Fundamentals vs Osmosis

[Inst]

Just curious, how well does fundamental focus (pronunciation, listening, grammar, orthography / vocabulary first) perform vs osmotic / synthetic approaches (do everything at once)? This came up on "hackingchinese", a blog by a Chinese teacher, who was questioning strange East Asian language learning practices wherein they try to memorize dictionaries and grammars for Western languages. The strange practice is essentially a "fundamental focus" approach, wherein practical aspects of language learning are put off until later stages, while most people here use osmotic / synthetic approaches where fundamentals and practicals are learnt at the same time.

Another question, for people who've attended language schools, how common is fundamentals approaches vs synthetic approaches? I'm a big advocate of fundamental approaches, and while I think them relatively rare in the West, i'd like to think fundamental approaches are more common in language schools than otherwise. The point being, practice is something you can do on your own (listening, reading, language partners), but learning fundamentals is requires instruction.

On the other hand, language schools might be selling more practice, but one thing I see as problematic is that in a language school, you're often practicing with people who have imperfect grasps of the target language and you'll just drag each other down. But it depends more on what the student is looking for and what the cultural norms are in the given market.

[lildreamsnatcher]

Another question, for people who've attended language schools, how common is fundamentals approaches vs synthetic approaches? I'm a big advocate of fundamental approaches, and while I think them relatively rare in the West, i'd like to think fundamental approaches are more common in language schools than otherwise. The point being, practice is something you can do on your own (listening, reading, language partners), but learning fundamentals is requires instruction.

I've never seen a true fundamentals approach in Polish schools (Latin might be one of the few exceptions). You're usually encouraged to speak during your first lesson, even if that's just to introduce yourself in the target language, and most common books have all four exercises (listening/writing/reading/speaking) per every chapter. That might be becouse of the various exams; those books are often meant to prepare you for one, so they have to comply with certain standards.

Best language schools are considered those that usually teach you proper speaking asap (normal schools are considered to be more on the fundamental side; many people complain that they teach you how to pass an exam, but not how to express yourself freely). At my language school there were different classes for learning grammar with a Polish teacher and for "immersion" with a native. Also, most people don't want to have to do any addictional practice on their own. They want to have that during classes.

On the other hand, language schools might be selling more practice, but one thing I see as problematic is that in a language school, you're often practicing with people who have imperfect grasps of the target language and you'll just drag each other down. But it depends more on what the student is looking for and what the cultural norms are in the given market.

That's why language schools in my country offer very small classes for 5-7 people on the same level as well as individual ones, so there shouldn't be much of a dragging down (that's what usually happens at normal schools).

What's wrong with fundamentals is what I've heard from many people; the case of "I know everything when it comes to grammar, which makes me overthink all my words thrice, so I can't force myself to speak in the target language, becouse I'm scared of making a mistake and thus being a failure".

[Inst]

I agree on the criticism. There's this old New Yorker article on "Crazy English", which tries to dis-inhibit its users by convincing them to scream and do things wildly.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008 ... zy-english

From language learners I've spoken to, there's a lot of people who lack opportunity to actually practice, i.e, they'd need to go to a school because they can't locate quality language partners on their own.

[Cainntear]

I'm not sure I agree with your classification of this as "fundamentals"... "fundamentalism" is maybe a better description, because like any fundamentalists, this takes a selective set of rules and declares them as the fundamentals.

But me and many others hold to the idea that how words combine is a fundamental property of words. You cannot say "butter and bread" without sounding weird (I'm looking at you, Duolingo) and no amount of looking at the words in isolation is going to teach you that fundamental rule. Which prepositions go with which verbs? You can't build a full picture of that without putting them together.

You've created too strong an opposition here. I use language as I learn it, but I learn it through conscious study of rules. There is little "osmosis" in my learner until I reach the later stages, where I start to pick up particular turns of phrase from exposure, but that's just shuffling about the things I already know into new bundles.

[Inst]

I'll point out that, for instance, the vocabulary list I bought for French contains example sentences and serious vocabulary study requires examples and experience in actual use.

To emphasize, the debate is in what order learning occurs. Fundamental focus / fundamentalism is more focused on bootstrap capability, i.e, reducing a given language to an already solved problem (native language acquisition). Of course, the practical difficulty is that any language learning system "works" as long as the learner can commit to it and keep up the schedule.

My hypothesis is more that Category 4s, which take a lot of time to learn, are better learnt by splitting the fundamentals from the practicals, because you're not going to be making much practice in practicals anyways if you opt for a synthetic / osmotic approach because it takes too long to reach a basic level of competence wherein practice actually works. And for less-labor intensive languages, phasing language study to split practice and fundamental study (pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary) might actually be more efficient, contingent that the learner can actually put in the effort to deal with spending weeks or months of grind with no practical skills to show for it.

[Bluewyne]

Doing the fundamentals is more beneficial for learning in structured programs, because there are expectations and knowledge that can be directly tested. Outside of a language class, I think its more important to do the osmosis approach. Learning should be through immersion, using any resource necessary (textbooks, audio courses, Youtube videos, apps, videogames in target language, etc).

[Random Review]

I agree with Cainntear that this approach is not really "the fundamentals" It is frankly just plain dumb IMHO*. One example of a method that genuinely focussed on fundamentals, would be Arthur Cotton's.

I also think that not only is any choice here unnecessary, I think it's also a massive missed opportunity for anyone that isn't doing both.

It actually kind of reminds me of how the pendulum swings back and forth between synthetic phonics and "whole language" approaches to teaching reading. Maybe teaching L1 speakers to read is different, but teaching EFL, I'd hate not to be able to use both!

* I used to hate it in China when the Chinese staff would get the kids to copy words out over and over again as homework (not because they believed in it, but because parents demanded it). The kids would copy "hang streamers" or "apple" several dozen times over the week (sending photos as proof and even reading it for WeChat many nights too). They'd do that all week and then I'd have to waste more valuable time in class dealing with "Tom hang streamers" or "Tom like hang streamers"... or even just reminding them that, no, this thing you're looking at is not "apple" what it is is "an apple", before we could do anything genuinely communicative. I mean you get this anyway, but I got a lot more of it with those classes and it was harder to fix, because they were fluent in their errors and misconceptions. I'd rather they did no homework than bad homework.

Parents thought of it as "fundamentals", I thought it was ******* stupid.

[Inst]

I agree with Cainntear that this approach is not really "the fundamentals" It is frankly just plain dumb IMHO*. One example of a method that genuinely focussed on fundamentals, would be Arthur Cotton's.

I also think that not only is any choice here unnecessary, I think it's also a massive missed opportunity for anyone that isn't doing both.

It actually kind of reminds me of how the pendulum swings back and forth between synthetic phonics and "whole language" approaches to teaching reading. Maybe teaching L1 speakers to read is different, but teaching EFL, I'd hate not to be able to use both!

* I used to hate it in China when the Chinese staff would get the kids to copy words out over and over again as homework (not because they believed in it, but because parents demanded it). The kids would copy "hang streamers" or "apple" several dozen times over the week (sending photos as proof and even reading it for WeChat many nights too). They'd do that all week and then I'd have to waste more valuable time in class dealing with "Tom hang streamers" or "Tom like hang streamers"... or even just reminding them that, no, this thing you're looking at is not "apple" what it is is "an apple", before we could do anything genuinely communicative. I mean you get this anyway, but I got a lot more of it with those classes and it was harder to fix, because they were fluent in their errors and misconceptions. I'd rather they did no homework than bad homework.

Parents thought of it as "fundamentals", I thought it was ******* stupid.

I mean if it were actually considered fundamentals, you'd be teaching grammar at an accelerated pace instead of vocabulary.

In the Chinese case, the teachers still train students to copy out Chinese characters up to 30 times a word. It's good insofar as it has potential to teach handwriting skills, but it's ignoring principles like spaced repetition. Beyond that, they're applying drill to English, but ignoring that English is a different language than Chinese and that if you're going to drill, you're better off drilling weak points like inflection and grammar.

[Inst]

I agree with Cainntear that this approach is not really "the fundamentals" It is frankly just plain dumb IMHO*. One example of a method that genuinely focussed on fundamentals, would be Arthur Cotton's.

I also think that not only is any choice here unnecessary, I think it's also a massive missed opportunity for anyone that isn't doing both.

It actually kind of reminds me of how the pendulum swings back and forth between synthetic phonics and "whole language" approaches to teaching reading. Maybe teaching L1 speakers to read is different, but teaching EFL, I'd hate not to be able to use both!

* I used to hate it in China when the Chinese staff would get the kids to copy words out over and over again as homework (not because they believed in it, but because parents demanded it). The kids would copy "hang streamers" or "apple" several dozen times over the week (sending photos as proof and even reading it for WeChat many nights too). They'd do that all week and then I'd have to waste more valuable time in class dealing with "Tom hang streamers" or "Tom like hang streamers"... or even just reminding them that, no, this thing you're looking at is not "apple" what it is is "an apple", before we could do anything genuinely communicative. I mean you get this anyway, but I got a lot more of it with those classes and it was harder to fix, because they were fluent in their errors and misconceptions. I'd rather they did no homework than bad homework.

Parents thought of it as "fundamentals", I thought it was ******* stupid.

I also want to point out that the rote is salvageable, i.e, it's better to, instead of working with common phrases, rote the word and Chinese gloss of more obscure words, like diglossia, peregrinator, and limn. These are words they're likely never to meet, but you could just turn it into an SAT vocabulary study session. When words get more obscure, rote / brute forcing becomes more useful because praxis-based learning is not going to work for words you only encounter if you're a Michiko Kakutani acolyte.

This also makes it fun for you, because all of a sudden you're extending your own vocabulary. Bonus points if students must also express in English, in differing ways, the definitiob of the word.

[Random Review]

@Inst FWIW I agree there is a place for rote, skilfully used, by adult and teen learners. I absolutely don't think it should be used by people without a foundation in the language. It's a tool for intermediate learners, though, not "the fundamentals" for beginners. I also have my doubts about whether it is ever useful for young children.

With regards to Chinese characters, I genuinely don't know whether rote learning is an effective method or not. I confine my above opinions to learning spoken language and the writing of languages with an alphabet.