Here is a discussion of reading as it relates to language improvement. I also touch on who is responsible for the apparent decline of reading skills in our society.

  I did a video about the importance of an open mind to success in language learning. A perfect example is Moses McCormick, who also did a video on this subject which you can find by searching for Moses at youtube. I am rushing out to the airport so I will not say more now.

Here is a video summarizing the recent Wikpedia dust up, and some thoughts on how much time to spend on flash cards.

Rather than trying to cultivate critical thinking, or "higher order thinking" in language students, I think teachers should focus on finding ways to get students to like the language in some way, and let them follow their own interests and inclinations.

It started with a question about whether I confuse similar languages, which I, of course, do from time to time.I decided to do a video where I answered the question and went on to talk about errors.

The gist is that the brain can only deal with the massive amount of information and experience that it receives by sacrificing accuracy. It looks for similarities, metaphors, patterns.

I am my brain. I prefer to cover more things, more languages, more content, and sacrifice accuracy. I would rather listen and read more in the language, than try to nail down my errors. I also made a few errors in the video.

Remember to place the tip of the tongue between the teeth and try to pronounce "f". The key is the tongue between the upper and lower teeth.

Download Theo

Thoroughly thrifty Theo was a thoughtful soul. Theo thought about other people. He also thought deep thoughts. That is because Theo was a student of theology, a rather thin one at that.  He was always thinking. Most of all Theo thought about his money, because Theo was thrifty.

Whether he liked it or not,Theo needed a new coat. His coat was threadbare. There were holes in the elbows. Anything he put in the pockets just fell through the pocket and onto the ground. And the weather was bad. Therefore, something had to be done. He could not go to the theater with that coat. And that night Theo was supposed to go to the theater with his girl friend, the thoroughly scintillating Cynthia.

'Let me think this through" he thought. " I do not mind my threadbare coat, but what will Cynthia think if she sees me in a threadbare coat?"

Finally, thoroughly thrifty Theo thought the unthinkable, " I will have to spend the money", he decided without enthusiasm, and off he went to the clothing store. 

This sound file is for him and anyone else who has a similar problem. I read it once slowly and once quickly. I am asking him to listen to both, over and over. We'll see if he improves. I am also putting this into the Pronunciation section of the English Library at LingQ.

Remember to pronounce the "v" with the lower lip pressed against the upper teeth. With "w"  there is no contact with the lips or the teeth.

Vivian, a very vivacious woman, is a waitress at a very well-known Vietnamese restaurant in Vienna. The well known one with the violet window shades.

Vivian usually wears a tight fitting Vietnamese dress which reveals her very voluptuous figure. The dress shows her figure to full advantage. Obviously I am very much attracted to vivacious Vivian.

Whenever I visit Vienna I visit the restaurant to see Vivian. I wish I could visit Vienna more often.

When I phone to reserve a table, I invariably have to leave a voice mail message requesting a reservation. When I call  back to verify my reservation, it is invariably vivacious Vivian who answers . Then I get shy.  "I wish to make a reservation" I usually say, although I really want to tell her how beautiful she is. This has been going on for a very long time.

Will I ever get the will power to tell her how I feel? I very much doubt it.

Let me begin my saying that I have never used Rosetta Stone. My son, Mark, played professional hockey in Japan for a few years. His team gave him Rosetta Stone to learn Japanese. He tried it and found that it was boring and did not get him very far.

I decided to do some research on the net. Most reviews that I found seemed to have been done by people connected with Rosetta Stone. I am not surprised. Rosetta Stone are excellent marketers for which I salute them. They are not only promoting their product, they are promoting an awareness that people can learn languages on their own.

The best summary of the Rosetta Stone method I found was the following.

The most important component of the Rosetta Stone software-based method is what I call "a four squares screen". The user is presented with a page that shows four pictures of various objects or entities. A prerecorded phrase or word is played back and the user must click on the square that contains a visual answer to the question or best illustrates the concept. If the user answers correctly a little "ding" is heard, a check-mark appears on the screen and the program advances. That's all folks!

So, why does the Rosetta Stone method work? At the very center of the Rosetta Stone approach is the idea of constant encouragement. Every step of the way the user receives positive feedback from the program. Rosetta Stone takes you through a rapid succession of multiple choice questions. Given that there are only four options per question it is not difficult to answer every question even if you don't get it right away. This process turns into a series of gratifying experiences.

This was contrasted with the usual language learning experience where the reviewer felt that we do not know how we are doing.

As a result we have uncertainty, perception of poor performance and general lack of success. A user is much more likely to quit such a course, and it should be known that not quitting is probably the single most important requirement when learning a foreign language

My reaction to the reviews that I read was that I do not think I would want to use Rosetta Stone. Here are seven reasons.

1)  I do not like answering multiple choice questions at the computer. It is not communicating. I might do it once or twice but would not continue. I would not do it daily. I need to connect with a language I am learning daily, in order to learn.

2) Most of my learning activity takes place during dead time. I mostly listen while running, driving, doing the dishes, waiting line etc.. I also read while waiting or as a relaxing activity.  If I had to sit at the computer in order to learn I would not do a lot of studying. I just do not have the dedicated time.

3) I do not believe that I can permanently learn words, whether using pictures or other techniques. I know I am going to forget them. In a way I am not interested in learning the word for "red" or "house". I know that I have to be exposed to so much language content, in audio and text, that gradually it all starts to have meaning. I am not conscious of learning and forgetting specific words, but I know I am doing it. I know I have learned words because I can understand more and more. I know I am forgetting because I am constantly unable to remember the most elementary words.

4) I find it difficult to learn words and phrases that are divorced from a larger story or context. Isolated words and phrases do not connect with my brain. I remember words and expressions as part of larger stories that I remember. I often remember when and where I was listening to many of these stories.

5) When I start learning a language, the gratification that I experience comes from the fact that  I start to be able to tell when words begin and end, and then soon after start to make sense of short episodes that used to be just noise for me. That is all the feedback that I need. I do not find the uncertainty a problem. It is the feeling of the "fog lifting", the uncertainty turning into more and more clarity, that is so satisfying in the study of another language.

6) I learn languages with the goal of being able to communicate, to understand what is said, and to be able to express myself. That is a long road. I have the impression that Rosettta Stone only takes you a very short way. I do not see it as a useful or necessary step.

7) I feel that a lot of listening to interesting content is a better start than doing multiple choice questions. I am in a hurry to engage with the language, real language situations, and to let my brain get used to it.

What has been the experience of others? I know that I am not impartial, but I have tried to be honest. I do recommend the "Teach Yourself" series and the "Colloquial" series. I would not recommend Rosetta Stone.

How much deliberate study of grammar, and word review, and output is necessary. Who knows? Do what you like. And making mistakes does not matter in most situations.

I refer in my talk today to a debate at How to learn any language., and a web site with an interesting perspective on the importance of language schools written by Amorey Gethin. This paper was first written in 1991. A lot has changed since then. For a view on how much has changed check out this video.

Stephen Krashen is controversial. I do not agree with all of what he says. But there is a lot of common sense there, backed up with research. This list of comments about reading is worth looking at. Here he talks about the connection between reading and spelling. Here are some studies that talk about the importance of listening. Here is a discussion about to "teach" listening skills.

I believe that we waste a fortune in training teachers in various skills related to teaching reading, listening, spelling etc,. We should be looking at how to enable learners to spend more time reading and listening to things that they find interesting. As Manfred Spitzer said in his book, the brain is a remarkable learning machine, much better at forming its own rules and recognizing patterns, than absorbing theoretical explanations. Reading and listening should be fun. If we like it we will do it.

Download Esperanto

I believe that language learning and literacy learning are closely related. I am sure that I will get criticism over the following but I welcome it. I want to learn.

Here is the podcast

" In the USA at least 30 million, and arguably 93 million, adults would benefit from
additional literacy instruction, and that the system today can only serve
approximately 3 million adults through combined federal, state, and
philanthropic funding.”  according to ProLiteracy, a major US organization devoted to improving literacy.

Their website sets the tone. "We need more funding" " Poor literacy costs the economy money" "Literacy education goes hand in hand with social change" and other slogans and exhortations. It appears there are many organizations committed to literacy learning, and they attract a lot of funding. "Advocacy" would appear to be one of their main activities. (See also the website of the National Coalition for Literacy.)

93 million people out of 300 some odd million or so Americans would benefit from literacy instruction. Wow! You cannot accommodate these people in class rooms. That has to be close to half of all adults in the US!

I suspect that most "literacy programs" do not have much of an impact. Based on my experience with language learning I suspect that literacy teaching is no more effective than language teaching.

I am convinced that LingQ would help, at very little cost. I have not been successful in interesting anyone in the literacy establishment because they are more motivated by advocacy than in finding solutions that can be more effective and less costly. I have asked them to look at LingQ to see if it could be adapted to the needs of the literacy campaign. I have told them that it could be used free of charge. I have been told in no uncertain terms that they are not interested because I am "for profit" and/or because I do not have the requisite academic credentials.

Pimsleur, Assimil, Teach Yourself, Michel Thomas,Colloquial, Berlitz, Hugo, Rosetta Stone and many more. There is no shortage of language learning systems. What do I think of them? Here is a podcast on Learning systems

Here are two videos.

1)

I did not mean the post on advice for lazy language learning to be demotivating. Here is a video on it.

Transcript:

Steve Kaufmann here, videocasting and podcasting from The Linguist on Language.  I’m going to continue doing these videocasts and podcasts from my blog and we will provide transcripts, therefore, for people who are using these texts for language learning. 

I will announce at my blog where we put the transcripts; we may simply put them on the blog.  I would certainly encourage people to come to LingQ (l-i-n-g-Q.com) if they need to work on some of the vocabulary and the phrases and the words in these texts that they want to learn.

Now I sort of have the wind in my sails a bit on this whole subject of political correctness, so I want to stay with the subject.  I want to, first of all, thank John B. who commented at my blog in support of the idea that this subject of freedom of speech very much belongs at a blog where we’re talking about language.

It’s interesting that the person who has criticized me for, as he called it “ranting” here, and you know he was not very flattering in his views about me, which is fine.  He felt that I should just get back to talking about language and he was sort of telling me what I should say here at my own blog, you know?  But, no, I think it definitely has a place here, besides which, I’m going to stray away from the subject of language from time to time, just to cater to those people who are interested in using my blog, podcast and videocast as a language-learning exercise.

I had some very nice communication from Tamara in Russia where they are using the blog for their language learning.  She sounds like a marvelous teacher, so this will help her and I’m sure it will help other people.  So, the blog will provide different things for different people.  I’ll talk about language learning, but I’ll also talk about other subjects that I think are interesting.

Now, when it comes to language learning or language, let me talk about this word “linguist”, because I call myself a linguist in the sense that I speak more than one language and I feel that anyone who speaks more than one language or likes to speak more than one language is a linguist to me.

Now, David, here, who has been involved in this polemic on political correctness, he’s also a linguist, but he’s a linguist…in fact, he might be a linguist in both senses.  He says that he speaks more than one language, he doesn’t specify, and he also says that he’s a philologist, which I had to look up in a dictionary, but apparently a philologist is someone who studies ancient languages; maybe not event ancient, ancient or obscure, languages and analyzes.  I’m not quite sure what he does, but he might tell us, I don’t know.  He seemed to take offense that I even asked him what he did and said something about I shouldn’t ask him for any credentials or qualifications or something.  I don’t know what he said, but…yeah, “I don’t think I need to mention my qualifications here”, he said.  Okay, he’s offended; whatever.  But, it’s interesting.

He’s also a linguist and he’s interested in the subject of freedom of speech.  The take that he has is “Freedom of speech is a right that has to be qualified when it infringes other people’s rights.”  Okay, but who determines?  What’s a right, you know? 

In the case of the Canadian Rights Tribunals, McClain’s Magazine was brought before the Human Rights Tribunal because they felt that an article printed by McClain’s had offended a specific group, Muslims.  They felt that the article was not friendly to Muslims or somehow could be construed or might give offense or, in fact, did give offense because a group of Muslims said they were offended.  But that’s not 100% of all Muslims in the world that were offended, that’s not even 100% of all Muslims in Canada that were offended, it’s a couple of Muslims.  Who do they represent?  We don’t know.  They were offended or say they were offended.  Now is it a right to not be offended?  Is that a right?  I don’t know. 

David, here, goes on, “Freedom of speech does not entitle anyone to use defamation to provide false testimony in court or to spread hatred.”  Well, yeah, we have laws that govern that, liable laws, you know?  Whatever, telling lies in court, those are crimes.  Spreading hatred…now that’s a difficult one because…I don’t know.  I mentioned in my earlier podcast about this David (????? Hennique), who certainly had many hateful things to say, was he spreading hatred?  Can one foolish old man, in fact, spread hated?  I mean it’s not like he has an organization that’s marching in the streets, he just said something very stupid. 

But, here, David goes on, “Political correctness is an attempt to strike a balance.”  A balance between what?  We have laws about defamation; we have laws about telling the truth in court.  There are some laws regarding hatred, but, hopefully, they’re directed more at organized groups rather than individuals saying stupid things.  But, David feels that somehow it’s the role of political correctness and I guess he would see him as part of this group of inquisitors who will decide.  Certainly, that’s what the Human Rights Tribunals are trying to do in Canada, that there’s strike a balance.  You can’t say things; you can’t say that a particular group is bad.

It gets back to the earlier example I used, in Russia now they’re going to have a law that says you can’t deny that the Soviet Union won the war, but it’s being taken now, by some groups in Russia, as an excuse to say you can’t criticize anything that was done by the Soviet Army in the war because it might offend people. 

Now, of course, getting back to David, he says, “Striking this balance is not censorship.”  What nonsense!  Of course it’s censorship.  If you haul someone in front of a Human Rights Tribunal, as they did in the case of a person in Alberta…this person in Alberta wrote a letter to a newspaper and said that he doesn’t approve of homosexuality and he said it in terms that, quite frankly, are no longer persuasive with the majority of people who aren’t as hung up about homosexuality as this preacher is, but that’s him and he said this thing.

Now he was hauled in front of a court and his final verdict was that he was no longer allowed to write anything about homosexuals and he was no longer allowed to talk about homosexuals in his sermons at his church and he had to pay $5,000 to some gay-lesbian group.  The gay-lesbian group said we don’t want this money, we don’t agree with your decision.  We think freedom of speech is the best protection of our rights, we can speak up, others can speak up.  We can present our position, others present other positions.  That’s how we got the whole attitude of society to move on the question of homosexuality, it was through having freedom of speech and challenging some of the established values.  They want no part of this money, so the Human Rights Tribunal of Alberta gave the money to the plaintiff, the guy who brought the complaint.  He’s not a gay or a lesbian; he’s a soul brother of David here, the galloping politically correct vigilantes.  So he ends up with the money; well, there’s a way to make money.

So then David goes on and makes the statement, “Political correctness, i.e. the Human Rights Tribunal, is not censorship.”  He says, “Stop making such preposterous claims.”  Well, political correctness is, in itself, not censorship because censorship means that you actually have the power to prevent people from writing or saying things.  But political correctness is exactly that, it’s the attempt to pressure people into not saying what they believe and not writing what they believe, so that is a form of censorship it’s not preposterous.

This fellow David is just a joke, he just uses these words like “preposterous”.  He describes Ezra Levant as despicable; Ezra Levant (e-z-r-a l-e-v-a-n-t) is tremendous.  He won the award in Canada for the best political blog; he has won awards.  You don’t have to agree with him, but he’s not despicable David, just because he doesn’t agree with you.  Don’t be so childish, you and all of your politically correct cohorts.  Anyway, so blah-blah-blah. 

So, I believe that we use language to express our ideas; we need to have the freedom to express our ideas.  Attitudes within society move, it’s only through debate that they move.   It’s when you try to suppress ideas, such has happened in the middle ages where we weren’t allowed to question whether the sun revolved around the earth, etc., that’s when we end up with greater injustice.

I hope I don’t have to get back to this subject.  We may hear from David again, but, hopefully, that’s lively and interesting to people who are studying English.  Thank you for listening.

Transcript:

Steve Kaufmann here and what I’m going to do for the next little while is that I’m going to record my videos.  I’m also going to record them as podcasts and I’m going to provide transcripts.  This will make it possible for people who want to use these for language learning to do so.

I’m going to talk about two types of subjects, I’m either going to talk about language learning or I’m going to talk about other, call them, interesting, topical, controversial subjects, which I hope will be interesting for people to listen to, because in language learning if the subject is interesting, you’re more likely to learn.

And, certainly, that has been my experience with my Russian studies.  Ever since I discovered Echo Moskvi I have just been fascinated by the range of interviews and daily commentary/monologues that the various journalists on Echo Moskvi have provided me with. 

Now I’m not a mini multitasking Echo Moskvi, but I’m going to try to, somehow, do what they do and I’m going to provide video as well, even though I, personally, don’t believe that video is all that helpful in language learning.  But I asked the question here at my blog, The Linguist on Language, and I would say a majority of people who answered said they like video.

Now video as in a movie with action and people talking to each other is a lot more fun than looking at some old coot deliver a monologue, but I can’t provide drama here.  All I can provide is me talking in a video and I will also provide the audio as a separate file and the transcripts.

Now what am I going to talk about?  Let’s talk a few things here; first of all, I want to stay on the subject of political correctness because it does relate to how we use language.  I made the point that I think we should be free to express ourselves freely, without being constrained by sort of new techniques of dialoging and making sure we’re nice to people, because all of that is hypocrisy.

Whenever I come across people who try to tell me how I should be more considerate and not try to impose my views, they are the most intolerant of anybody’s views that don’t conform to theirs, so I consider that to be just an attempt to squash other people’s points of view.

Now I want to talk a bit about something that came up on Echo Moskvi, which is this very fascinating radio station in Russia that is available online where you download both sound files and text files, which I import, of course, into LingQ.  It seems that in Russia a minister, apparently a very highly-respected minister of the government there, has proposed a piece of legislation that would make it a crime, a criminal offense, in Russia to deny that the Soviet Union won what is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.  They don’t refer to it as II Word War, it’s known as the Great Patriotic War and, of course, it is true that the Soviet Union, by far, suffered greater casualties than any other of the allies.  It is also true that the Soviet Union probably was instrumental, if not decisive, in defeating Hitler, because Hitler committed more troops into the Soviet Union than anywhere else. 

There were some absolutely monumental battles, like Stalingrad, and the combination of the Soviet manpower and the industrial capability that was set up back of the front in the Euros; whether, to some extent, but mostly, this absolutely incredible mobilization of the human and industrial resources of the Soviet Union was responsible for the defeat of Hitler.

Now why would you have a law that makes it a criminal offense to deny that the Soviet Union won the war?  Are there people out there saying that the Soviet Union lost the war?  I haven’t heard them and many of the commentators on Echo Moskvi were of the same tone that this was rather unnecessary and I think a vote amongst their listeners found 75% who said that this was not necessary.

However, it raises some interesting points as, again, the commentator on Echo Moskvi made the point.  Well, he said what if you…for example, there was a documentary film that was produced in Russia, which said that the Russian Army was poorly prepared, poorly led, uncertain of their battles and this contributed to massive losses, which were unnecessary.  In other words, they criticized some of the actors, some of the officers or some of the people, who were involved in the Russian defense of the motherland. 

A leader of the Veteran’s Association in Russia has said that the person who created this documentary not only should be put in prison, but he should be hanged…I find that tone in Russia is very common, you know they don’t come after you in half measures, it’s “hang ‘em”...because he has offended the memory of many people who died defending Russia against Hitlerism and eventually defeating Hitler. 

So should we be allowed to say things that might offend people?  You know what if it’s true that there were officers who were incompetent, drunk or committed troops to battle before they were ready and caused unnecessary loss of life and so forth and so on, should we not be allowed to say that?

It’s similar to the discussion we’ve had in Canada about the massive bombing of civilian targets in Germany during the war by the Royal Air Force, the British Royal Air Force.  Twenty-five percent of those airmen that flew over Germany, obviously, they risked their lives, they were considered heroes and these were dangerous missions, but what they did was they just totally massacred civilians in a number of cities.

Dresden is always raised as the sort of German Hiroshima, but, in fact, the numbers in Dresden have been grossly exaggerated for a variety of reasons and what happened in Dresden is no different from what happened in Hamburg and a number of other cities. 

Are we not allowed to question the tactics and strategies that were used at that time in warfare?  Maybe we are and maybe we aren’t, I don’t know.  Personally, I would be in favor of freedom of speech and that we should be able to question some of those decisions. 

Similarly, here, freedom of speech, you know, I’ve been discussing.  We now have this political correct movement in North America and, yeah, that reminds me.  There is a Canadian 75 year old man of aboriginal origin from Saskatchewan who served in the Canadian Army who was given the Order of Canada and is highly-regarded in the native community and who has -- on several occasions and on one occasion – given a speech where he said the Jews were responsible for the war and Hitler had the right idea in frying six million of them.  I mean he said the most ghastly things.  He was initially accused of spreading hate and then, just recently, a judge acquitted him of these crimes. 

Now, on the one hand, I think it’s perfectly harmless for someone like this to say what he said and if not such a big fuss had been made about it nobody would have paid much attention; they would have just said he’s a foolish old man.  Now they’ve turned it into a major incident so that his words have been written all over our newspapers.

But now the judge acquits him and says he’s acquitted because he didn’t really mean these comments to be public.  I mean of course that’s totally ridiculous, because he said these at a public meeting and he repeated them on several occasions.  So he meant it, there’s no question; he’s just a stupid old man.  But, of course, the only reason he’s acquitted is because he’s native, because that’s a protected group. 

If his name had been John McDonald, member of sort of a high-class Anglo-waspish society, he would have been castigated.  There would have been handwringing and we have to fight racism, this is very bad, it’s widespread and we’ve got to do something, so it all depends on who you are. 

You know we’re going to run out of time on this first video, but I also wanted to comment a little bit on this fellow David who’s come at me on this whole political correctness front, but I’ll have to do that in another video.

Bye for now.

Stephen Krashen has, from what I can gather, three main areas of interest, 1) second language acquisition, 2) literacy and the importance of free reading, and 3) bilingual education. While I largely agree with Krashen on his basic views of language learning, and the need to encourage people to read without artificial interference from teachers with their reading strategies and analysis, I differ with him in certain regards.

I believe that meaningful input is crucial, and the most important activity in language learning. However, we can and should do things to increase the attentiveness of the brain, the ability of the brain to notice what is happening in the language, as the new language is absorbed through massive amounts of meaningful input.

That is why it is useful to review words and phrases, not because we will remember them, but because we start to notice them better in our reading and listening. That is why we should try to write and then speak, just a little at first, and then more, so that we discover what we lack, and look for it in our listening and reading. That is why we benefit from being corrected, not in the hope that we will immediately improve, but so that we will be alerted to things to look for in the language, as we listen and read.

I think that reading is powerful, but listening is more powerful. New language content should be heard, often, especially at first, before it is read. Listening can also increase the emotional involvement with the content we are learning from. This improves the learning efficiency of the brain.

I am not in favour of bi-lingual education for immigrant children,  in the sense proposed by Krashen, as I understand his ideas. The child of an immigrant to a country like the United States is better off studying in English, as early as possible, and being encouraged to belong to the English speaking mainstream. This does not prevent the child from learning the ancestral language, if the child, or as is more often the case , the parents, want that to happen. In fact, in my view, the child should be encourage to learn languages, period, whether the ancestral language or some unrelated language. The choice should ideally be left to the child.

I spend very little time on grammar and I have learned to speak 10 languages. I find that listening and reading, and focusing on words and phrases, is a more productive and enjoyable way to spend my time. I said so in my previous post.

In response, Liam, representing I believe the views of people who like grammar, and  those who teach grammar, made a comment to my previous post in which he said that to learn the subjunctive in Spanish or adjective endings in German we can either

"1) Memorize the tables and use them while speaking, constantly referring to them in your head

or 2) Not learn the grammar and fool yourself into thinking you're learning the language "naturally", which only kids under the age of 5 can do with any proficiency."

But it all depends on our goal. If our goal is to communicate, to understand, to learn lots of words and phrases so that we can express ourselves, maybe the niceties of the subjunctive in Spanish or adjective endings in German do not matter that much. Maybe they can wait.

I tried memorizing declension tables in German, and it was only when I stopped doing that, and focused on listening and reading, that my ability to communicate in German improved. I do not refer to tables and usually find that I can handle the subjunctive quite easily in French and Spanish, although the third person singular of various tenses can give me trouble if I have been away from the language. It just does not come out automatically the way I would like, at times. But I am all right with that and do not think that memorizing tables would help me. Besides it is boring to memorize tables, so I choose not to do it. I get lots of compliments on my German, Spanish and French.

I would say that the kind of language learning proposed by Liam is responsible for the generally poor results that are achieve in class room language instruction. While Liam may learn best that way, I think he is in the minority. I believe, with Krashen, and with Manfred Spitzer, that the brain does not do as well with the explicit explanation and learning of rules and tables, but rather the brain will figure these things on its own, with enough of the right kind of input. Occasional reference to grammar can help, but memorizing the tables, in my experience is an ineffective way to spend one's language learning time.

What is the role of grammar study in language learning? Stephen Krashen says that grammar based learning is not very effective and I agree. We will get used to different aspects of the grammar of the new language according to a natural order that is part of how brains learn. With enough input we will figure out how the language works. The more we learn, the more we are able to learn, according to Krashen.

Spitzer, in his description of how the brain learns, would seem to agree with Krashen. Yet I know from my own experience that there is a place for grammar study.  I deal with grammar as a reference resource and there are two stages of grammar reference.

1) Before starting a new language I sometimes, although not always, look at a summary of the grammar of the language I am going to learn. This is easy to do today. You just have to google "summary Swedish, (Dutch, Japanese or whatever) grammar" or the equivalent in your native language, or a language you know. You will find a wide choice of sources to choose from. Pick the one you like, probably the shortest one will be the best. Read through it without trying to remember too much. I mean a quick review of about 15 minutes. It is just to get an overview of the language before you start.

2) Throughout the period that I am studying the language, whenever I feel the urge, or am curious about something, I refer to grammars. Today this easily done online. You can even google "French verbs" or "Russian cases" to find specific sites to refer to from time to time. I do not do this too often. I do not know how much it helps, but I admit to being curious to look things up and I know that I discover things that I had not noticed or figured out simply from input.

And that is it. That is all the grammar you need - a first time review, and occasional references or additional reviews. Remember, the goal is not memorize or learn the rules or explanations or tables, but to review them so that you will have an easier time noticing the language as you hear it and read it. This will help your brain eventually learn the language naturally.

I must say, however, that this grammar study does not amount to more than 1%  of the time I spend on learning a language. Mostly I listen and read, and then review my LingQs, and talk with my tutor at LingQ.

Here is the podcast.

Maurizio, Cristiana and I share many views on the power of audio books, and their use in the cause of raising literacy levels.

Here is our discussion about audio books.

What makes a good teacher? If I think of the teachers that I liked, and that inspired me, it was not necessarily their profound grasp of their subject that made them successful. In fact, it is almost irrelevant, within limits of course.

For many students, especially at university, the best teacher is one who does not get too deep into his subject. If he can keep it simple, clearly explain what will be on the final exam, and then make sure that most students are capable of getting good marks, that is a good teacher, and his courses will be popular. It really helps if the exam is all multiple choice, or true or false, so that the student does not have to bother expressing him or herself in writing. If the goal is to get a degree, this kind of teacher is good.

Universities like professors who do a lot of research on subjects that only interest a small group of their peers. They want their professors to publish papers and attend conferences. So there could be a division of labour, between the researchers who publish papers on subjects of very narrow interest on the one hand, and teachers who ensure that students pass on the other hand.

To me, a good teacher is something else. The best teachers I had were the ones who inspired me and challenged me. They need not have had all the answers. They need not have published learned papers. They just had to be enthusiastic, ask interesting questions, act as if they cared about their subject and their students. They needed to be able to put themselves in the position of their students and not talk down to them. They needed to speak clearly and not mumble.

At LingQ we are looking for tutors in all languages. We want people who are also interested in language learning, or think that they might become interested. We want people who are prepared to learn our system, a new approach to language learning. We want people who like talking to people from different language and cultural backgrounds. We want people who speak their own language clearly and are enthusiastic.

I think that kind of person makes an excellent teacher. They do not need to be experts on the grammar of their language. They mostly need to encourage, inspire, and provide feedback. If anyone out there is interested, please send me an email. It is very easy to do. Why not just host one discussion a week and see how you like it?