The Linguist - language learning should be fun

Large Chinese presence at ACTFL language show

2009-11-21T07:22:38-08:00

ACFTL second day. A few impressions before I walk into the morning fog for my daily 45 minute walk to the Convention site from my hotel (while listening to Russian)

The presence of Chinese teachers, Chinese exhibitors, Chinese seminars etc. is amazing. The interest in China and the Confucius Institute are obviously big reasons.

I have met many dedicated teachers, including a lot of non-native speaking American language teachers who speak the foreign languages they teach very well. Impressed.

Lots of high school teachers, principals, and "World Language Supervisors"

More later since I am running late.

Why language students drop out. Demotivation.

2009-11-20T07:23:53-08:00

Apparently the greatest drop off in language courses at university occurs from the first year to the second year. In a Chinese program at a US university, the professor asked the students why. The answer was that many were disappointed that they were still only able to say very little, and they did not like having to engage in childish conversations in a language which they did not master well enough to really say anything.

Yes. It is demotivating for many people to have to talk in a language before they have enough familiarity and enough vocabulary. So, why do most language programs insist on it? Why not encourage the students to just enjoy learning the language, somewhat passively, focusing on input, and let them "produce" the language when they are ready, really want to, and can actually say something?

Language learning research

2009-11-20T07:18:43-08:00

Day one at the ACTFL Conference in San Diego. Over 5,000 delegates, mostly teachers and professors of languages. But these people do not only teach, they do research.

Yesterday I sat through a presentation by the head of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of America, a PhD in Linguistics and Chinese professor, on "Finding research topics and designing empirical studies on CFL." CFL is not the Canadian Football League that I am used to, but Chinese as a Foreign Language.

The presentation was supposed to last from 1 to 2.30, but did not finish much before 5, mostly a monologue in quite heavily accented English. I learned about such conclusions from research as: ( I have cleansed this of academic jargon)

a) Students learning Chinese characters had an easier time recognizing them than writing them, did better on characters with fewer strokes ,and those students who had trouble recognizing characters also had trouble writing them.

b) Students typically could only recognize 58% of characters even tough they had learned them, but if they could pronounce them this went up to 90%.

c) In a "reading strategy" study it was found that advanced learners, with more vocabulary, were better at processing characters rapidly and inferring meaning than intermediate level learners.

When someone suggested that these results were not exactly surprising, we were told that what was difficult was setting up rigid research parameters to ensure that the results were valid.

I wonder how much of this kind of research goes on, for all languages that are taught. I wonder what would happen to language learning in the world if there was a moratorium on all language learning research.

Homework revolt in Canada.

2009-11-18T19:43:52-08:00

Some parents are in revolt about the amount of homework their kids have to do according to the Globe and Mail.

I do not know how useful homework is. I know only that I resent most of the kinds of assignments that language teachers like to give. If I had to answer comprehension tests about my reading it would destroy the pleasure and I would read less. I do not know about the math and science. I suspect that many homework assignments are more of the make work variety than effective learning activities, as, I suspect is the case with much of what happens in school. I could be wrong but that is my impression.

What happens in other countries? What do others think?

"Second-Language Learning in Canada's Universities." The bureaucrats speak and people don't learn.

2009-11-17T16:06:37-08:00

Education ministers across Canada talk but fewer people learn French.The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), collectively commended the Commissioner of Official Languages today for undertaking the study "Two Languages, A World of Opportunities: Second-Language Learning in Canada's Universities."

As I read through this report about bureaucrats congratulating one another, and describing yet again the language teaching offerings of our universities, as if the Universities do not already do that, I ask myself what is this all about. What does the following mean?

"In Learn Canada 2020, the joint framework that ministers of education are using to guide enhancements to Canada's education systems, ministers have identified official languages as a priority activity area and have committed to the objective of promoting and implementing support programs for minority-language education and second-language learning that are among the most comprehensive in the world."

All I know is that second language proficiency is declining and will continue to decline in Canada, despite all the bureaucratese.

See the rise of the monoglots.

You cannot force or shame people into learning a language. All the lofty phrasing will do nothing till the way languages are taught is changed in Canada.

Как учить языки на LingQ

2009-11-17T15:33:54-08:00

Как учить языки на LingQ. Это страница уроки.

Como aprender idiomas con LingQ (en español)

2009-11-17T15:23:54-08:00

Un video sobre LingQ en español. Este es la pagina Lecciones a LingQ donde se puede leer, escuchar, salvar palabras y frases y mas.

Language learning is like walking through the fog.

2009-11-16T12:44:16-08:00

Please check out Walking through the fog from Burritolingus.

It contains the following statements from a renowned Japanese educator.

.....it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little....

......It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet.

When you get wet in a fog, it is very difficult to dry yourself. So there is no need to worry about progress. It is like studying a foreign language. You cannot do it all of a sudden, but by repeating it over and over, you will master it.

Why people learn languages (Mark Rosenfelder) or, language learning and golf.

2009-11-14T23:10:42-08:00

Thanks to Kevin, I was sent to the following article called "Why and when people learn languages." by Mark Rosenfelder. In this article Mark says the following:

"Languages take immense effort to learn, and people will only learn them if it's socially or economically inescapable."

My reply is that it takes an immense effort to learn to play golf well, very few people succeed, and yet many people continue to play golf. The whole point of LingQ is to make language learning enjoyable. So that people can just keep doing it. Unlike golf, people will almost certainly improve.

Read Mark's article, there is a lot there that I agree with.

Livemocha and Pearson recognized for their contribution to English learning.

2009-11-13T12:35:22-08:00

Livemocha and Pearson were recognized for their contribution to English language learning according to this article.

Here is some of what was said.

"Pearson Longman and Livemocha won for joint endeavour Active English, an online community-based language learning course that combines a structured ELT course with social networking. The project was launched in September this year.

The ESU judges said: “Livemocha is trying to reinvent the teaching of English.

"The panel were impressed by the site’s genuine community feeling with user-generated content. Students are able to gain feedback from native speakers and there is an excellent rating system within this feature. Livemocha makes great use of reciprocal peer learning. The panel were also impressed to see Web 2.0 being used in a meaningful way."

I wonder if LingQ will get some recognition some day.

Most British travelers would like to learn another language.

2009-11-13T12:29:05-08:00

This article from Reuters entitled

No foreign language on holiday please, we're British

seems to focus its headline on the negative, but I find it encouraging that a significant majority of even British people seem to see a need to learn another language. At least this true among those who travel. Now if we can just convince them that it is both fun, and not so difficult, we would untap a huge market for online language study and for LingQ.

I am not quite sure how we do that, however.

The American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages conference in San Diego

2009-11-12T11:16:03-08:00

I will be attending the ACTFL Conference in San Diego. Is anyone else going to be there? It would be great to get together. Dates Nov 19 - 22.

I wonder if I will be able to get into discussions about language learning.

Language research and the overcomplication of language learning.

2009-11-11T19:43:26-08:00

This is, in part, in response to a request. A video where I talk about how all the language and linguistics research have not really had much impact on how we learn languages.

A good source of Spanish pocasts.

2009-11-11T15:41:59-08:00

For those who want to connect with podcasts en Castellano here is a source, Podcastellano. There are, however, no transcripts, at least for now.

Adult education and rape, a test case in teaching critical thinking.

2009-11-11T12:49:34-08:00

Meanwhile back at my language teacher's Listserv, more examples of teachers who are more interested in reforming humanity than teaching language skills. Here is one recent post. My question is why this issue should be direcled specifically at adult education learners, most of whom really only want the tools to get a better job.

Here is the post.

I am a grad student at ........... University. Some of you may have heard of the recent incident in Richmond, California, in which a 15 year old young woman was repeatedly raped by several young men, while other young people looked on.

My area of interest is a critical pedagogy for adult education; practical applications of critical thinking. What approach do you think would be effective to explore this incident with a group of ABE learners? The questions are:

-How did this event happen?

-What is an educator's responsibility?

-What concepts are critical for students to understand?

-Is there a theory/writer who could be used to address this in the classroom?

Watching films in the original version with sub-titles in your language is harmful.

2009-11-11T10:59:51-08:00

Here is another one of those well-intentioned studies that tries to come to a provocative conclusion that is nonsense. According to this report, "Subtitles in one's native language, the default in some European countries, may actually be counter-productive to learning to understand foreign speech"

Get real! Most people do very well watching movies in the original version with sub-titles in their own language. Countries who do this usually have more fluent foreign language speakers than countries that don't, other things being equal. Sweden, Holland, Portugal come to mind.

I have watched movies in Russian with sub-titles in both Russian and English. At first I could not have read the Russian fast enough to help me. Now that I can, I prefer to do without them. Yes, watching with sub-titles in the same language as the language of the film is a fine thing to do for some people. Good idea. Go for it. Modern DVD's offer the choice of sub-title languages.

But sub-titles in your own language are not "counter-productive" as the report claims, and from a practical point of view, that is what most people will do.

A wonderful source of Chinese learning help.

2009-11-11T10:46:47-08:00

Every so often I come across a really outstanding source of learning help. Here is one. Täglich Chinesisch

An interesting discussion of the economics of online language learning

2009-11-10T16:12:59-08:00

Check out the comments on this article from European Tech Crucnh about Babbel's decision to cut out the free.

LingQ has a group at Youtube. It is called LingQPlaza

2009-11-10T15:26:00-08:00

I created a group at Youtube for people to make videos of themselves using LingQ or to talk about their experiences at LingQ. I have put up a few videos in a few languages. I and others will be adding to it. Please go and have a look. Why not join our group?

Babbel.com no longer free

2009-11-10T15:15:10-08:00

I received an email today announcing that Babbel.com is no longer free. They recently received a million Euros in government financing and no doubt feel they can strike out in a new direction. I wish them well.All online language sites are colleagues creating new ways to learn.

We, at LingQ rely on the contributions of our members to our growing language libraries in different languages. We hope to make it more and more attractive to be a paying member, but the free use of LingQ's resources will remain. I cannot see that changing.

Hello,

We wanted to let you know: Today Babbel.com (http://www.babbel.com), the language learning platform, is releasing a new version, Babbel 2.0. This includes completely revamped content and technology for learners of English, Spanish, French, German and Italian.

We've also abandoned the "freemium" model in favor of quality, and have now become a paid service.

Some words about why from Managing Director Markus Witte at:
http://blog.babbel.com/limits-of-the-free-internet/

You also can find further information about the new Babbel, plus our press release, images and videos, here:
http://www.babbel.com/home/PM20091110_eng

If you have questions, and/or would like access to the new version to try it out, just let us know at press@babbel.com

Thanks and best!

Mara Goldwyn

press@babbel.com
+49 30 346 55 93 87
Lesson Nine GmbH
Großbeerenstr. 81
10963 Berlin, Germany
http://www.babbel.com