Language learners should demand natural learning

[miadus1]

Could you give some advice how a person who starts learning English from a total beginner level can learn it in a natural way ? If he doesn't know even numbers or English alphabet? How can a teacher escape explaining grammar rules for students who have in their native language only 4 tenses?

[lingosteve]

@miadus1 Numbers are easy to undrestand but take a long time to get used to.

[lingosteve]

@miadus1 Letters take longer to understand but with enough exposure, listening and reading we constantly improve.

Tenses.....only after a lot of listening and reading and voabulary learning the natural way, will explanations start to make sense. Using them correctly requires even more exposure. Grammar explanations can help, but not much, IMHO.

[concertmatell]

Good videos, I like watching peoples different views in certain areas. It gives the new language learners ideas and very valuable information.

Thanks.

[DFCcaptain3]

I totally agree. We have French (and other languages) on school. And we are Forced to learn vocabularys, grammers, made for you dialogs.

I don't think that is the way, you have to speak freely and write freely. Listen to a language a lot, speak it a lot and write it a lot. That's more efficient than learning ONLY from grammers etc.

[disiciliano]

Its true. Immersion is the best way.

How else do people become perfectly bilingual?

Immersion is the way schools in Catalunya and other parts of the world.

Putting translations of words in front of you will not make you learn a language with ease, and perfection.

But as many students in the United States only learn as much as required in a foreign language class this protest won't happen unfortunately. :(

[zimmermann10]

Very nice video!Thanks so much!

Can I ask you something, a video about pronunciation, tips about how to increase the pronunciation on a new language.

A old teacher said me about hours and hours in front of the mirror, I think that is not the correct way, what dou think about!

Zimmermann/from Brazil

[lingosteve]

I do not think practicing in front of a mirror is a good idea. It will make you self-conscious. It is more a matter of a lot of listening and imitating the rhythm of the new language. Also, your ability to pronounce improves with time, and with the number of languages you learn. You have to imagine that you are "one of them". When I decide to really learn Portuguese, I will be a Brazilian.

[zimmermann10]

Great!thanks!

[rsherfan]

One possible way around the whole test/academia problem is perhaps the focus of the course. Perhaps instead of being "Learn XYZ language" it could be "Natural Language Learning" - as in THE name of the course. The course material is all about how to learn languages naturally and in the process of learning this course the learners will put what they've learned in to action. This allows grading and evaluation. I think a big course spanning several semesters could be possible this way. *shrugs*

[lingosteve]

Students, or their parents, or tax-payers, pay a lot of money for the student to sit in a class room in front of a teacher.

The student is the customer, the user. It is his/her time, his/her aspirations, and his/her or someone else's (not the teacher's) money.

The way languages, and many other subjects, are taught does not conform to how the brain learns. It is often more about the teacher wanting to control the class, but the good teachers know that the learner has to be in charge.

[bassplayer10000]

Of course you know this is all very good in theory, Steve. Of course we will learn better if the students are self-directed and motivated to learn interesting content. I think that as a community - not just the schools - we need to create an environment of learning languages (and other subjects) for the mere fact that we enjoy it and are interested in it.

[bassplayer10000]

Your theory breaks down, however, when we get to the middle school and high school level, especially in urban and inner-city areas where school is pretty much a glorified day care at best and a prison/holding area at worst. For a lot of teachers, just getting their students to behave takes up the entire class, nevermind getting them focused. Now imagine if the self-directed method was introduced. These kids would have a field day and wouldn't learn anything. Is there any solution to this dilemma

[bassplayer10000]

in your system?

[drchicken3000]

I have been watching your videos (and using lingq ever since the first video of yours i saw) for quite a while now, and i have to say, i like your overall theory for learning. However, i dont think that it has to stop with JUST language learning, i think that it can be applied to mathematics and music as well. I use the same approach like Lingq (ie. self education) but with math i usually use books, and music i just play various intruments alot.

[drchicken3000]

I have noticed (i am still in high school) that i will learn and remember something that i learned on my own much better than anything in the classroom. I am in Spanish 3, and couldn't understand any spanish nor was motivated to, but ever since using lingq (which is barely over 2 months now) i can already understand a great deal of spanish, and make casual conversation with spanish speaking people in my school.

[drchicken3000]

Also, lingq has motivated me to want to learn many other languages as well, and i can't see myself stopping any time soon... Thank you for the inspiration I will try to talk to you more sometime

[rsherfan]

it's addictive, isn't it! in a wierd kind of way.

[thehaven7]

Hi Steve.

Are you suggesting "linguistic anarchy?"

Just my take on the "protest" you are promoting.

[zocurtis]

This sounds a little extreme.

[paige4president]

i can't wait to bring up this issue in my linguistics class next year ^_^ let's see what happens... maybe i can convert them!

[FourthDerivative]

One problem with schools vis-à-vis natural learning is that it's very hard to test and grade, especially in the early stages. It's easy to attach a number to how well a student has memorized a list of words or conjugations; but when the learning process is based on reading and listening to native texts and speakers, making intuitive mental connections, and not forcing output too early- that makes it much harder to evaluate whether the student has learned anything, and to put a grade on it.

[FourthDerivative]

I hasten to emphasize that this is a design flaw of schools, and not of natural learning.

[lingosteve]

Schools or teachers should only measure the activity level of the learner, not the output or performance. That is what we measure at LingQ. If the learner is putting in the time with the language he/she will improve, but at his/her own pace. it is meaningless to measure to the output if in the majority of cases, as in our schools, the learner will graduate without being able to speak.

[rsherfan]

I'm behind you Steve, and I know that the natural learning method is the best from personal experience - but I do not think that these demands will be seen by the academic community in a very good light... yet! I have a bad feeling that this video may come back to bite you (I hope I'm wrong). Are you sure you can "rally" people to do this without getting in to hot water yourself?