Which is more effective - self study, or learning with a teacher?

[Le Baron]

I generally find this type of advice to be ineffective...I prefer to listen and repeat. Simple, but effective. If I get stuck on something, I might check out some resources. Asking natives is almost always a waste of time ime.

You find it ineffective (why?), but also prefer to listen to and repeat whom? Native speakers? And then rely on sounding like them by your own judgement or by theirs?

I find that answer somewhat absurd.

[german2k01]

1. Self study all the way, however, there is one exception though, based on my observation if a teacher is a female and beautiful, that really helps with my concetration and absorption of the contents. All our German professors are females and really beautiful so classes are always full of students and there is always a pin drop silence. I think our course director has done his homework
They are all Phds. You can not be a lecturer in a german university without having the Phd. It is like an icing on the cake.

2. If a teacher knows how to teach the language then why not. He/She can guide you properly and provides feedback on your errors.
However, I find it such an approach slow going so even I have decided to work with a professional teacher I still have to put in the extra yard by myself.

3. I have listened to thousands of hours of audio by myself. Since I am living in Germany, I instantly get feedback on my listening ability. Some German speakers at shops and pharmacies were not understanable a few months ago; they are now understanable. Some sort of processing is happening behind the scenes. You can not discard self-study altogether.

4. It always depends on your learning style. I can not do drills after learning a grammar rule. I have to see them in real context to absorb them. Instead of doing grammar drills, I create short stories with a particular grammar point, of course, with the help of ChatGPT.
That;s how my brain learns. If a teacher is teaching grammar rules most of the time then throwing in exceptions of rules in between, my brain feels like I am studying calculus. Unfortunately, classes are full of teaching grammar rules. As a teacher , easy to design and follow them.

5. Finding a good teacher who can also understand the mechanics of your brain is hard to come by.

[leosmith]

You find it ineffective (why?)

Because I have often done exactly what they say to do with no effect. It's difficult to describe how to produce certain sounds, and being a native speaker or a teacher doesn't seem to change that.

prefer to listen to and repeat whom? Native speakers?

Audio and video resources which are made by native speakers.

rely on sounding like them by your own judgement or by theirs?

Absolutely!

I find that answer somewhat absurd.

Great! My goal is to amuse you big fellah.

[alaart]

I self study a lot, but I also took several years of full time classes.

Classes:
Doing an activity socially in groups makes it easier because we stick to our habits and goals if the people around us do the same. One could argue we could also emulate this with a forum like this, but maybe it's not 100% the same.

Classes force you to work on your weak points a lot, whereas in self study you can pick your focus. I make faster progress in self study, but I will leave some weaknesses unattended for a long time, hoping that they somehow disappear over time.

Classes are horrible for learning to speak. You need a lot of time speaking in order to learn how to speak and classes don't have this much time for individual students.

Individual teaching vs Self Study:
A lot depends on the teacher, maybe if you have a good teacher it's worth it. I used a private teacher for Portuguese for 9 months a couple years ago, but I usually do language exchanges with native speakers.

Very effective (but time intensive) is going through a lot of native input material and then bringing all the parts you don't understand to your teacher / study partner.
A teacher or study partner can usually easily come up with sample sentences and examples of how you would use certain words in context.

A teacher is trained to correct mistakes and explain what you are doing wrong, which a native exchange partner is not trained to do. But you can also notice things yourself and emulate, but if you do it like that you have to learn how to pay a lot of attention.

Going through video material / native material in a way is more natural because you can see native speakers interact with each other and get a fuller picture. In a teacher-student interaction or foreigner-native interaction things will deliberate be left out, things like: Slang, dialect, curse words, cultural references and religion, maybe some jokes etc.

When natives interact it's like a whole other level of understanding, and so this is also something which I think is worth studying.

So in summary: Did I answer the thread question? If I have to only take classes, god shoot me please - so I'll vote self study too. But I do think they have their place and benefits too.

[Sonjaconjota]

I really liked something a language youtuber once said, that she preferred the term "self-directed learning" to "self-studying".
She felt that, if she said that she was "self-studying", using tutors could feel a bit like cheating.
So she uses the term "self-directed learning", which for her includes being able to realise in which moments of her learning journey or in regard to which aspects she needs help from teachers / tutors / natives.

[garyb]

I've no doubt that the ideal approach would be a combination of both (assuming the teacher is good and the other students if any are motivated, of course), but if it's a choice of one or the other then I think self study without a teacher will beat lessons with no self-study between them. Unless perhaps we're talking intensive teaching for several hours per day...

While I'm very convinced of the benefits of a good teacher and I've had some positive experiences with tutors in the past, I've not bothered with them for a long time now because I don't really feel the need, or want to make the time and money commitment (I have the time, but booking a slot in advance and sticking to it doesn't always suit me), or feel that my self-study is currently serious enough to justify a teacher; when I have used them, it was when I was studying a language quite seriously already and was just wanting a bit of extra help with things that are hard to get alone like conversation and corrections. I don't need another person to teach me grammar or vocabulary, and even most questions on usage can be answered by the internet now.

Many people do however find it hard to teach themselves these things and find that teachers also provide structure and motivation, and outside of our little bubble where the responses obviously skew towards self-learning, most of the language learners I've met have found classes very helpful (even if they don't admit it at first, like the "I learnt English just from watching films" lot). There's often an attitude of "what is best for me is best for everyone" here, although one does have to be realistic and not expect the teacher to do all the learning for them.

[Monty]

Depends on the learner.

If everyone were the same then there wouldn't be multiple options.

[Le Baron]

Because I have often done exactly what they say to do with no effect. It's difficult to describe how to produce certain sounds, and being a native speaker or a teacher doesn't seem to change that.

I say this fairly reluctantly, but this could be your own listening shortfall, rather than their inability. I've interacted with natives and asked them to say certain words I've had trouble with and it's partly their ability to accurately achieve those sounds, partly my attempt to reproduce them at work. With instant feedback from one or more people.

Audio and video resources which are made by native speakers.

So their production is fine, but their judgement with regard to whether you can reproduce it to the point where the same people (who are the target audience) will understand it, is not good? This relies on the ability to judge your own accuracy, but clearly if the aim is to try and learn a previously unknown sound how can someone ever judge accurately? Marking one's own homework is substandard. Success will differ per person according to how good their ear for mimicry is.

Absolutely!

Absolutely what?

Great! My goal is to amuse you big fellah.

Why? I'm not necessarily looking for amusement, sensible answers would be enough.

[Sae]

I would trust a native's assessment on whether I sound correct or not, but I figure mileage may vary on them teaching how to make the sound, because they produce it instinctively and may not necessarily make good teachers on it. However, teaching yourself means you only have yourself to judge. But I will maybe say in some fairness there are tools designed to help you assess and compare the accuracy of your speech against a natives, where you can compare them and re-record until you get it right. Mango languages, for example, offer it as a feature. But then you could still do it with a native and compare your voices until you get it right, as in neither scenario you're being instructed on how to make the sound.

A teacher IMO would then be the best option IMO and they could be native or non-native, because they can coach how you use your mouth, which is what I ended up doing with Tuvan, because my throatsinging taught me and I need it for my singing, because the singing needs to sound Tuvan. And it was an interesting process learning how to say 'L', 'G', 'D' and 'R' differently and produce vowel sounds futher down and adjust my 'a' sound. Like putting my tongue between my teeth to say 'L'. And that saves time. But in fairness, there's a difference between pronouncing things right and pronouncing things with the accent.

[Cainntear]

You find it ineffective (why?)

Because I have often done exactly what they say to do with no effect. It's difficult to describe how to produce certain sounds, and being a native speaker or a teacher doesn't seem to change that.

Being called a teacher doesn't change that. The biggest problem we have at the moment is the deprofessionalisation of teaching. I've seen UK-based teachers online offering rates that probably don't meet minimum wage legislation. If language teachers are chronically underpaid, why would they spend thousands on getting a meaningful postgraduate qualification...? Who's going to go into teaching when there's really no profit in it?

This is particularly a problem with English, given how for about two decades, it was presented as a gap-year job for new graduates in various disciplines that had nothing to do with language teaching. This has had knock-on effects, with the idea that language teaching is "easy" getting more and more mainstream.

prefer to listen to and repeat whom? Native speakers?

Audio and video resources which are made by native speakers.

This is another deflationary pressure. Good teachers make good free stuff on the promise of becoming YouTube megastars and making megabucks. But other that Mr Beast, who's really making more on YouTube than in a "real job"? Cos it seems to me that lots of people have given up hope of making a living based on Google Ad Services and they're all either hawking ads for sponsors they claim to believe in or shaking the tin and asking for tips on Patreon. These are people who make videos watched by hundreds of thousands and they can't make a living on YouTube. So if thousands of people can get their stuff for a fraction of a penny, why would anyone pay big dollars for direct contact? I mean, 1000 views from me is worth $3-5 for channels, and I don't even pay a penny! That's a considerable amount of content bought for next to and/or literally nothing. Why pay more?