Language learners should demand natural learning

http://www.lingq.com/

Language learners who find themselves in unnatural learning situations should protest and demand natural language learning. Steve of the Natural Language Society. Let's start a movement!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• natural
• language
• LingQ
• learning
• languages
• online
• english

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[bassplayer10000]

in your system?

[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]

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.

[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]

Great!thanks!