How did people used to learn multiple languages?

[Le Baron]

The low literacy rates mentioned above (largely pre-20th century) also probably indicates that many people who really needed to know another language, immigrants, mixed families whatever, probably weren't doing it via texts or learning structured in that medium.

[Cainntear]

It does feel right that different things work better for one person than another whether it's because of "learning styles" or just personal preference or their ability to work around the weaknesses of the method.

That's a lot of very different things to wrap up in a "whether".

Like I used to say that we all learn the same, and people would say "ah no -- I learned this way and he learned that way". It seems kind of trivially obvious to me that some people do better in some things than others. However, I'm fundamentally opposed to the washing of hands that tends to go along with that, with the sort of argument that everyone needs a different class, therefore a teacher can't be good for everyone and sometimes that results in simply not trying.

The way I see it, a teacher should be willing to accept that they can't reach everybody, but should always be looking to become better with each time they try: when a student has a difficulty, what can I as a teacher do to get them through it, and how can I change my teaching so that other people won't have the same problem.

Different people can cope with different weaknesses in the teaching, but it's not that the people who can cope with a particular weakness need it to be there to succeed. Improvements to teaching improve things for everybody.

The hard parts of learning haven't changed demonstrably.

Exactly... and that indicates a problem with teaching. We should be constantly improving, but then we keep having "revolutions" in language learning where all the best features in the previous fashionable measures are thrown out alongside the worst ones.

In this modern world where the view that some people pick up things faster than other people is considered too 'elitist' and not inclusive, the question has altered to: 'if we have better materials/methods now and anyone can learn a language, how come it's still so hard for me?'

That is really a misrepresentation of the message. Note that I'm not blaming your side for that, because there are people who are in favour of the idea that will make the same misrepresentation.

The real message is much more subtle:

First of all, the differences in intelligence and learning potential are often used by elites to justify elitism. "I have money because I'm intelligent!" No, you have money because your dad had money. "My dad money because he was intelligent!" No, your grandad had money." "Ah yes, but they also have the same genes. We have intelligent genes, so we are all as intelligent and therefore all as rich as each other."
It's an argument without any attempt at logic -- a totally circular argument. Elitism from social class.

Then there's the question of whether not being as fast means you have no value. If our classes are paced to help the quickest learners, the slower ones get left behind, because you can't catch up if the lessons aren't consolidating the prerequisite knowledge before the ideas are introduced. Our schools shouldn't be abandoning the majority of kids just so that the kids at the top of the class can get through things quicker.
Intellectual elitism isn't any fairer than social elitism.

And then finally there's the whole thing of how a class that wants you to memorise loads of facts is going to favour people with edetic memories, but take that to the extreme and you end up encouraging people who are very good at memorising stuff without necessarily understanding it.
Schools and universities have long favoured autistic traits. Are people without autistic traits less valuable? Elitism by neuro...type?

Countering elitism isn't about saying we can all do everything -- we cannot; it's about saying we are all different and all need chances.

[Le Baron]

That is really a misrepresentation of the message. Note that I'm not blaming your side for that, because there are people who are in favour of the idea that will make the same misrepresentation.
....
Countering elitism isn't about saying we can all do everything -- we cannot; it's about saying we are all different and all need chances.

I am not promoting elitism or saying people can't or shouldn't be more helped where necessary. I am saying the implication that there are no individual learning differences or gaps, and that the problem is one of solving the structural problem of teaching or 'delivery', has misguided people in thinking that it can all be solved with the 'right' materials and things like technological support.

'Intellectual elitism' is a value judgement about a state of fact. It is when one judges that those who don't 'make the grade' are of no value. Same as the social version. Ce n'est pas mon truc.

However it is why the same complaints of 'slow', 'hard', 'confused', 'don't understand' haven't gone away, but people seem befuddled as to why this should be so, when all the methods and procedures have apparently been worked out ''scientifically' for universal application.

[dubendorf]

Today we have got all the resources of the internet to help us, but the problem could be that the internet also lures people to waste their time on all sorts of irrelevant distractions - and I include Anglophone commercials and facebook and MusX and mindnumbing reality TV and other dire abominations among those distractions. And maybe people also expect everything to be easier than it really is because of the sheer multitude of resources they now are offered - but not all of those resources are really worth the time you spend on them. In the old days we had just the books and some TV programs and limited travel opportunities, so maybe we just took more care to squeeze every bit of learning out of the few resources we had...

I feel like this is a nontrivial point. Some predicted the internet would dramatically increase productivity, but that didn't seem to happen. I wonder how much distraction moderates the potential productivity benefits of the internet. I have access to unlimited reading through the internet Archive.org and ebooks from my library and wikipedia and audio recordings of various languages, but I spend as much or more time on Reddit as I do any of those things. But either way, it does seem to have "democratized" language learning because now anyone with an internet connections has access to readings and audio on a much wider range of languages than they would have had 50 or 100 years ago in their local used book store.

[dubendorf]

Like I used to say that we all learn the same, and people would say "ah no -- I learned this way and he learned that way". It seems kind of trivially obvious to me that some people do better in some things than others. However, I'm fundamentally opposed to the washing of hands that tends to go along with that, with the sort of argument that everyone needs a different class, therefore a teacher can't be good for everyone and sometimes that results in simply not trying.

The way I see it, a teacher should be willing to accept that they can't reach everybody, but should always be looking to become better with each time they try: when a student has a difficulty, what can I as a teacher do to get them through it, and how can I change my teaching so that other people won't have the same problem.

Different people can cope with different weaknesses in the teaching, but it's not that the people who can cope with a particular weakness need it to be there to succeed. Improvements to teaching improve things for everybody.

I feel like whenever I have heard someone argue for different students learning differently whether through different learning styles or teaching approaches or whatever, it is always: "Some students are visual learners in a classroom and other students are auditory learners in a classroom." Regardless of whether different "learning styles" are proposed, the fundamental structure of schooling isn't questioned. The assumption is that you will be sitting silently at a desk staring at a teacher and the creativity has to be confined within that. So it doesn't really feel like different learning styles.

As I have gotten older, I have come to realize that sitting in a classroom is just about the least efficient way for me to learn. Maybe that is in part because, unlike when I was 16, I now know exactly what I want/need to learn, and by necessity a class's curriculum is not going to be designed around that. It is going to spend more time on things I don't need time on and skip over the things I am interested in. However, I am also highly motivated to seek out the resources I need to learn those things and to actually use them on my own. I think for many students, having a classroom and homework assignments and a teacher expecting things from you is motivating and perhaps the only way they will learn because they're not going to do it on their own.

First of all, the differences in intelligence and learning potential are often used by elites to justify elitism. "I have money because I'm intelligent!" No, you have money because your dad had money. "My dad money because he was intelligent!" No, your grandad had money." "Ah yes, but they also have the same genes. We have intelligent genes, so we are all as intelligent and therefore all as rich as each other."
It's an argument without any attempt at logic -- a totally circular argument. Elitism from social class.

I agree that "hard-work" and "intelligence" is often just thinly veiled luck/opportunity. I got here because I worked hard, not because my parents had money, my teachers looked like me, I had the time and opportunity to seek out enriching activities, and I was lucky.

Then there's the question of whether not being as fast means you have no value. If our classes are paced to help the quickest learners, the slower ones get left behind, because you can't catch up if the lessons aren't consolidating the prerequisite knowledge before the ideas are introduced. Our schools shouldn't be abandoning the majority of kids just so that the kids at the top of the class can get through things quicker.
Intellectual elitism isn't any fairer than social elitism.

And then finally there's the whole thing of how a class that wants you to memorise loads of facts is going to favour people with edetic memories, but take that to the extreme and you end up encouraging people who are very good at memorising stuff without necessarily understanding it.
Schools and universities have long favoured autistic traits. Are people without autistic traits less valuable? Elitism by neuro...type?

Countering elitism isn't about saying we can all do everything -- we cannot; it's about saying we are all different and all need chances.

As above, schools assume a certain type of learning environment, which favors a certain type of person. I am not sure memorization favors anyone's learning but maybe that's my bias: perhaps some people thrive in that environment. I do think that the best fuel for learning is curiosity, and curiosity is squashed in school. You must read this book because some bureaucrat decided that. I think what I have discovered in my adult life is that when I read books that I am genuinely curious about, I devour them. And each book sparks my curiosity in three more directions: whether it is another person from the same time period, a different time period on the same topic, or perhaps a different genre by the same author, etc. And I follow that curiosity.

The challenge, though, is how do you bottle curiosity? What do you do with an incurious student? And how do you legislate curiosity? I guess you give the kid an assignment with some exercises and have them listen to a lecture, which is what we do now. I agree that schools and elitism and teaching materials favor a particular type of student. On the other hand, I am glad that we have universal education and students can do with that opportunity what they will. Either they cope with the particular weaknesses of it or they don't. And hopefully we can do research and do better, which, as you say, will improve the environment for all students.

As a side note: I think some people do not see improving the school environment as raising all boats. I think they see it as a zero-sum game: if you improve the success and opportunity of other students, you will take away some of my opportunity and success.

[Cainntear]

That is really a misrepresentation of the message. Note that I'm not blaming your side for that, because there are people who are in favour of the idea that will make the same misrepresentation.
....
Countering elitism isn't about saying we can all do everything -- we cannot; it's about saying we are all different and all need chances.

I am not promoting elitism or saying people can't or shouldn't be more helped where necessary. I am saying the implication that there are no individual learning differences or gaps, and that the problem is one of solving the structural problem of teaching or 'delivery', has misguided people in thinking that it can all be solved with the 'right' materials and things like technological support.

Exactly, and what I'm trying to get at is that there's a bit of polarisation going on here, where the people who were (perhaps rightly) sarcastically called "right-on" in the old days, disparagingly decried as "the PC brigade" in my day and potentially racistly called "woke" nowadays are overinterpreting the message coming from the experts as "right-on"/"PC-obsessed"/"woke" because they're hearing "right-on"/"PC"/"woke" people's overinterpretation.

This is kind of where the dynamic between the two of us sits. We generally have very little difference in opinions as far as I can see, but we're just either side of a border. I say something against the extreme input approach (input only) you defend the general principle of input as though I was attacking that, and attack the extreme grammar approach (only grammar) as though that was something I was arguing for.

With "elitism" claims in education, the danger is that by associating claims of elitism with people who won't accept objective reality, you're making it easier for others to dismiss all talk about elitism in education as PC-woke-right-on-do-gooders-gone-mad.

However it is why the same complaints of 'slow', 'hard', 'confused', 'don't understand' haven't gone away, but people seem befuddled as to why this should be so, when all the methods and procedures have apparently been worked out ''scientifically' for universal application.

Except you're conflating marketing hype with objectively reality. Every movement claims that they've been "proven" right, but they absolutely haven't -- they've simply fudged the figures. "Oh, it doesn't work for them? Well they're all suffering Madeupthisverymomenttojustifythisveryarguement-itis, so the problem is them, not the method." My method works for everybody else -- everyone who doesn't have the problem. How do you diagnose this problem? Easy: give them this teaching and see if it works." Self-serving circular logic.

There are far too many movements in education that "revolutionise" and throw the baby out with the bathwater, refusing to learn from the past. Unfortunately, these movements get more marketing capital than people who try to make moderate, incremental improvements to education.

The failure of the loudest voices to achieve anything doesn't prove that nothing can be achieved.

[jeffers]

The way I see it, a teacher should be willing to accept that they can't reach everybody, but should always be looking to become better with each time they try: when a student has a difficulty, what can I as a teacher do to get them through it, and how can I change my teaching so that other people won't have the same problem.

Different people can cope with different weaknesses in the teaching, but it's not that the people who can cope with a particular weakness need it to be there to succeed. Improvements to teaching improve things for everybody.

I just have to say, this is a beautiful description of the role of a teacher.

[Cainntear]

I feel like whenever I have heard someone argue for different students learning differently whether through different learning styles or teaching approaches or whatever, it is always: "Some students are visual learners in a classroom and other students are auditory learners in a classroom." Regardless of whether different "learning styles" are proposed, the fundamental structure of schooling isn't questioned. The assumption is that you will be sitting silently at a desk staring at a teacher and the creativity has to be confined within that. So it doesn't really feel like different learning styles.

Exactly. Learning styles is the dog that ate the teacher's homework.
Rather than look at what's wrong with the way things are being taught, they add in pictures as though that helps serve kids with "visual learning styles" rather than accepting that their lesson is just boring and try to make it better.

As I have gotten older, I have come to realize that sitting in a classroom is just about the least efficient way for me to learn. Maybe that is in part because, unlike when I was 16, I now know exactly what I want/need to learn, and by necessity a class's curriculum is not going to be designed around that. It is going to spend more time on things I don't need time on and skip over the things I am interested in.

But a teacher should be able to anticipate what is going to be most useful to the most people and just avoid anything that is peripheral to that. This is particularly true in language classes. Michel Thomas taught the absolute core of the language that absolutely everyone will need. The only word I can relent that he taught that is irrelevant to me is "rauchen" in German, and he only taught that in passing to get to "brauchen", and I remember it anyway. Am I angry that he wasted time in teaching me something I don't need? No, because it took no time really, and he used it because any learners who had spent time in Germany would have seen the signs, so he was linking something new to something you might already have seen. Compare this to TY, where they try to teach you phrasebook style with phrases they think you'll need... But they always have a chapter early on at the passport desk, ignoring the fact that "passport please"is the thing that is said at the passport check in almost every airport in the world now. What do I learn from " passport proszę „? Not hellish much -- time truly wasted.

As above, schools assume a certain type of learning environment, which favors a certain type of person. I am not sure memorization favors anyone's learning but maybe that's my bias: perhaps some people thrive in that environment.

Well neither do I, strictly.

Doing well in a class isn't a useful end, but what gets measured gets managed, as they say. It's easy to test write memorisation, so people who can do route memorisation are seen as more intelligent because they do well in school, but for memorisation skills don't lead to being able to apply knowledge to practical problems. This has often boiled down to the idea that schools have traditionally favoured the autistic spectrum, which has itself fed into a perception that people on the spectrum generally look more intelligent than they are and that therefore people on the spectrum aren't intelligent. The truth is that people on the spectrum have the same spread of intelligence as neurotypicals.

What I believe genuinely goes on with rote learning is that strong learners play around with those facts to make a single consistent "body of knowledge". A teacher who succeeds in spite of teaching rote facts mass almost certainly done so by presenting roasted facts close enough together that the strong learners are able to intuit the structure and build that body of knowledge. Ie they have,whether they know it or not, taught the system, not the atomic facts. But if they believe they've taught facts, they don't see the value in teaching the systems. Even if they know they've presented facts so that the learners can intuit systems, they tell themselves that this is necessary, and that the learner's own intuition of the system is required as a step in the learning system. I would have probably believed this myself if I hadn't done MT Spanish long before I went into teaching.

I do think that the best fuel for learning is curiosity, and curiosity is squashed in school. You must read this book because some bureaucrat decided that. I think what I have discovered in my adult life is that when I read books that I am genuinely curious about, I devour them. And each book sparks my curiosity in three more directions: whether it is another person from the same time period, a different time period on the same topic, or perhaps a different genre by the same author, etc. And I follow that curiosity.

Which seems fine, but then it ends up falling back to student blame : "the kids aren't curious enough. That's why I can't teach them."

I talk about fun: learning should be fun.
"Ah,but you would say that - you enjoy learning, most people don't enjoy learning."

I say that one's back to front: of people who don't learn are the people who don't enjoy classes, maybe the class should be more enjoyable...? And I'm not talking in the sense of adding in silly games that draw attention away from learning, but the learning itself.

Q: What is fun?
It's an emotional reaction to mental simulation -- nothing controversial so far.

On, so if people aren't enjoying classes, it's because the mental simulation is inducing stress, because the student's mind can't process it.

Learning is fun for everyone -- if they're not having fun they're not learning. The next question is: if they are having fun, what are they learning. That's my whole beef about adding games -- often the rules of the game become more important to the fun than the language points, and even detract from the language learning.

As a side note: I think some people do not see improving the school environment as raising all boats. I think they see it as a zero-sum game: if you improve the success and opportunity of other students, you will take away some of my opportunity and success.

Thank you -- you have said that better than I could have, and that's what I was trying to get at with the points about the "elitism" stuff.

[Le Baron]

I had to snip some out, because it's too long for me to address everything, however I did read it!

This is kind of where the dynamic between the two of us sits. We generally have very little difference in opinions as far as I can see, but we're just either side of a border. I say something against the extreme input approach (input only) you defend the general principle of input as though I was attacking that, and attack the extreme grammar approach (only grammar) as though that was something I was arguing for.

It always feels to me more like a misinterpretation. I am neither 'all for input', nor 'against grammar' or explicit learning, and I always hope to make that clear. Yet it often seems to be taken otherwise with people demanding I defend claims around 'input-only' as if it's my position. It's of no use to address me with arguments against the input-only idea as if I am promoting it, because it is nothing to do with me. However that's the subject of a different thread.

With "elitism" claims in education, the danger is that by associating claims of elitism with people who won't accept objective reality, you're making it easier for others to dismiss all talk about elitism in education as PC-woke-right-on-do-gooders-gone-mad.

I don't think I am, I am only stating that the basic facts around the difficulties and hard work around language learning haven't been 'solved'. And that some people simply catch on more quickly, just like some people have a quicker bent for understanding e.g. mathematics. From this I don't conclude that some people are 'more worthy' or some are not; rather that managing expectations is still necessary in the face of ideas that everything has been 'levelled' by methodologies and scientific approaches.

It's generally impossible to alter people's value judgements without extensive discussion.

The failure of the loudest voices to achieve anything doesn't prove that nothing can be achieved.

I agree.

[mermade]

I think it's less about method and more about mindset

People back then were much more eager in going through the boring parts of language learning for hours and hours entirely on their own, and did not hold any delusions about shortcuts

By boring parts, I mean copying down sentences and reading your own words, which is something I often see people recommending against to my own bewilderment, even though those boring parts are the most important part of language learning to me

In my opinion, an unhealthy lifestyle is as much to blame as the internet, the easy solution is for people to hit the gym and lift weights, so that they can stronger wrists to write things about for hours and hours, as weirdly as it sounds