My father is a teacher. How he hated that song.
Anyway, I want to ask people's opinions about the relevance of studying childrens' aquisition of language when dealing with teenagers/adults. I tend to feel it is pretty low, one reason being that as far as I can see the consensus is that children have special abilities which fade away as they get older. If so, surely basing classroom activities on natural language acquisition is misguided.
On the other hand, though many people seem to think children are wonderful language learners, I have never really understood this. Those who I teach are very good in some respects, poor in others. It isn't like teaching 12 little Sir Richard Burtons. If I were to neglect my native tongue and study intensively for 8 years, I would be ashamed to have the language abilities of a mere 10 year old in the target language. Is a natural accent really that important?
And since I mention a famous language-learning genius, what about studying them? I haven't come across much which deals with how super successful adult learners go about things, except in very informal contexts. Since apparently there are people attested as speaking 50 plus foreign tongues (though I haven't been able to locate this alleged record on the Guinness site) I think It might be more worthwhile to look into how they go about it, rather than children, who learn in a situation we ultimately cannot replicate.
Hey - Teacher - Leave them kids alone
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woodcutter
- Posts: 1303
- Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:14 am
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How about starting here?
Good morning all!
I'm a teacher, and I like that song a great deal. My experience with the song is that the people who like it, and others of the same band, are usually educated people who ask what the words mean as a whole. But then, my contact is with people who want to learn English, in part, to understand that wealthy amount of popular poetry we have in our native tongue.
We could begin the study of language learners right here, many of us speak other tongues than our own. My second language is Spanish. I have been using Spanish exclusively to get what I want for the past 15 years. My English use is now very limited, perhaps half an hour in a month, I live in Spain and don't have to use it.
I studied French, both on my own and in high school, that went on for four years, including two summers. Years later, I had the chance to spend time in Madrid, so I brushed over a bit of Spanish before going, but on arriving, was totally unable to use it.
I returned to the States and began a more organized study of the language. I had ahead of me, the next summer, three months alone in Madrid. I bought grammar books on the street (living in New York City has so many advantages....) and read through them, I did drill practice on my own, did an intercambio with a teacher from Colombia for a couple of weeks. This first block of study lasted nine months. I worked in a Language Agency at the time, mostly translation services and a few classes here and there. I had been teaching ESL for seven years.
I had three months immersion training in Madrid. It was summer, so the population of the capital had fallen dramatically, and those left were bored to death and it was not difficult to meet and chat with people once you were recognized in the neighborhood. I had contacts (almost like the old letters of introduction one would take when traveling....) set up for me which I also took advantage of. I daily spent about an hour in study, sitting at a table, repeating something or preparing a dialogue that I might need the next day (I remember the numbers exercise I did for a couple of days to be able to go to market). I spent a great deal of time in the street. I was also writing some materials for my ESL classes for the next year. I was also writing fiction, in English.
I was another 11 months in New York, gradually improving on what I had studied, but not putting too much effort into the question. At the end of those months I was to move to Barcelona and I figured that having no choice in the matter, and really wanting to do so, I would get on famously with Spanish. And in the end, I think I do. My story is not very scientific and could not be proven. But it is a true story of one person who, after about three years of willful study, began speaking Spanish, and then went on to continue the process of getting better at it every day.
peace,
revel.
I'm a teacher, and I like that song a great deal. My experience with the song is that the people who like it, and others of the same band, are usually educated people who ask what the words mean as a whole. But then, my contact is with people who want to learn English, in part, to understand that wealthy amount of popular poetry we have in our native tongue.
We could begin the study of language learners right here, many of us speak other tongues than our own. My second language is Spanish. I have been using Spanish exclusively to get what I want for the past 15 years. My English use is now very limited, perhaps half an hour in a month, I live in Spain and don't have to use it.
I studied French, both on my own and in high school, that went on for four years, including two summers. Years later, I had the chance to spend time in Madrid, so I brushed over a bit of Spanish before going, but on arriving, was totally unable to use it.
I returned to the States and began a more organized study of the language. I had ahead of me, the next summer, three months alone in Madrid. I bought grammar books on the street (living in New York City has so many advantages....) and read through them, I did drill practice on my own, did an intercambio with a teacher from Colombia for a couple of weeks. This first block of study lasted nine months. I worked in a Language Agency at the time, mostly translation services and a few classes here and there. I had been teaching ESL for seven years.
I had three months immersion training in Madrid. It was summer, so the population of the capital had fallen dramatically, and those left were bored to death and it was not difficult to meet and chat with people once you were recognized in the neighborhood. I had contacts (almost like the old letters of introduction one would take when traveling....) set up for me which I also took advantage of. I daily spent about an hour in study, sitting at a table, repeating something or preparing a dialogue that I might need the next day (I remember the numbers exercise I did for a couple of days to be able to go to market). I spent a great deal of time in the street. I was also writing some materials for my ESL classes for the next year. I was also writing fiction, in English.
I was another 11 months in New York, gradually improving on what I had studied, but not putting too much effort into the question. At the end of those months I was to move to Barcelona and I figured that having no choice in the matter, and really wanting to do so, I would get on famously with Spanish. And in the end, I think I do. My story is not very scientific and could not be proven. But it is a true story of one person who, after about three years of willful study, began speaking Spanish, and then went on to continue the process of getting better at it every day.
peace,
revel.
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woodcutter
- Posts: 1303
- Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:14 am
- Location: London
floyd
I was afraid I might kick off a Pink Floyd discussion! 
I'm not sure of your point Revel. Do you mean you agree, and that adult learners can do as well as children? The study path you describe, by the way, is nothing like as intensive as a child's experience of learning language, which is pretty much all day, every day.
I'm not sure of your point Revel. Do you mean you agree, and that adult learners can do as well as children? The study path you describe, by the way, is nothing like as intensive as a child's experience of learning language, which is pretty much all day, every day.
Good morning all.
Good morning all!
Let's generalize here. Let's begin with what I think of the "Natural Method". When sold to parents, it is no different from "Business English", that is, it is simply a way to get kids into the classroom. No method can be "natural" or it would not be a method. Though, naturally, any method comes from the nature of man, who likes to keep things organized. But that is another subject.
Individuals meet many challenges in learning, and sometimes these challenges can be identified as "interference", things that get in the way of advancing. Adults have their particular interferences (time limitations, native language muscle and articulation atrophy, embarrassment, frustration). Children don't share these particular interferences, but have many of their own (can't use terminology to catagorize parts of speech, accept everything at face value without need for variance, emotional instability in the face of error or failure) which are not usually shared by adults. Children may seem like little sponges, soaking up all those "Can I have a pencil please?" and those others "Does he have red hair?", even spitting them out when needed, but at times these seem like "abracadabras" that the kids cleverly use to get what they want at the moment, without real understanding of that chain of sounds. On the other hand, adults are often too concerned with fragments of that chain of sounds "can" "does he" to get the sentence out of their mouths and finally get what they want.
Soooo, I don't think that we could make sweeping statements that say that either Adults or Children learn second languages more easily. You are right, my personal study plan was not at all as intensive as what a child goes through when learning L1, I did do other things than study Spanish. And my study plan is not useful for everyone, I have known dozens of people who have come to Spain, have spent several years, and have never gotten past the polite social conversation of greetings and ordering a beer. Why that is is clear when you meet and get to know each of these individuals (sometimes the excuse for not having learned anything is that Spanish isn't needed to get a sun-tan!)
peace,
revel.
Let's generalize here. Let's begin with what I think of the "Natural Method". When sold to parents, it is no different from "Business English", that is, it is simply a way to get kids into the classroom. No method can be "natural" or it would not be a method. Though, naturally, any method comes from the nature of man, who likes to keep things organized. But that is another subject.
Individuals meet many challenges in learning, and sometimes these challenges can be identified as "interference", things that get in the way of advancing. Adults have their particular interferences (time limitations, native language muscle and articulation atrophy, embarrassment, frustration). Children don't share these particular interferences, but have many of their own (can't use terminology to catagorize parts of speech, accept everything at face value without need for variance, emotional instability in the face of error or failure) which are not usually shared by adults. Children may seem like little sponges, soaking up all those "Can I have a pencil please?" and those others "Does he have red hair?", even spitting them out when needed, but at times these seem like "abracadabras" that the kids cleverly use to get what they want at the moment, without real understanding of that chain of sounds. On the other hand, adults are often too concerned with fragments of that chain of sounds "can" "does he" to get the sentence out of their mouths and finally get what they want.
Soooo, I don't think that we could make sweeping statements that say that either Adults or Children learn second languages more easily. You are right, my personal study plan was not at all as intensive as what a child goes through when learning L1, I did do other things than study Spanish. And my study plan is not useful for everyone, I have known dozens of people who have come to Spain, have spent several years, and have never gotten past the polite social conversation of greetings and ordering a beer. Why that is is clear when you meet and get to know each of these individuals (sometimes the excuse for not having learned anything is that Spanish isn't needed to get a sun-tan!)
peace,
revel.