Language Transfer (Split from discussion in Programs and resources)

[olim21]

I don't think that is the problem here.

I don't know what you are talking about. You do realize that my remark was a direct response to what Cainntear said in what I quoted. It had nothing to do with the thread in general. It happened in this thread, nothing I can do about that. Sorry.

And Cainntear's view shouldn't be taken for a less noteworthy just because he is a teacher and we all know most teachers have prejudices towards the use of native material.

I judge Cainntear on what he says not what he does for a living.

Just having some basic knowledge helps you start with more interesting material right away and enjoy it more.

Sure. Unless you can use CI material.

This is extremely weird but I feel the sudden need to defend teachers. Yes, the bad teachers do just that, or keep people from progressing by other mistakes too.

Here again what are you fighting about? I was not talking about teachers in general, only about text simplification (which is a bad thing for the reasons I've already mentioned). And certainly not about Mihalis or even LT.

And just to be clear: I am not against teachers at all. I just wish they would teach differently. I'm not against Mihalis in any way, I don't use LT myself (I looked at it at the very beginning), but I think what he does is a good thing.

The grammar learning is part of language learning

Yes, but not if you learn it beforehand. It's the same problem (in less severe) that trying to learn vocabulary beforehand.

and it actually makes people speak earlier and better.

No, this is what makes people think they can talk earlier when in reality they are applying inexact rules to half understood words. Essentially speaking their L1 using L2 words and some on the fly changes to make it look more like L2 (in their mind), wondering why the native speakers don't understand.

This what the video in the thread "Passed a high-level exam and still not fluent (VIDEO)" was all about.

Why are you fighting so many strawmen here? Everyone here said the same thing, LT or similar courses are a possible first step and they are the most helpful to people not knowing much about language learning yet.

So we agree? What makes you think I'm fighting about that? I'm not.

And nobody has been disqualifying CI in any way.

Cainntear did despite the fact he doesn't know (it seems) what CI is and how to use it.

--
OM

[Cavesa]

Here again what are you fighting about? I was not talking about teachers in general, only about text simplification (which is a bad thing for the reasons I've already mentioned). And certainly not about Mihalis or even LT.

And just to be clear: I am not against teachers at all. I just wish they would teach differently. I'm not against Mihalis in any way, I don't use LT myself (I looked at it at the very beginning), but I think what he does is a good thing.

So, why exactly are you taking up half the Language Transfer discussion thread?

The grammar learning is part of language learning

Yes, but not if you learn it beforehand. It's the same problem (in less severe) that trying to learn vocabulary beforehand.

If you actually used the LT course, as you are discussing it on the thread dedicated to it, you would know it is not being learnt beforehand. It is learnt together with some vocabulary and pronunciation. Most courses do not teach it "beforehand", actually I would say teaching lots of grammar points too late was a more common problem. The LT courses are focused on grammar a lot, true, but they are not dividing it from the language.

and it actually makes people speak earlier and better.

No, this is what makes people think they can talk earlier when in reality they are applying inexact rules to half understood words. Essentially speaking their L1 using L2 words and some on the fly changes to make it look more like L2 (in their mind), wondering why the native speakers don't understand.

This what the video in the thread "Passed a high-level exam and still not fluent (VIDEO)" was all about.

Wasn't that video specificaly about the Japanese learners? They struggle so much because they are spending a lot of time preparing for an exam that doesn't test speaking at all. If you don't spend time learning to speak, it is not that surprising that you cannot speak fluently.

Of course people don't speak perfectly right away, that is a normal part of the learning process no matter what method you choose.

From what I have observed, vast majority of people speaking really badly the target language and "wandering why the native speakers don't understand" struggles with grammar btw. The second most common problem seems to be the pronunciation. Both are not primarily solved by CI, are they?

Why are you fighting so many strawmen here? Everyone here said the same thing, LT or similar courses are a possible first step and they are the most helpful to people not knowing much about language learning yet.

So we agree? What makes you think I'm fighting about that? I'm not.

The fact that you've just cluttered half a thread about a course you know nothing about, haven't tried, and are trashing here useful stuff with your prejudices towards language courses in general.

[Random Review]

I think there's a bit of a straw man being attacked here sometimes.

I was just pointing out a complete misunderstanding about how to use CI. No straw man. If you want to criticize something it's probably better to use valid arguments. Don't you think?

And saying that you have to use only CI at i+1 is not valid. It's in direct contradiction with Krashen's idea.

I'm not sure where you think I was criticising CI. Far from it, I think it's essential. I even think if you can only have one thing, CI would be your best choice 100% of the time. Since, happily, we can have more than one thing, we are only debating whether CI is all beginners need or whether also courses like LT might be very helpful for beginners. No one is criticising CI per se.

In fact there's only one thing that has received straw man attacks in this thread and that is Language Transfer.

Happy to see we can agree on (1).

Indeed we can.

(2) whether it is possible for absolute beginners to find CI without either a great deal of help or a lot of previous experience,

Either way you can do it yourself if you want. It's not that hard but it takes time to bootstrap. The good news is that it becomes easier and easier. It is reusable, meaning that at some point you can just generate high quality CI with a push of button.

and (3) whether explicit instruction in grammar along the lines of Language Transfer is helpful and more time efficient in taking beginners to a stage where CI becomes easily possible.

I'm no arguing that LT is not useful. It's just so little, that doesn't even matter. Because yes it can help for languages that are already partly transparent like Spanish or French from the point of view of an English speaker. But no really for opaque languages like Finnish, Turkish or Japanese.

Again none of what you say in this last quote matches my experience and my arguments have already been stated above (alongside those of several others). I haven't really seen them addressed TBH. My apologies if they were and I missed it.

[Random Review]

@ Cainntear: I broadly agree with your last post, but there are a couple of things I wanted to say

From becoming. Preventing them from becoming. I'm not saying this to be smug and lord it over you, but I'm assuming you'll interpret it that way and get really angry and it'll burn it into your memory. Then you are A) more likely to notice that that is indeed the pattern when you see it in native writing; and B) more likely to correct yourself when you say or start to say "prevent to+infinitive" in future.

I genuinely don't know what point you are trying to make with this correction. I know that you surely have a point, but I think you need to clarify it, because I don't get it and I'm finding it hard to see it as anything other than petty points scoring against someone whose English is extremely impressive. I don't want to believe that, because I hold your ideas in high regard, so I hope you can clarify please, mate.

if you continuously revise your model based on input, what's wrong with constructing a complete first approximation for later refinement

Unfortunately I have not yet developed my thoughts into a really coherent form here (no doubt your constructive criticism will help me with that lol ), but FWIW, my own personal opinion, I see the "only CI from the beginning" route as a way of hacking your brain. People have a tendency to stop amending their models once they are "good enough" (or at least I do and I don't seem to be alone). The problem is that what our brain* sees as good enough may fall far short of our actual goals for ourselves. There are various ways of hacking this, most importantly by constantly forcing yourself out of your comfort zone. CI from the beginning is also a hack for this this IMO: the language crystallises slowly in your mind as a whole and since your brain can't actually know in advance what will be "good enough", it has no choice but to keep an open mind. To use a topographic analogy, you avoid getting stuck on local maxima by not trying out a few peaks and satisficing, but instead by climbing all peaks simultaneously very slowly.

However, I mostly agree with you: I have yet to read an account of anyone pulling this off who wasn't already a very experienced learner or had guidance or both. For people who aren't in that category, it's easy to get it wrong and waste staggering amounts of your precious time on this planet (I'm reminded here of Keith's attempt to learn Mandarin by watching TV series: in spite of being a very smart guy and racking up a frightening amount of hours, the experiment ultimately failed because it wasn't actually Comprehensible Input).

It's also difficult for most of us to find that kind of time even if we do know what we're doing. Efficient shortcuts like Language Transfer (or indeed any other of the myriad methods people use on here) are a practical tool for people with busy lives.


* I know you pointed out the problems with talking about the brain as a semi-independent entity, but putting "the automatic and semi-automatic learning habits and heuristics we have (mostly unconsciously) developed over the years and over which we have varying but limited control and awareness" would be horribly clunky, mate. I hope you will forgive the shorthand.

[lowsocks]

No, CI 101 is that if you understand the message, you will "acquire" some of the language used. But if you do not understand the message, you won't acquire anything. Krashen's own demonstration of the concept of comprehensible input involved giving a native-like speech in German, saying "that didn't work", and then giving a heavily simplified monologue while pointing at concrete vocabulary item, counting on his fingers and counting up from one. "Ich habe drei Augen… eins, zwei, drei."

I don't wish to derail this thread even further, but for those wondering about the Krashen reference, here is a clip from one of his presentations where he gives this example. (I think he may have given this example at more than one talk. I don't know in which year this particular presentation was made, but Krashen looks rather young.)

[Cainntear]

@ Cainntear: I broadly agree with your last post, but there are a couple of things I wanted to say

From becoming. Preventing them from becoming. I'm not saying this to be smug and lord it over you, but I'm assuming you'll interpret it that way and get really angry and it'll burn it into your memory. Then you are A) more likely to notice that that is indeed the pattern when you see it in native writing; and B) more likely to correct yourself when you say or start to say "prevent to+infinitive" in future.

I genuinely don't know what point you are trying to make with this correction. I know that you surely have a point, but I think you need to clarify it, because I don't get it and I'm finding it hard to see it as anything other than petty points scoring against someone whose English is extremely impressive. I don't want to believe that, because I hold your ideas in high regard, so I hope you can clarify please, mate.

Fair point.

I was intending to put a bit at the end to explain better.

The point was a to make a demonstration of a conscious lesson that will have a long-term effect, and that can’t be ascribed to massive amounts of comprehensible input. Whether olim21 internalises/acquires it from exposure with conscious awareness with a small quantity of CI (ie Pienneman’s “processing input”) or through producing it correctly (Swain’s “comprehensible output”), it will be hard to deny that the lesson was a key part of the acquisition. And yes, the delivery of the lesson was arsey, which makes it more memorable (not that I would be so blunt with a paying customer, mind!)

[Cainntear]

I’ll also maybe take this opportunity to present part of the logic of English that is often ignored and waved away as just an arbitrary “something to be memorised”.

The so-called “to infinitive” implies intention and future action. Clearest example? I’m going to paint the house tomorrow. Intention to carry out future action. I want to do it. Intention to carry out future action.

Now, what’s the difference between “I stopped smoking” and “I stopped to smoke”?
In the first (stopped smoking), I gave up cigarettes, I don’t smoke anymore - no smoking after stopping means no future action. In the second, I was driving along and stopped the car in order to smoke — smoking after stopping: future intention.

When we stop or prevent someone doing something, there is no future action; if we try to prevent something, there is at least INTENTION of no future action, so the pattern still holds.

The only wrinkle in this logic is “I don’t want you to do it”, where there is an intention of no future action, but we still have to. But that’s OK, because while it breaks the rule in the sense of formal logic, it isn’t something that seems to bother learners - the fact that negatives follow the positive pattern seems to be fairly intuitive, and in my experience, the rule appears to result in better production in my students. (Note: I said “appears” — I know I’m not a neutral observer in this.)

[Random Review]

I’ll also maybe take this opportunity to present part of the logic of English that is often ignored and waved away as just an arbitrary “something to be memorised”.

The so-called “to infinitive” implies intention and future action. Clearest example? I’m going to paint the house tomorrow. Intention to carry out future action. I want to do it. Intention to carry out future action.

Now, what’s the difference between “I stopped smoking” and “I stopped to smoke”?
In the first (stopped smoking), I gave up cigarettes, I don’t smoke anymore - no smoking after stopping means no future action. In the second, I was driving along and stopped the car in order to smoke — smoking after stopping: future intention.

When we stop or prevent someone doing something, there is no future action; if we try to prevent something, there is at least INTENTION of no future action, so the pattern still holds.

The only wrinkle in this logic is “I don’t want you to do it”, where there is an intention of no future action, but we still have to. But that’s OK, because while it breaks the rule in the sense of formal logic, it isn’t something that seems to bother learners - the fact that negatives follow the positive pattern seems to be fairly intuitive, and in my experience, the rule appears to result in better production in my students. (Note: I said “appears” — I know I’m not a neutral observer in this.)

I never had to teach this point in China, but I taught it in Spain. I did a bit of reading and came up with similar information (other examples include try + ing versus try + infinitive). It was a while ago, so I may be wrong, but AFAIR it was an article by Seth Linstromberg (he of the book on prepositions) I got that information from. I think I even got the students to photocopy the relevant pages containing the diagram and examples for themselves.

Learning new things about my own language was probably my favourite part of teaching adults (kids have other rewards in addition to this).

It seems to happen quite a lot that negatives follow the positive pattern. I think of the past tenses in Spanish where that was the easiest way for me to understand distinctions like "no tuve tiempo de..." versus "no tenía tiempo de..." in the negative. It's not universal, though. The Spanish subjunctive is very different in the negative for instance.

[Random Review]

@ Cainntear: I broadly agree with your last post, but there are a couple of things I wanted to say

From becoming. Preventing them from becoming. I'm not saying this to be smug and lord it over you, but I'm assuming you'll interpret it that way and get really angry and it'll burn it into your memory. Then you are A) more likely to notice that that is indeed the pattern when you see it in native writing; and B) more likely to correct yourself when you say or start to say "prevent to+infinitive" in future.

I genuinely don't know what point you are trying to make with this correction. I know that you surely have a point, but I think you need to clarify it, because I don't get it and I'm finding it hard to see it as anything other than petty points scoring against someone whose English is extremely impressive. I don't want to believe that, because I hold your ideas in high regard, so I hope you can clarify please, mate.

Fair point.

I was intending to put a bit at the end to explain better.

The point was a to make a demonstration of a conscious lesson that will have a long-term effect, and that can’t be ascribed to massive amounts of comprehensible input. Whether olim21 internalises/acquires it from exposure with conscious awareness with a small quantity of CI (ie Pienneman’s “processing input”) or through producing it correctly (Swain’s “comprehensible output”), it will be hard to deny that the lesson was a key part of the acquisition. And yes, the delivery of the lesson was arsey, which makes it more memorable (not that I would be so blunt with a paying customer, mind!)

Was it olim21 that was saying CI was all you need and everything else is a waste of time? I thought it was a different poster.

[Cainntear]

Was it olim21 that was saying CI was all you need and everything else is a waste of time? I thought it was a different poster.

Three people said as much. CompImp, David1917 and Olim21