Korean Job Discussion Forums

[le-paul]

i remember reading in a science article a years back that the myth about children learning languages isn't true. One of the arguments i remember, was that adults suffer a lot more anxiety which prevents them from absorbing the information given to them, whereas children have less ego so are almost the opposite.
Anyway, i was thinking about how we teach people here in korea and who are the best learners. Its usually children...
However, when i thought about it, the older a student gets, the less interactive the lessons are and the drier and more boring they become. High school for example learn by direct dictation and memorisation compared with kindy who are always playing games and being engaged in fun activities which encourage memorisation through repartition etc.

Im pretty sure if i was to go to an adult version of a hogwan, got semi drunk (so no inhibitions), drink 7 coffees (for energy), and play games for several hours, id be able to learn a language a lot more quickly too.

The only alternative ive found (apart from just putting the hrs in) for learning a language quickly, is to use memory tricks. If youve seen these guys that memorise a pack of cards in about 14 seconds, youll know what i mean. Using those, i managed to memorise vocab lists of around 40/50 words in roughly 10 minutes. Id say in that aspect, we have the advantage over children who dont have the capacity to mind map or construct complex systems in that way.

[ttompatz]

It is not about learning languages "better" but learning differently.

Adults and older students usually learn while under pressure to produce instantly and on-demand.

Young/very young learners on the other hand learn in, by comparison, a relatively stress free environment where language production and use is not demanded and mistakes are much more tolerated.

.

[ttompatz]

[The Cosmic Hum]

[le-paul]

[some waygug-in]

For 2nd language learners

I believe that young learners are far more apt to pick up new words by and
phrases by osmosis than adults and they are far more able to
internalize them and then use them.


Adults tend to be more analytical in that they want to know why things

are said than just learning from repetition.

[ttompatz]

[World Traveler]

I saw this on another site:

[World Traveler]

http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies.html
"No scientists dispute this curve"
True?

[robbie_davies]

Kids have a better capacity (long term) of picking up language and being able to use it to a native like fluency due to brain plasticy.

Adults have better learning skills and can pick up basics a lot better and a lot quicker than children.

[yodanole]

The general canon amongst linguistic and anthropological academics is that humans lose the ability to learn a second language to native speaker proficiency at around age 7. With rare exceptions.

Polyglots usualy grow up somewhere that multiple languages are interactive on a daily basis at the street bazaar level.

[Steelrails]

[yodanole]

I wasn't using that statement to account for the rare person that is truly linguistically gifted. It's just sort of like mentioning that Europeans live in a relatively small area with a lot of languages in play and so, often speak more than a couple of languages even though they have no special aptitude for languages.

Unlike us Americans, who travel the world screaming "Why can't you speak English???" to service workers in their native land.

[World Traveler]

[12ax7]