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Teacher in Rome · Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Posts: 1286

Agree with both these previous posts!

There's a list somewhere of languages rated by "difficulty" for English speakers. While French, Italian etc rate as number 1, languages like Serbian (and I think Danish, for example) rate as number 2. Oriental languages like Cantonese, Japanese etc, rate as number 3.

I'm guessing that the ease of learning through immersion is greater for languages rated as 1 or 2 as you can hear new words and more or less guess their meaning. (My hunch is that lessons - formal, informal or self-directed - also help with the fundamentals of grammar and vocab too, as SledgeCleaver has said.)

But with a language like Cantonese, there is no possibility at all of hearing a conversation and sort of guessing as to the context or meaning of words. There are no similarities whatsoever. You would need lessons / a course to even get started.

I learnt (was taught) a few words and phrases of Cantonese for survival purposes when I lived in HK. But the problem with them was that pronounced with a different tone you would have a completely different meaning. This, of course, caused either hilarity or confusion with native speakers of Cantonese... not a great confidence boost.

santi84 · Joined: 14 Mar 2008 Posts: 1317 Location: under da sea

True, I find French immersion in rural Quebec to be far easier than Arabic in Cairo! Blending in with the locals helps as well. In some locations, nobody approaches you in the native language anyways.

Still, a bit of formality helps - I find textbooks to be a useful guide. But I'm also married to a native speaker who is available for clarification (but not really for practice as he finds my accent horrendous).

*ETA- Wow, have I really been on Dave's for 5 years now?!?!

Hod · Joined: 28 Apr 2003 Posts: 1613 Location: Home

demitrescou · Joined: 25 Apr 2007 Posts: 122

Perilla · Joined: 09 Jul 2010 Posts: 792 Location: Hong Kong

Hod · Joined: 28 Apr 2003 Posts: 1613 Location: Home

LH123 · Joined: 13 Jun 2010 Posts: 61

Without wanting to pick sides on the formal/informal learning thing, here are a few published musings on the matter. I tried embedding these as pictures into the post but that didn't seem to work, so I've given links to the scans:

1. Littlewood, W. (1991). Foreign and Second Language Learning. Avon: Cambridge University Press.

http://i49.tinypic.com/1491mr4.jpg
http://tinypic.com/r/2qd8yty/6

It might be that formal instruction is only useful if there are no informal opportunities for learning/practice, but we can't be sure... It seems like students seem to learn according to a natural in-built syllabus in spite of what goes on in the classroom... So, perhaps what classrooms should try to do is simulate real life as much as possible....

2. Bourhis, R. Y. (1994). Social and individual factors in language acquisition: some models of bilingual proficiency. In B. Harley, P. Allen, J. Cummins, & M. Swain, The Development of Second Language Proficiency (pp. 134-145). New York: Cambridge University Press.

http://tinypic.com/r/2j5anmt/6
http://tinypic.com/r/dnyptz/6
http://tinypic.com/r/2mzb0y9/6

While not directly relevant to the informal/formal learning question, Lambert's (1974) model raises (I think) an important background theme, which is that of personal identity. Someone surrounded by people speaking the target language is likely to have very different themes of identity (and motivations) than someone who is learning the language formally in a classroom. This is something that Schumann (1978) develops further by arguing that acculturation is a precursor to linguistic development. Implicitly, then, those who are surrounded by L2 speakers are more likely to acculturate more quickly; thus, they are more likely to learn the language. Nonetheless, someone could be surrounded by the L2 every day and feel no particular personal or cultural connection to it or its speakers - in which case, informal learning probably wouldn't get them very far...

3. Ellis, R. (2012). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: OUP.

http://tinypic.com/r/2uhsu40/6
http://tinypic.com/r/sq47lc/6
http://tinypic.com/r/14jn6gp/6

There are indeed numerous cases of informal learners gaining proficiency faster than 'formal' learners, but there are quite a few caveats and exceptions. For instance, it seems that those who learn informally tend to lean towards pragmatic awareness and sociolinguistic competence, at the expense of formal grammatical accuracy. Similarly, those who do make progress informally tend to be those who have regular, meaningful contact with native speakers.

So,

Is informal learning better than formal learning?

Yeah, sort of, but only if..........

Teacher in Rome · Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Posts: 1286

Thanks for this, LH123

Kofola · Joined: 20 Feb 2009 Posts: 159 Location: Slovakia

The immersion versus classroom debate is an interesting one. Hod's experiences ordering cheeseburgers in Thai and German are nice examples of why immersion learning can be difficult.

One of the advantages of the classroom is that it is a much more neutral and value judgement free area, while immersion leaves the learner vulnerable to the reactions of others.

In the classroom the learners can make mistakes and explore the language in a supportive environment. While the immersion environment is often much more hostile, judgemental and difficult.

I'm an immersion learner and just today I had two experiences that really illustrate the pros and cons. The first was a conversation with a woman who knows I'm foreign. Actually it wasn't really a conversation since she talked to me as if I had an IQ of -12 and was deaf to boot. And for some reason I didn't really feel like responding. It was totally demoralising and I returned to my office totally depressed thinking how bad an impression I must create for someone to talk to me like that and how I would never be able to master the language and what was the point...

The second conversation was totally different. I got talking to someone by chance and they didn't know I was foreign. We chatted for a good 5-10 mins and then I handed her my business card and it was only when she saw my name that she realised I was foreign. My response couldn't have been more different. It was such a confidence boost and it made me feel really positive and enthusiastic about my language learning and in fact I think I spoke better as a consequence.

So the classroom can be much 'safer'. On the other hand, the reason I was able to 'pass' in the second conversation is because I know all those little turn of conversation phrases that you rarely really learn in the classroom as it's a much more artificial situation and as hard as the teacher may try it's hard to replicate real life repeatedly in the way that immersion offers.

likwid_777 · Joined: 04 Nov 2012 Posts: 411 Location: NA

I am 27, soon to be 28. I went out and did TESOL in 2010. I messed up due to naivety.

I could blame the employer for not giving me the correct visa...

And I do (haha). But ultimately, it was my fault for not being more assertive, or 'getting out of dodge'.

Anyway, here I am back in Australia studying uni. So I can become a 'real' qualified teacher. I Still want to see the world more, and ESL will again be my ticket. I hope experience and age, along with a lot less partying over there, will allow me to have a more enriching experience.

I know, personally, having grown up in a highly developed Western country, that I have had all of the opportunities around for me to seize. I didn't seize many, leaving Party Boy Chris Pontius for dead in the partying department.

But I know I can still do plenty of things if I want.

I'm sure you can too.

MotherF

This thread has gone on for 8 pages, and probably wondered off topic, and maybe what I'm about to say has been said over and over and over.

tcatsninfan · Joined: 29 Aug 2010 Posts: 35

I've been thinking about this thread for awhile and haven't been sure how to reply without rambling for thousands of words. However, I'll give it a shot.

The OP obviously feels like he hasn't achieved "enough" and wishes he had done more with his life. I'm 28 and was married a couple of years ago...my wife turned 30 and she freaked out in a similar way to the OP. She ruined a perfectly good marriage because she felt trapped.

But here's the thing: her feeling of being trapped was just her perception. That's what the OP needs to understand. There are no metrics for the human experience...I highly doubt we'll all be given a grade at the pearly gates based on how much we achieved in our life.

I'm 28, I've had to switch careers 3 times because of the economy, I don't have a wife or any kids, I don't have a lot of money in savings, I don't own a house, etc. You would say I'm some kind of failure if you looked at it from the perspective of the American Dream, something I believe isn't real anyway.

Here's how I look at it: I'm not trapped in a bad marriage like so many of my coworkers and I have no debt to speak of. That second one is HUGE. My boss makes a huge amount of money (low six figures) and yet he literally borrows lunch money from me because of how much credit card debt and various other bills he has.

Let's look at what the OP has accomplished. He's seen the world! Do you know how many people would kill to be able to say they did that? I went to Japan for 2 weeks in 2009 and I've talked to tons of people who are totally awestruck BY A TWO WEEK VISIT to a country where English isn't the native language.

I'm making plans to teach overseas because I know that, at 28, it may turn into a career or, if not, I still have plenty of time to come back to the US and pick up where I left off.

I once had a coworker who was 42 and had seen it all. When I knew him he was making a ton of money as the deputy of a media company, but at one point in his past he'd had his own business. He'd watched the business crumble and at one point he was sleeping on a friend's couch when they repossessed his car, his last real possession.

And he came back from all that.

I'm rambling. The point is, I don't have much that counts toward The American Dream or some Hollywood career, but I feel very free and I know I have many years left to do whatever I want.

You'll constantly be disappointed if you try to measure up to someone else.

Kent F. Kruhoeffer · Joined: 22 Jan 2003 Posts: 2129 Location: 中国

This may sound like bragging, but the OP asked ...

Over the past 24 years in ESL, aside from the teaching, which I love, I've stood at the Berlin Wall, most notably as it was coming down in large chunks in 1989; I've been at the bottom of a deep tunnel dug by North Korea at the DMZ; I've been up the jungle river of Pagsanjan in the Philippines, where many scenes of 'Apocalypse Now' were filmed; been to Oktoberfest in Munich four times; hiked around the Carpathian Mountains of Romania where Vlad the Impaler (a.k.a. Dracula) once lived; played billiards with real Gypsies; skied down glaciers in the Austrian Alps; stood in front of Lenin's Mausoleum in the middle of a snowy Red Square on New Year's Eve; strolled down Bangkok's legendary Khao San Road; sat in awe on the floor of The Blue Mosque (a.k.a. Sultanahmet) in Istanbul; swam in the Black Sea; played a small supporting role in the Chinese Film 'Yi Bu Liu Shen' and am now enjoying a relaxing six month tropical holiday in The Philippines, thanks to money I was able to save courtesy of ESL.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Wink

Never mind the interesting people I've met along the way.

Didn't I expect or hope for more from my life? Um, no, not really.