was -ing) to describe being in the middle of something when something else happens, and the imparfait can be used this way. But it also refers to something that had a long duration, such as "l’année dernière, je travaillais avec mon père", which we would translate as "last year, I worked with my father". However the French gives us an indication it wasn't a one off event, and it went on for a time, probably for the majority of the year.
Even simple situations such as the use of correct tense aren't always learned through teaching of explicit rules and the only way to learn these correctly is enough input of natural language until the learner can sense the correctness.
Once we get to ambiguous situations such as "you have a green light" as mentioned in the wikipedia entry, context becomes necessary to determine what is going on.
Most teachers and language learners probably don't argue with that. But for some reason they feel that it is an advanced subject and should be learned after vocabulary, grammar and phonetics. I believe differently.
A learner should be introduced to as much natural language as they can at early stages, even when deciphering vocabulary. The language that people are exposed to creates a memory every time. While weak, with repetition of comprehensible input, the mind uses its subconscious function of pattern recognition to create implicit rules.
It is this ruleset that gets created by the mind that the learner refers to when they seek to produce language. If high level of learning is to be achieved, the learner needs to build an accurate ruleset as early as possible. If the learner is pushed into production too early, they risk transferring the ruleset from their first language onto the language they are trying to learn.
This is how you get a person who speaks English like a Korean, or who speaks Thai like an American.
Once the ruleset is created (or transferred), it is very hard to replace, or perhaps cannot be replaced, depending on who is asked.
This is the reasoning behind ALG as a foundation method. And while some may not agree with the input only approach, serious learners of any language should at least try and maximize their input at the earliest possible stages, if they want to get to a native level.
Friday, May 13, 2011
The team stages of acquiring language
If you take enough human resources classes or team building workshops, you invariably come across the "stages of a team".
They are: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning.
While the last adjourning doesn't apply for language studies (it's about disbanding the team), the first four can be used in the concept of joining a linguistic group (also known as learning a language).
Forming occurs in business when the team forms around a central concept or purpose. Basic timeframes, goals, and milestones are set out in this phase.
Storming is short for brainstorming. It is about gathering collective ideas from the team about how to best proceed. This information is then used to set initial tasks, responsibilities, and rules.
Norming occurs some weeks or months later after sufficient experience working together. The team discovers the interpersonal dynamics of the group and the most fluid and efficient way of working together.
Performing is a result of these established norms. It is the stage at which the team performs at optimum functionality and starts to focus on achieving the goals of the team.
In regard to language learning, the list might look a little like this:
Of these four stages, it is only in the fourth stage that production of the language (speaking and writing) is recommended.
In modern business it is usually accepted that a team needs to be taken through the first three stages as quickly yet comprehensively as possible in order to enable to team to function at a high level. Without the establishment of adequate norms, business research shows that teams operate less efficiently and have unforeseen problems, often due to miscommunication.
Most successful adult language learners do so with large quantities of input. Not all of these learners focus on this as the first thing, but at one stage or another they do. My observations of these people (and my own experience) tell me that to know how to appropriately use a language, students must have sufficient exposure to the language in order to establish norms. Only then can they start to learn to produce the language accurately.
They are: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning.
While the last adjourning doesn't apply for language studies (it's about disbanding the team), the first four can be used in the concept of joining a linguistic group (also known as learning a language).
Forming occurs in business when the team forms around a central concept or purpose. Basic timeframes, goals, and milestones are set out in this phase.
Storming is short for brainstorming. It is about gathering collective ideas from the team about how to best proceed. This information is then used to set initial tasks, responsibilities, and rules.
Norming occurs some weeks or months later after sufficient experience working together. The team discovers the interpersonal dynamics of the group and the most fluid and efficient way of working together.
Performing is a result of these established norms. It is the stage at which the team performs at optimum functionality and starts to focus on achieving the goals of the team.
In regard to language learning, the list might look a little like this:
- Forming - establish purpose of learning, set milestones and communicate expectations for the language methodology, outcomes and common difficulties.
- Storming - establish a set of classroom conduct and curriculum structure based on needs analysis of students (what they want to learn, to what level, why they want to learn, etc)
- Norming - large levels of native target language input to establish linguistic norms and notice examples of most common usage of language, e.g. terms and phrases used in specific social situations and with specific subject matter.
- Performing - production phase of language. When the students have adequately established norms of the language and can focus on achieving the goals set out in the forming stage.
Of these four stages, it is only in the fourth stage that production of the language (speaking and writing) is recommended.
In modern business it is usually accepted that a team needs to be taken through the first three stages as quickly yet comprehensively as possible in order to enable to team to function at a high level. Without the establishment of adequate norms, business research shows that teams operate less efficiently and have unforeseen problems, often due to miscommunication.
Most successful adult language learners do so with large quantities of input. Not all of these learners focus on this as the first thing, but at one stage or another they do. My observations of these people (and my own experience) tell me that to know how to appropriately use a language, students must have sufficient exposure to the language in order to establish norms. Only then can they start to learn to produce the language accurately.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Differences between language learning and acquisition
I briefly outlined my thoughts on Language learning methods in my post learning from the outside in. I want to write in more detail about the main differences I perceive in what could be called language learning vs language acquisition.
There are 2 main differences. One is found in methodology, the second in psychology.
This image represents how a student typically learns a language when they go to a language class. As a former language teacher and language student I'm familiar with the drill of many types of language practice.
Normally, language practice is structured on teaching the forms of grammar considered the least complicated and the most usable in conversation. Almost immediately, people will learn to talk about the present, for example. Describing a past day follows almost shortly after.
Although in principle the idea I think is acceptable for some people, I find some problems with the nature of this style of methodology:
While most language methods agree you need exposure to all elements in the above circle, many argue about which you do first.
This argument I believe comes down to psychology and should be treated as such. It is not in the domain of linguists.
Linguists study language structure, origins, and the interplay between language, culture and thought. But they do not study the how humans learn.
One of the first functions we develop as babies is an ability to find patterns. Through observation we learn to infer information from these patterns. It is through this ability that children learn their master language(s).
Later on at about 10 years of age, our cognitive skills develop which enable abstract thinking. The basis of the critical period hypothesis is that this cognitive dominance inhibits the ability to infer, and hence learn languages the way children do.
If this thinking sounds flawed to you. I totally agree. There is a serious lack of scientific process applied to this research. In the scientific method, to identify the influence of a single factor (like chronological age), all other variables should be kept the same if possible. In telecommunications, we used to refer to this as isolation testing.
To support the critical period hypothesis, a quality scientific study would need to use the same methodology children learn languages with adults. I have not found one study yet that does this. I've looked.
Common sense dictates that our ability to match patterns doesn't diminish either. Not if we live with our eyes open. Yet thinking persists in language (amongst other subjects) that we need to have a rule and reason for each lesson. In reality it just satisfies our brains need for a reason. It doesn't help much with gaining ability in a language though.
This picture represents language acquisition methods. A key difference is the order of the approach. Acquisition, natural, or communicative approaches focus first and foremost on providing accompanying context and environment that is conducive to inference, or "guessing" of meaning.
It is an implicit method, rather than the explicit method above that gives certain sounding rules. These rules are often comforting to adults who have a fear of uncertainty, but they are limiting as rules often only function in a restricted fashion.
Acquisition methods instead focus on the acquisition of norms as opposed to rules. Norms are rooted in the social structure of a group. In language learning, the native speakers form the 'group'. Like becoming a team member in a workplace, we need to learn the norms of the group to be in the group. Otherwise we will always be an outsider.
Acquisition methods like ALG seek to create an environment that maximizes comprehensible input and allows the student to infer meaning through observation of patterns over time. This requires the student to attempt to not analyze the language and as a result they are not allowed to take notes in class.
There is also a silent period which allows the student to identify the norms of the language before production begins. If the student hears a lot of non-native usage of the language, they become unable to differentiate what sounds normal in the target language, and what does not.
The method itself requires a leap of faith because it flies in the face of what most adults believe is "learning". In fact the process engages a very different area in our brain.
This is how people who are uneducated and often not cognitively developed (such as poverty stricken refugees from Myanmar here in Thailand) can become fluent in a new language even if they move as an adult. This doesn't happen with all, but it does with those that interact frequently with the local population (such as Burmese in service roles). For this also there is insufficient research conducted about how these groups learn languages.
Acquisition methods also may be a better way to learn vocabulary. Meredith Brinster of John Hopkins University has recently conducted research suggesting that children retain vocabulary better through inference than through explicit teaching. I'd like to see research like this done on adults.
I'm not saying that language learning doesn't work, but that it is getting the order backwards and using the wrong neural process to learn in an ideal fashion. It focuses on output before significant amounts of input are gained and not exposing the students to linguistic norms until they are advanced students. This results in the student transferring the linguistic norms of their own language onto the second one, resulting in a student that will always speak like a foreigner.
As David Long of AUA Thailand says, "ALG is a foundation method. There is no other method that takes a person up to a level where production should occur naturally".
If you are a language learner, I strongly recommend maximizing your amount of comprehensible input as I am trying to do with my experiment on acquiring Chinese.
There are 2 main differences. One is found in methodology, the second in psychology.
This image represents how a student typically learns a language when they go to a language class. As a former language teacher and language student I'm familiar with the drill of many types of language practice.
Normally, language practice is structured on teaching the forms of grammar considered the least complicated and the most usable in conversation. Almost immediately, people will learn to talk about the present, for example. Describing a past day follows almost shortly after.
Although in principle the idea I think is acceptable for some people, I find some problems with the nature of this style of methodology:
- Vocabulary is usually chosen in an artificial manner about what the textbook writer (or teacher if you're lucky) thinks is needed. Secondly most language teachers only focus on teaching "correct" or "proper" language rather than what is most frequently encountered. Thus I had French students who despite having learned English for over 40 years, didn't know things like "gonna" and "wanna".
- Focus on immediate production without an incubation period. Production without first learning the norms of the language gives the student no reference to work on. It is like getting a person to write a paper on macroeconomic theory having never studied economics.
While most language methods agree you need exposure to all elements in the above circle, many argue about which you do first.
This argument I believe comes down to psychology and should be treated as such. It is not in the domain of linguists.
Linguists study language structure, origins, and the interplay between language, culture and thought. But they do not study the how humans learn.
One of the first functions we develop as babies is an ability to find patterns. Through observation we learn to infer information from these patterns. It is through this ability that children learn their master language(s).
Later on at about 10 years of age, our cognitive skills develop which enable abstract thinking. The basis of the critical period hypothesis is that this cognitive dominance inhibits the ability to infer, and hence learn languages the way children do.
If this thinking sounds flawed to you. I totally agree. There is a serious lack of scientific process applied to this research. In the scientific method, to identify the influence of a single factor (like chronological age), all other variables should be kept the same if possible. In telecommunications, we used to refer to this as isolation testing.
To support the critical period hypothesis, a quality scientific study would need to use the same methodology children learn languages with adults. I have not found one study yet that does this. I've looked.
Common sense dictates that our ability to match patterns doesn't diminish either. Not if we live with our eyes open. Yet thinking persists in language (amongst other subjects) that we need to have a rule and reason for each lesson. In reality it just satisfies our brains need for a reason. It doesn't help much with gaining ability in a language though.
This picture represents language acquisition methods. A key difference is the order of the approach. Acquisition, natural, or communicative approaches focus first and foremost on providing accompanying context and environment that is conducive to inference, or "guessing" of meaning.
It is an implicit method, rather than the explicit method above that gives certain sounding rules. These rules are often comforting to adults who have a fear of uncertainty, but they are limiting as rules often only function in a restricted fashion.
Acquisition methods instead focus on the acquisition of norms as opposed to rules. Norms are rooted in the social structure of a group. In language learning, the native speakers form the 'group'. Like becoming a team member in a workplace, we need to learn the norms of the group to be in the group. Otherwise we will always be an outsider.
Acquisition methods like ALG seek to create an environment that maximizes comprehensible input and allows the student to infer meaning through observation of patterns over time. This requires the student to attempt to not analyze the language and as a result they are not allowed to take notes in class.
There is also a silent period which allows the student to identify the norms of the language before production begins. If the student hears a lot of non-native usage of the language, they become unable to differentiate what sounds normal in the target language, and what does not.
The method itself requires a leap of faith because it flies in the face of what most adults believe is "learning". In fact the process engages a very different area in our brain.
This is how people who are uneducated and often not cognitively developed (such as poverty stricken refugees from Myanmar here in Thailand) can become fluent in a new language even if they move as an adult. This doesn't happen with all, but it does with those that interact frequently with the local population (such as Burmese in service roles). For this also there is insufficient research conducted about how these groups learn languages.
Acquisition methods also may be a better way to learn vocabulary. Meredith Brinster of John Hopkins University has recently conducted research suggesting that children retain vocabulary better through inference than through explicit teaching. I'd like to see research like this done on adults.
I'm not saying that language learning doesn't work, but that it is getting the order backwards and using the wrong neural process to learn in an ideal fashion. It focuses on output before significant amounts of input are gained and not exposing the students to linguistic norms until they are advanced students. This results in the student transferring the linguistic norms of their own language onto the second one, resulting in a student that will always speak like a foreigner.
As David Long of AUA Thailand says, "ALG is a foundation method. There is no other method that takes a person up to a level where production should occur naturally".
If you are a language learner, I strongly recommend maximizing your amount of comprehensible input as I am trying to do with my experiment on acquiring Chinese.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Chinese Language experiment: 20 hours
I stated my intention to learn Mandarin Chinese part time through watching television programs. I've reached my first milestone in the Chinese TV method.
After 20 hours I can say that I of course still understand very little of Chinese, although a few words have become apparent quite quickly. These words are mostly commands and short responses, like "hello", "let's go", "good" and the like.
However my main focus at this moment is not to focus on words, but to become familiar with the phonetic nature of the language.
The process is seen this graph.
In television programs, the visual input provides the point of reference of the language content. What I have learned is that programs that provide a larger number of visuals connected to the spoken content is easier to follow. Thus for comprehension, dramas, and particularly televised theater is the easiest to understand. Debates and news with few accompanying visuals are the hardest.
I am focusing now on the phonetics of the language. Rather than listening for meaning, I am trying to listen for the quality of the sound. I'm doing this in the way a person may listen to classical music, to take in all the qualities and nuances of the sounds spoken.
At this stage, it is requiring a lot of effort. However some sound patterns are becoming easier to pick up, and the language is sounding slightly more familiar.
My intention is to practice in this way until it becomes easy to hear spoken words clearly and effortlessly.
So at the present moment, I am highly dependent on good accompanying visuals to provide understanding. David Long of ALGworld says that in the first few hundred hours of language acquisition, visuals contribute to the bulk of understanding. Gradually listening takes over and becomes independent of visuals.
He then proceeded to draw something like this graph which I have rendered in digital form.
The numbers above represent the hours spent actively listening to the target language. Please note the numbers are approximations and depend on student and situation.
Lastly, as another suggestion of Davids, I have started tracking my comprehension level in 4 different categories of shows, then averaged them out.
Each time I watch TV I am estimating how much I understood as a percentage. I am then averaging each category and the total average. When I reach 50 hours I will post my progress.
The graph shows averaged self approximations of how much I feel I understand. At AUA Bangkok this method is used for the ALG assessment. Through more than 15 years of testing, David has stated that once a student reaches 50% or more by their own assessment, their predictions prove quite accurate.
So for now, treat these estimations with reservation. But when I hit future milestones, further observations and comparing numbers may give some interesting insights.
After 20 hours I can say that I of course still understand very little of Chinese, although a few words have become apparent quite quickly. These words are mostly commands and short responses, like "hello", "let's go", "good" and the like.
However my main focus at this moment is not to focus on words, but to become familiar with the phonetic nature of the language.
The process is seen this graph.
In television programs, the visual input provides the point of reference of the language content. What I have learned is that programs that provide a larger number of visuals connected to the spoken content is easier to follow. Thus for comprehension, dramas, and particularly televised theater is the easiest to understand. Debates and news with few accompanying visuals are the hardest.
I am focusing now on the phonetics of the language. Rather than listening for meaning, I am trying to listen for the quality of the sound. I'm doing this in the way a person may listen to classical music, to take in all the qualities and nuances of the sounds spoken.
At this stage, it is requiring a lot of effort. However some sound patterns are becoming easier to pick up, and the language is sounding slightly more familiar.
My intention is to practice in this way until it becomes easy to hear spoken words clearly and effortlessly.
So at the present moment, I am highly dependent on good accompanying visuals to provide understanding. David Long of ALGworld says that in the first few hundred hours of language acquisition, visuals contribute to the bulk of understanding. Gradually listening takes over and becomes independent of visuals.
He then proceeded to draw something like this graph which I have rendered in digital form.
The numbers above represent the hours spent actively listening to the target language. Please note the numbers are approximations and depend on student and situation.
Lastly, as another suggestion of Davids, I have started tracking my comprehension level in 4 different categories of shows, then averaged them out.
Each time I watch TV I am estimating how much I understood as a percentage. I am then averaging each category and the total average. When I reach 50 hours I will post my progress.
The graph shows averaged self approximations of how much I feel I understand. At AUA Bangkok this method is used for the ALG assessment. Through more than 15 years of testing, David has stated that once a student reaches 50% or more by their own assessment, their predictions prove quite accurate.
So for now, treat these estimations with reservation. But when I hit future milestones, further observations and comparing numbers may give some interesting insights.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
How I acquired the French language
In my last post on language learning vs language acquisition, I described how learning a second language can be grouped in roughly two ways.
The first is the way a child approaches language, through massive amounts of input paired with nonverbal indicators. Language is "acquired" through a process of pattern matching and inference.
The second way happens to most of us after about 10. This is incidentally when certain cognitive skills begin to develop, such as enhanced ability to reason. The popular idea is that this development inhibits natural methods like the ones children use.
I agree that reason inhibits intuition. But as with all ideas, it pays to read between the lines and question all assumptions. Here the assumption is that a person can no longer voluntarily turn off this analytical function once they have it.
The arts have long proven that to be false, in my opinion. This idea just hasn't been carried across to popular language learning mentality.
Most of us have the idea that we can't use that part of our brain anymore, at least not for language. I think my experience with French proves this idea wrong.
I have always wanted to learn a second language. In high school, I studied Korean for 5 years. I was lucky enough to go to Korea in my senior year, a huge eye opening experience for me in many ways. However I quickly learned that I could barely speak the language. And now, my Korean is barely on par with your average tourist.
Like most people I had assumed I was at fault. I told myself I wasn't good at learning languages. But a part of me also realized that I could learn better if I lived in a country where they used it. I wanted to test my idea and see how good I could get. And so I quickly narrowed down a list of languages I'd like to learn and settled on one: French.
I moved to France in the Summer of 2007. Before arriving I had started a crash course of 60 hours of traditional instruction which I felt gave me some basics. Only when I got there to realize I didn't understand a word that anyone was saying.
I was lucky to be put in a homestay with a French lady who taught French literature in high schools. She was very passionate about the language and also constantly talking, which gave me a lot of language practice.
Her rules were to use French and French only in the house, and to make it to dinners as often as possible. This is where she observed most people actually picked up the most language, and as her 50th student, I was inclined to trust her judgement.
I had signed up for a one month intensive at the alliance française. We covered a few tenses and the like. It was very formulaic, but it seemed helpful at the time. The problem was that I couldn't transfer it into real use of French.
French just like any language has a lot of shortcuts in common spoken form. it seems to be a universal feature of humanity that no one speaks their language like textbooks say they ought to.
It took me almost 2 months to realize the most common way of saying "I do not know" is said something like "Shay pa" instead of the oft learned "Je ne sais pas". I certainly didn't learn it in class, and this is the equivalent of not teaching "Dunno" in beginners English, which is actually one of the first things I teach students.
So at the end of the month, I had totaled up 100 hours of language study, plus the 60 I had done in Australia. However I started feeling I was learning more at home than I was in class, so I stopped going to class.
At home I was spending at least an hour or two helping in the kitchen with my homestay mother, listening to her chatter on about I-have-no-clue. I was also watching up to 2 hours of talk shows and dramas on TV, and I was reading at least 1 news article per day (with a French-English dictionary at hand).
For a long time I could barely feel I was getting better. I was learning some more words and understanding common phrases but I couldn't understand anything out of the ordinary and my responses were very wooden. Then a very strange thing happened.
It was 6 months of headaches, confusion and tiredness (paying that much attention is more draining than you might think). I recall watching a TV talk show called "C'est dans l'air", and all of a sudden I felt like I could understand almost everything they were saying. Furthermore, it suddenly took very little effort to listen. The language sounded as easy to the ear as English.
Although I didn't understand it at first, I learned that this stage is common in acquisition methods and is sometimes referred to as emergence.
The theory as I understand it is that a foundation of linked experiences connecting sounds to concepts need to be created first. When this process has reached a sufficient level, it becomes reliable enough to determine what is "normal" for the language, and what is not, in terms of meaning, grammar, and sound. In ALG, these are called mental image flashes, or MIFs.
So without knowing what was going on, I had crossed a threshold from having insufficient experience to judge new French input into having a basic intuitive feel for the language.
And from that point on, my ability in the language bloomed. I felt I had got over a major hurdle and I could use that energy to focus on what I needed more of, vocabulary.
I took focus away from learning grammar, as what I was saying just started to sound "right" or "wrong". Vocabulary was easy to pick up in the context of a conversation now, so "studying" consisted of watching and reading things I would want to in any language anyway. I would talk about politics, economics and local culture.
I left France in November 2008. After a period of 15 months in the country, I had become fully conversant in a number of domains in French. I knew that if i stayed I would be able to refine my French further and become more eloquent in the language, but I had other plans.
I'm not saying my French is perfect. But even after 2.5 years of not using the language, I can still walk up to any French person confident in my ability to talk to them. I have barely lost any ability in the language despite not using it, and after a day or two of using the language, I'm right back where I was when I was living there.
What mistakes I do have are inconsequential and generally do not impede meaning. And improving grammar and spelling in French is much the same as for in English. I just need to read more in the language and I'll "pick it up".
Even with my mistakes, most French people don't believe I got to where I was after only 15 months living in country and 160 hours of language lessons. After many French people exclaiming they wish their English could be as good as my French, those people came to the conclusion that they "weren't good at languages".
My point is not to say how good I am at learning language. I believe I'm average. What's different is the method I used. "Adult" language learning methods do not ever give these results. You will never learn how to share emotions on a deep level by learning in a classroom. You will never learn how to pick up on a persons accent, background, and personality just from standard language lessons.
The only way these can be achieved is through real life interaction with natives of the language. Short of moving to another country, concepts like ALG provide this kind of environment for the students. In addition to not putting the cart before the horse, providing this kind of environment is its strength. For that reason "acquiring" languages has a great deal to offer the language learning world, especially for those people who have convinced themselves they are "not good at languages".
The first is the way a child approaches language, through massive amounts of input paired with nonverbal indicators. Language is "acquired" through a process of pattern matching and inference.
The second way happens to most of us after about 10. This is incidentally when certain cognitive skills begin to develop, such as enhanced ability to reason. The popular idea is that this development inhibits natural methods like the ones children use.
I agree that reason inhibits intuition. But as with all ideas, it pays to read between the lines and question all assumptions. Here the assumption is that a person can no longer voluntarily turn off this analytical function once they have it.
The arts have long proven that to be false, in my opinion. This idea just hasn't been carried across to popular language learning mentality.
Most of us have the idea that we can't use that part of our brain anymore, at least not for language. I think my experience with French proves this idea wrong.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I have always wanted to learn a second language. In high school, I studied Korean for 5 years. I was lucky enough to go to Korea in my senior year, a huge eye opening experience for me in many ways. However I quickly learned that I could barely speak the language. And now, my Korean is barely on par with your average tourist.
Like most people I had assumed I was at fault. I told myself I wasn't good at learning languages. But a part of me also realized that I could learn better if I lived in a country where they used it. I wanted to test my idea and see how good I could get. And so I quickly narrowed down a list of languages I'd like to learn and settled on one: French.
I moved to France in the Summer of 2007. Before arriving I had started a crash course of 60 hours of traditional instruction which I felt gave me some basics. Only when I got there to realize I didn't understand a word that anyone was saying.
I was lucky to be put in a homestay with a French lady who taught French literature in high schools. She was very passionate about the language and also constantly talking, which gave me a lot of language practice.
Her rules were to use French and French only in the house, and to make it to dinners as often as possible. This is where she observed most people actually picked up the most language, and as her 50th student, I was inclined to trust her judgement.
I had signed up for a one month intensive at the alliance française. We covered a few tenses and the like. It was very formulaic, but it seemed helpful at the time. The problem was that I couldn't transfer it into real use of French.
French just like any language has a lot of shortcuts in common spoken form. it seems to be a universal feature of humanity that no one speaks their language like textbooks say they ought to.
It took me almost 2 months to realize the most common way of saying "I do not know" is said something like "Shay pa" instead of the oft learned "Je ne sais pas". I certainly didn't learn it in class, and this is the equivalent of not teaching "Dunno" in beginners English, which is actually one of the first things I teach students.
So at the end of the month, I had totaled up 100 hours of language study, plus the 60 I had done in Australia. However I started feeling I was learning more at home than I was in class, so I stopped going to class.
At home I was spending at least an hour or two helping in the kitchen with my homestay mother, listening to her chatter on about I-have-no-clue. I was also watching up to 2 hours of talk shows and dramas on TV, and I was reading at least 1 news article per day (with a French-English dictionary at hand).
For a long time I could barely feel I was getting better. I was learning some more words and understanding common phrases but I couldn't understand anything out of the ordinary and my responses were very wooden. Then a very strange thing happened.
It was 6 months of headaches, confusion and tiredness (paying that much attention is more draining than you might think). I recall watching a TV talk show called "C'est dans l'air", and all of a sudden I felt like I could understand almost everything they were saying. Furthermore, it suddenly took very little effort to listen. The language sounded as easy to the ear as English.
Although I didn't understand it at first, I learned that this stage is common in acquisition methods and is sometimes referred to as emergence.
The theory as I understand it is that a foundation of linked experiences connecting sounds to concepts need to be created first. When this process has reached a sufficient level, it becomes reliable enough to determine what is "normal" for the language, and what is not, in terms of meaning, grammar, and sound. In ALG, these are called mental image flashes, or MIFs.
So without knowing what was going on, I had crossed a threshold from having insufficient experience to judge new French input into having a basic intuitive feel for the language.
And from that point on, my ability in the language bloomed. I felt I had got over a major hurdle and I could use that energy to focus on what I needed more of, vocabulary.
I took focus away from learning grammar, as what I was saying just started to sound "right" or "wrong". Vocabulary was easy to pick up in the context of a conversation now, so "studying" consisted of watching and reading things I would want to in any language anyway. I would talk about politics, economics and local culture.
I left France in November 2008. After a period of 15 months in the country, I had become fully conversant in a number of domains in French. I knew that if i stayed I would be able to refine my French further and become more eloquent in the language, but I had other plans.
I'm not saying my French is perfect. But even after 2.5 years of not using the language, I can still walk up to any French person confident in my ability to talk to them. I have barely lost any ability in the language despite not using it, and after a day or two of using the language, I'm right back where I was when I was living there.
What mistakes I do have are inconsequential and generally do not impede meaning. And improving grammar and spelling in French is much the same as for in English. I just need to read more in the language and I'll "pick it up".
Even with my mistakes, most French people don't believe I got to where I was after only 15 months living in country and 160 hours of language lessons. After many French people exclaiming they wish their English could be as good as my French, those people came to the conclusion that they "weren't good at languages".
My point is not to say how good I am at learning language. I believe I'm average. What's different is the method I used. "Adult" language learning methods do not ever give these results. You will never learn how to share emotions on a deep level by learning in a classroom. You will never learn how to pick up on a persons accent, background, and personality just from standard language lessons.
The only way these can be achieved is through real life interaction with natives of the language. Short of moving to another country, concepts like ALG provide this kind of environment for the students. In addition to not putting the cart before the horse, providing this kind of environment is its strength. For that reason "acquiring" languages has a great deal to offer the language learning world, especially for those people who have convinced themselves they are "not good at languages".
Monday, March 28, 2011
Language learning from the outside in
Not to be confused with Dr Marvin Browns book on Automatic Language Growth, these are my theories of the two ways we can learn a language. I'm no linguist. This is just based on my limited experience of language in teaching and learning contexts.
I've broken up language into 4 main categories and their functions.
Firstly, on the outside we have Situation and Context which is often missing from a classroom environment. Instead we have to imagine a situation we might use what we are learning. For example when studying body parts we might need to imagine a conversation we would have with a doctor about a problem. The context in which a conversation takes place provides a point of reference for the rest of the conversation.
Secondly, we have Phonetic Patterns, comprising the phonemes (individual sounds of the language), suprasegmental intonation (over phrases or sentences) and timing. All these elements have a purpose of providing an Emotional Context (and informational, for phonemes). What this means is that we can gauge the emotion of the speaker through these patterns most effectively. What I haven't included here is body language, which I believe is an integral part of language, but I will write about it in a later post.
Moving in we have Grammatical Structure. The format of our speech tells us if the information conveyed is intended to persuade, inform, inspire, command, etc. It tells us if the conversation is formal or informal, relaxed or rigid. It tells us if we are talking about the past or present. Or what will happen in the future, or what we think will happen in the future. For these aspects and more I state that grammar has the ability to convey what the Language Function is.
In the center we have Vocabulary, which is simply tells us the facts and figures of the conversation. In other words, Information.
These 4 aspects of language, information, function, emotion and situation are present in all native speech (even formal academic English has an emotional element). Yet when we learn a second language, we often only concentrate on the two inner functions, vocabulary and grammar.
This picture illustrates a standard approach to language learning as an adult.
A typical language class goes like this: From the first class vocabulary lists are studied. The words will be given along with a picture, a translation or maybe a real object/model (realia). Then this is drilled in structured grammar forms many times. Then perhaps at the end listening skills and pronunciation (of phonemes) are drilled. A progressive class may have an activity like a game or role playing to help the student with language production.
I see two problems with this.
First problem: Communicating emotion in the target language is almost never taught. It is usually never taught in class how to communicate with people on an emotional level. Thus the learners never become 'native-like' as they can only communicate in information. They end up speaking like a robot.
Phonetics cannot be separated from language without changing meaning. Think about the word seriously in these forms:
All of these four have different meanings and a different tone for each one. If you're a native English speaker reading this, you're probably thinking about the tones of each one right now.
All languages do this. So without taking phonetics seriously, we are missing out on a large part of language learning.
Second problem: Teaching of language out of context. If I give you a list of 20 action words like 'kick' 'catch' and 'throw' in a foreign language, asked you to remember them by heart and quizzed you 3 months later, would you remember?
It's difficult. But if I took you to a field with some equipment, threw a ball at you and screamed "catch!", how many times do you think you would take to remember it? You could probably see me in 3 months, throw something at me, and scream "catch!" yourself.
Catch is not just a word on a page. "Catch!" with an urgent tone conveys specific information of some kind of immediacy. We connect the feeling of an immediate need to grab the ball. We connect to the physical feeling of it, the sight of it. We engage our senses.
We then link the word 'catch' to this immediacy and it helps us to infer similar terms like catch a criminal, or catch a cold. We need to have the context provided when learning the word to have this link.
A natural learning approach, such as the one created by Dr Marvin Brown, ALG, seeks to replicate the method used by a child in learning.
This picture illustrates the difference.
The order is in reverse from what we call language learning.
The child doesn't learn vocabulary lists or grammar rules. They just listen. They listen to the tones and watch the body language of whoever is around them. They start to understand which tones mean people are happy, or angry, or sad. They start to hear when someone is stressed or busy or relaxed.
They will think about the situation, and use what they have understood to help them with the next part of a conversation. The emotions carried in phonetics tell them if the context has changed.
With all this background information, grammar gets pieced together. In English, we learn that a "should" sentence directed at us with a question tone is asking our opinion (should we get some ice-cream?), or should with a low tone is suggesting us to do something (you should be quiet for mommy now).
With all that background information, specific vocabulary becomes much easier to infer.
By learning through this method, we can develop a whole background of linked references that help us learn new language as it occurs. This is how a native speaker learns their language.
There is much more on the process of acquisition. But this post serves as an introduction into my thoughts of the two fundamental approaches to language learning. I will be referring to it frequently in other posts.
For further information on ALG, check out David Longs blog ALG World.
I've broken up language into 4 main categories and their functions.
Firstly, on the outside we have Situation and Context which is often missing from a classroom environment. Instead we have to imagine a situation we might use what we are learning. For example when studying body parts we might need to imagine a conversation we would have with a doctor about a problem. The context in which a conversation takes place provides a point of reference for the rest of the conversation.
Secondly, we have Phonetic Patterns, comprising the phonemes (individual sounds of the language), suprasegmental intonation (over phrases or sentences) and timing. All these elements have a purpose of providing an Emotional Context (and informational, for phonemes). What this means is that we can gauge the emotion of the speaker through these patterns most effectively. What I haven't included here is body language, which I believe is an integral part of language, but I will write about it in a later post.
Moving in we have Grammatical Structure. The format of our speech tells us if the information conveyed is intended to persuade, inform, inspire, command, etc. It tells us if the conversation is formal or informal, relaxed or rigid. It tells us if we are talking about the past or present. Or what will happen in the future, or what we think will happen in the future. For these aspects and more I state that grammar has the ability to convey what the Language Function is.
In the center we have Vocabulary, which is simply tells us the facts and figures of the conversation. In other words, Information.
These 4 aspects of language, information, function, emotion and situation are present in all native speech (even formal academic English has an emotional element). Yet when we learn a second language, we often only concentrate on the two inner functions, vocabulary and grammar.
This picture illustrates a standard approach to language learning as an adult.
A typical language class goes like this: From the first class vocabulary lists are studied. The words will be given along with a picture, a translation or maybe a real object/model (realia). Then this is drilled in structured grammar forms many times. Then perhaps at the end listening skills and pronunciation (of phonemes) are drilled. A progressive class may have an activity like a game or role playing to help the student with language production.
I see two problems with this.
First problem: Communicating emotion in the target language is almost never taught. It is usually never taught in class how to communicate with people on an emotional level. Thus the learners never become 'native-like' as they can only communicate in information. They end up speaking like a robot.
Phonetics cannot be separated from language without changing meaning. Think about the word seriously in these forms:
- But seriously, he's not that smart (insisting)
- He's seriously stupid (strengthening)
- Seriously? (questioning)
- Seriously (affirming)
All of these four have different meanings and a different tone for each one. If you're a native English speaker reading this, you're probably thinking about the tones of each one right now.
All languages do this. So without taking phonetics seriously, we are missing out on a large part of language learning.
Second problem: Teaching of language out of context. If I give you a list of 20 action words like 'kick' 'catch' and 'throw' in a foreign language, asked you to remember them by heart and quizzed you 3 months later, would you remember?
It's difficult. But if I took you to a field with some equipment, threw a ball at you and screamed "catch!", how many times do you think you would take to remember it? You could probably see me in 3 months, throw something at me, and scream "catch!" yourself.
Catch is not just a word on a page. "Catch!" with an urgent tone conveys specific information of some kind of immediacy. We connect the feeling of an immediate need to grab the ball. We connect to the physical feeling of it, the sight of it. We engage our senses.
We then link the word 'catch' to this immediacy and it helps us to infer similar terms like catch a criminal, or catch a cold. We need to have the context provided when learning the word to have this link.
A natural learning approach, such as the one created by Dr Marvin Brown, ALG, seeks to replicate the method used by a child in learning.
This picture illustrates the difference.
The order is in reverse from what we call language learning.
The child doesn't learn vocabulary lists or grammar rules. They just listen. They listen to the tones and watch the body language of whoever is around them. They start to understand which tones mean people are happy, or angry, or sad. They start to hear when someone is stressed or busy or relaxed.
They will think about the situation, and use what they have understood to help them with the next part of a conversation. The emotions carried in phonetics tell them if the context has changed.
With all this background information, grammar gets pieced together. In English, we learn that a "should" sentence directed at us with a question tone is asking our opinion (should we get some ice-cream?), or should with a low tone is suggesting us to do something (you should be quiet for mommy now).
With all that background information, specific vocabulary becomes much easier to infer.
By learning through this method, we can develop a whole background of linked references that help us learn new language as it occurs. This is how a native speaker learns their language.
There is much more on the process of acquisition. But this post serves as an introduction into my thoughts of the two fundamental approaches to language learning. I will be referring to it frequently in other posts.
For further information on ALG, check out David Longs blog ALG World.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Language: Brain or train?
For as long as formal language education systems have existed, people have been studying why some of us learn faster than others.
The general assumption was that some of us possessed inherent traits that 'made' us good at language. Another assupmtion was that children were better at learning language than adults. The Language acquisition device theory and the critical period hypothesis were created to explain these beliefs.
The theories state our ability to acquire language to a native level is limited beyond a certain age. And that this limitation is physiological and unchangeable.
However there are people who can learn languages to a native level, even when learned late in life. Some people are fluent in over 50. But according to these theories they should be impossible. Continuing the assumption that language ability is a phsyiological trait, these people were studied for differences from 'normal' people.
The studies showed some commonalities, such as an enlarged Broca's region, and below average visuospatial abilities. And so linguists said that this is what enables them to do what they do. Most language education designers listened to them.
While I don't discount the physical differences, to me measuring the brain of an accomplished learner and saying thats why they are an accomplished learner is like saying the biggest guy in the gym can lift heavy weights because he has big muscles.
It confuses causation with correlation.
Obviously, we know that the guy got big by lifting weights, and his muscles are a result of his lifting heavy, not the other way around.
So why can't the brain be the same?
Previously, we assumed that the brain couldn't regenerate or change once we became adults. We now know that the brain has this ability. It's called neuroplasticity. But we still don't know how much it can really change.
Part of the problem is that most psychology is only studied on people who are mentally unfit, or at best average. There is little study on mental athletes. As a result we know little about what a brain at its peak is capable of (I will talk about positive psychology in a later post).
This science often gets used to show what we are not capable of. But for the reason above it currently is really bad and saying what we can be good at.
There are certain physical and mental limitations, of course. But does that mean I shouldn't exercise unless I can become an Olympic athlete?
Language education systems are based on this assumption that is at least in part being proven false.
So, rather than saying to yourself "I'm not good at languages", ask yourself: "Is the problem my brain, or the methods I use?"
The general assumption was that some of us possessed inherent traits that 'made' us good at language. Another assupmtion was that children were better at learning language than adults. The Language acquisition device theory and the critical period hypothesis were created to explain these beliefs.
The theories state our ability to acquire language to a native level is limited beyond a certain age. And that this limitation is physiological and unchangeable.
However there are people who can learn languages to a native level, even when learned late in life. Some people are fluent in over 50. But according to these theories they should be impossible. Continuing the assumption that language ability is a phsyiological trait, these people were studied for differences from 'normal' people.
The studies showed some commonalities, such as an enlarged Broca's region, and below average visuospatial abilities. And so linguists said that this is what enables them to do what they do. Most language education designers listened to them.
While I don't discount the physical differences, to me measuring the brain of an accomplished learner and saying thats why they are an accomplished learner is like saying the biggest guy in the gym can lift heavy weights because he has big muscles.
It confuses causation with correlation.
Obviously, we know that the guy got big by lifting weights, and his muscles are a result of his lifting heavy, not the other way around.
So why can't the brain be the same?
Previously, we assumed that the brain couldn't regenerate or change once we became adults. We now know that the brain has this ability. It's called neuroplasticity. But we still don't know how much it can really change.
Part of the problem is that most psychology is only studied on people who are mentally unfit, or at best average. There is little study on mental athletes. As a result we know little about what a brain at its peak is capable of (I will talk about positive psychology in a later post).
This science often gets used to show what we are not capable of. But for the reason above it currently is really bad and saying what we can be good at.
There are certain physical and mental limitations, of course. But does that mean I shouldn't exercise unless I can become an Olympic athlete?
Language education systems are based on this assumption that is at least in part being proven false.
So, rather than saying to yourself "I'm not good at languages", ask yourself: "Is the problem my brain, or the methods I use?"
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Language learning experiment
There is a technique that professes with a minimum of 800 hours of listening in any target language, a person can gain reasonable fluency.
Automatic Language Growth (ALG) started in Thailand as Dr. J. Marvin Brown built on Stephen Krashens' idea of maximum comprehensible input. His theory states that through exposure to language in a comprehensible context, we can acquire language fluency without the need to study rules.
In short, we learn like a native.
A friend, Brad writes about ALG, amongst other things at his blog about Payap University.
David Long heads the ALG Thai program in Bangkok and his site can be found at ALG World.
For my part, I am announcing that I have officially started my own language experiment: Mandarin Chinese.
I have no training whatsoever in the language. And while it's no ALG, access to Chinese TV is the best I have. I'll keep updated at milestones of 100 hours, 200 hours, etc of my progress. My goal is to achieve 1000 hours over the next 4 years.
Automatic Language Growth (ALG) started in Thailand as Dr. J. Marvin Brown built on Stephen Krashens' idea of maximum comprehensible input. His theory states that through exposure to language in a comprehensible context, we can acquire language fluency without the need to study rules.
In short, we learn like a native.
A friend, Brad writes about ALG, amongst other things at his blog about Payap University.
David Long heads the ALG Thai program in Bangkok and his site can be found at ALG World.
For my part, I am announcing that I have officially started my own language experiment: Mandarin Chinese.
I have no training whatsoever in the language. And while it's no ALG, access to Chinese TV is the best I have. I'll keep updated at milestones of 100 hours, 200 hours, etc of my progress. My goal is to achieve 1000 hours over the next 4 years.
Let the games begin.
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