Foreign Language Learning with Tutors

Alexander Arguelles presents a series of video reviews and demonstrations of those foreign language learning series that he has found most useful in his own studies. For further information about the series, please refer to http://www.foreignlanguageexpertise.com/index.html

Category:

Education

Tags:

• polyglottery
• foreign
• language
• learning

[aretill]

Dear ProfASAr,

What would be your recommendation for someone wanting to begin a self-guided course of language study? Specifically, I am a native speaker of English who has already an almost-fluent knowledge of German. I wanted to learn Spanish and can devote 30min to one hour daily.

I want to focus on speaking and listening, later focusing on reading and writing. Would you recommend Pimsleur CDs supplemented by a specific textbook?

Thanks in advance for your response.

[ProfASAr]

I will be posting four or five more videos of this format over the next week or so, and I believe you will find your answer contained in them in more detail than I can provide here, so please wait a bit and write again after the series is complete if you would like more advice.

[stujaystujay]

I agree with you - people really start excelling when they take charge of their own learning. Once we get into a good groove of how we learn and finding synergies with stuff we already know, learning becomes an insatiable 'fix' . Using other people to learn is fine, but we need to know how to extract what we need from them - not just what they think we need.

[theEdTechInsider]

This was a really informative video about the pros and cons of using a language tutor! It's very easy to say that you want to find someone who is a native speaker to teach you a language but people often forget about the fact that a native speaker may not be well equipped to actually teach. At our company Brain-scape, we help people learn using flashcards and repetition and always look forward to reading or hearing about other different learning methods. Check us out, Thanks!

[MagicMaximo]

Thanks for this video. It was a real confirmation that a native speaker/tutor may not realize some of the difficulties that I might have learning his language, as well as someone from my own language and background.

[tartansoxdundas]

Aretill,

As a MFL teacher myself, I decided in November 2008 to teach myself Italian, to try and become aware of the way in which I learn languages independently. I'd probably have to say that due to the fact that linguistic acquisition in the mother tongue occurs without a rigorous structure, a spontaneous exploration of different methods, randomly chosen and looked at briefly in any one go, are the most useful. I'd be happy to discuss this further, if you like. No characters left here.

[tartansoxdundas]

This is quite right. As a teacher myself, and a linguistic psychologist, I've considered, explored and developed so many forms of language learning, relating to both written and oral sentence building, mnemonics, grammatical accuracy in relation to sounds and set word combinations, etc, and shared these with my students, in the hope they will use as many as possible fo their own gain. Some, however, still seem too heavily reliant on learning solely what I teach during class time.

[tartansoxdundas]

How I've waited for sb to finally remark those very words. It's often an unquestioned assumption that you can learn a language better from a native speaker. I was employed on a 7-week basis, teaching Spanish to Y6 primary children in 2007 (I have a degree in languages, a teaching degree and also studied the linguistic psychology as a PhD contributor for three years). The school decided not to continue the Spanish due to a funding shortage and have since taken on a native speaker.

[trekrtoker]

Alexander I want to know your opinion or Rosetta Stone and their method.