I came across this video when I was doing some research on
alternative ways to learn a language.
Just watch the first five minutes.
OK, I am sure there is a lot of criticism on Pimsleur’s
method and I am quite skeptical of it.
(Comparing a child’s ability to soak up languages with an adult is like
comparing a genius’s ability to learn aerospace engineering with mine!) It reminds me of the scene from Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield
who learns French by listening to headphones while he sleeps.
I am not so interested in the Pimsleur Approach as I am in the criticism this video offers for the way we teach
language. I thought a discussion
on what experiences we have had on what works, and, perhaps more interestingly,
what doesn’t work would be helpful. For example I am a Russian speaker, but I
learned Russian from speaking it with people, not from learning it in a
class. This has had certain limitations,
such as my constant difficulty with word endings; however, my accent and
vocabulary are much better than someone who learned the language in a
classroom. On the other hand, I
have tried numerous times to learn Spanish in the classroom, but feel there is
always a ceiling I hit very early on.
I get bored with the worksheets; I never have practice; I never improve.
Some questions to consider: What experiences (good and bad) have
you had learning a language? In what ways does the classroom get in the way of
real language learning? Does the
way we teach language in K-12 have anything to do with the reasons why students
in the USA have such difficulty learning a language?
Wow, learning a language in 10 days w/o materials, etc.? One of those ... too good to be true type scenarios. What experiences I have had learning a foreign language? First, immersion, is my opinion, the best way to learn a foreign language. Although I am forgetting the German language because I do not use it very often,learning German while learning in Northern Germany was the best method for me. I've lived in South Texas most of my life. Sad to say, my Spanish is very poor. Back to the question ... I found myself looking at the teacher, followed by my husband, when I was asked questions. I also found myself using a lot of code-switching, especially after I returned to the U.S. and now that I am forgetting German. Security blanket and code-switching was the not so good about learning a foreign language. Nevertheless, one should not give up. Fun video MPOP!
ReplyDeleteI've seen those ads for learning a language in 10 days, too. They seem like a bit of nonsense. I have found that intensive, total immersion is the best way to learn a language. This should then be followed by living in a country where everyone speaks that language. For example, I attended the Defense Language Institute for Russian where I had 6 hours of classes for a year with native Russian speakers who knew little English. This gave me a great foundation and when I went to university I went into the highest level classes. I had learned a lot at that point, but it wasn't until I did a study abroad program in Russia followed by living there for 2 years that the language was truly embedded in my brain. Of course this was later ruined by attending the Defense Language Institute for Serbian-Croatian and moving to Serbia. Now it is all in my head, but it's a big mess.
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DeleteIf only one really could learn a new language in 10 days! I am always skeptical of radical claims like this, but it is an interesting topic to think about.
ReplyDeleteI think total immersion is the best way to learn a language, but it's even better if accompanied by some classroom or guided study. Misty, I had a similar experience with learning Ukrainian-my accent and vocabulary knowledge are good but I struggle with word endings because I learned them at the very beginning, but did not keep studying them until they stuck. I think it would have been ideal if I continued taking more formal lessons while being immersed in the language to get a better handle on the grammar, but of course I could have studied more on my own to accomplish this.
ReplyDeleteThis gets at the crux of the field of second language acquisition. How does second language learning occur? Is it the same for children and adults? What is the influence of the first language, the context, instructional strategies, societal expectations, motivation, cognitive ability, anxiety on second language development.
ReplyDeleteIn my own experiences learning languages, I have met with different levels of success and failure. Immersion in Japan was terrific for learning spoken Japanese, but it is far harder to develop the literacy skills needed to read in a character based language when you are learning Japanese on your own and without the guidance of a teacher.
In contrast, learning Swedish in Sweden was a complete bust because the minute I opened my mouth, and my accent and disfluencies became apparent, the Swedes switched to English. Even sitting around watching television was of limited help because the majority of television programming was not in Swedish (far more was in English, German or French). In that case, the online course in Swedish that I took for a few months was far more useful for developing basic knowledge than immersion.
And then there are the traditional formal learning contexts that can be such a mixed bag. I remember being illuminated and excited by a high level grammar course in German in which we focused on the difficult nuances of translation. I cannot say I mastered these difficult skills, but it was a start, and it influenced my reading comprehension profoundly. And conversely, I remember the completely awful Russian course I endured for a semester in which we tore through material without review or reinforcement and in which the instructor seemed beyond frustrated with having to work with beginners.
I actually had a couple of CDs for Japanese that were from Pimsleur. From my experience I can say that I really didn't learn anything from them. I didn't notice how the language was structured, I didn't recognize words and I couldn't remember how to respond to any of the conversations. I would listen to it casually while driving to and from work and just didn't feel like it was worth the little time I was putting into it. I only learned after I made an effort to interact with people. I think that even thought the audio CDs felt weak, I think that motivation played a huge rule in my learning. When I was listening to the CDs I was still in the US and it really didn't make a difference if I learned or not. After I got to Japan I got the motivation because I didn't want to miss out on the interaction and the learning that I could do.
ReplyDeleteTo learn a new language depends on each person. You asked us to share our own experience learning a new language. Well, in my case to learn another language, a motivation and dedication are really important. First, to learn a new language, I'm trying to get a good basic knowledge about it, that mean 3-6 months enroll in a class full time, and much time I could I immerse in the language. Second, after I have a good grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary, I practice language talking to native. I'm not be afraid to speak with people using their own language. That is my case to learn a foreign language, basic knowledge and practice speaking to people it is really important. This way to language learning skills is still working for me.
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