Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

General discussion about learning languages
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby Cainntear » Thu Sep 29, 2022 8:44 pm

Iversen wrote:If you have spent 800 hours in a classroom then you will probably have heard your native language far more than the target language,

If you spend 800 hours as a student in a monolingual classroom (as with the ALG 800 hours claim) you will not have heard your native language at all in theory, and if you hear it at all you will hear it far, far less than the target language.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby LupCenușiu » Thu Sep 29, 2022 8:48 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:Let's put some boundaries on this comparison. On the one hand we have a native English speaker who spent 800 hours in a classroom learning French. This learner has not spent any time at all watching French TV. His only experience with French is in the classroom. On the other hand, we have an immersion learner who spent 800 hours watching progressively more difficult French TV, but spent zero time in a classroom and zero time using traditional learning techniques, studying grammar, etc.

Who will have better comprehension for a regular adult show on French TV?


Ok, let's play the game of dichotomy in a sandbox. Keep in mind, even in your example, the quality of a classroom might vary greatly based on any particular teacher - student pair, just a few things worth mentioning being the method and skills of the teacher, and the motivation and personality of the student. For the sake of the game, both learners are equally gifted, motivated and picked the method that best suits their personality.

Any teacher worth of the name will try to use multiple sources of input, so in the classroom the learner will likely encounter video, or in the worst case scenario, audio in target language. Native material, preferably. Will also practice output both speaking and writing. So, after 800h of balanced practice, would likely be able to understand the main ideas in some native material, and talk about it in French (as in the example).

The second one most likely would be more familiar with regular adult shows. But output skills will probably be lacking, especially if all he did was watching. Speech is not magically growing at the tip of the tongue, regardless of how much input you get, without a modicum of deliberate practice. So, a bit like a dog situation, intelligent eyes, but unable to express itself in coherent language.

I assume you mean some sort of a dry class, though, books only, with a bored teacher, with little accent put on conversation and such. We already established the student is motivated enough. Then yes, but is a problem of method. No audio output from native material, it means will have a worse understanding than someone that had only that as study method.

However, that was a an example for the sake of examples: watching TV, vs a class with a bad teacher. And we used French. Try watching 800h of Chinese shows. Apart from the fact one will be unable to read hanzi, the gap between languages is quite large.

No one is negating the importance of audio (and video) input in learning process. Just the magic aura that is painted around it. People learned languages pretty well from books only for many centuries. People learned languages pretty well from interacting with other people. Emphasis on interacting. People learned from passively listening a language too. As I said, I believe, given enough time, most methods work. If time is of the essence, just watching TV loses the race with most other ways of studying.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby TopDog_IK » Thu Sep 29, 2022 8:51 pm

Le Baron wrote:
TopDog_IK wrote:I don't think most adults would be willing to sit in a classroom for 5 hours a day, either. Do they want to learn a new language or not?


They do though! We can quibble about whether or not they are doing the right thing, but they really are willing to sit in a class for 5 hours (with breaks). Loads of them.


Probably because they don't know any better. Which do you think would be the more attractive option for your average American who watches 5 hours of TV per day:

1) Get their fat asses off the couch, take a shower, drive through traffic for some period of time, find parking, sit in a classroom for 5 hours, walk back to their car, drive home, etc.

2) Keep their fat ass on the couch and watch 5 hours of TV in their target language?
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby Cainntear » Thu Sep 29, 2022 8:56 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:Probably because they don't know any better. Which do you think would be the more attractive option for your average American who watches 5 hours of TV per day:

1) Get their fat asses off the couch, take a shower, drive through traffic for some period of time, find parking, sit in a classroom for 5 hours, walk back to their car, drive home, etc.

2) Keep their fat ass on the couch and watch 5 hours of TV in their target language?

A: Neither.
B: They aren't the ones who're learning languages anyway.
C: Have you considered... not being objectionable and rude?
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby Le Baron » Thu Sep 29, 2022 9:09 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:Probably because they don't know any better. Which do you think would be the more attractive option for your average American who watches 5 hours of TV per day:

1) Get their fat asses off the couch, take a shower, drive through traffic for some period of time, find parking, sit in a classroom for 5 hours, walk back to their car, drive home, etc.

2) Keep their fat ass on the couch and watch 5 hours of TV in their target language?


Why are you filtering it all through what 'Americans' do? Are they the only people learning languages? There are other lifestyles (even in the U.S. I'd imagine). I only had to cycle for 15 minutes to get to Dutch school back when I was going. That infrastructure hasn't altered. I walked to German classes. Afterwards you could have a drink or even talk. Also the classes are rarely 5 hours long. Never in my experience.

In any case it's not necessarily a question of physically going into a classroom for a lot of people now. Or at all really to just study supplementary and explanatory material. That may well require someone 'getting off their fat ass' and opening a book for once in their miserable uncultured lives.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby LupCenușiu » Thu Sep 29, 2022 9:09 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:
Probably because they don't know any better. Which do you think would be the more attractive option for your average American who watches 5 hours of TV per day:

1) Get their fat asses off the couch, take a shower, drive through traffic for some period of time, find parking, sit in a classroom for 5 hours, walk back to their car, drive home, etc.

2) Keep their fat ass on the couch and watch 5 hours of TV in their target language?



I thought the average American in the example was motivated enough? Plus there is also a thing called online school.
But, let's play along. I am no American and I gifted my last TV years ago, so I have no idea what one would watch for 5 hours. Maybe some soap opera, or a reality show? Some series, perhaps? Is there any compelling content on TV for a total beginner (adult) that has 0 knowledge of the target language? Exactly what Iversen posted: even if would be a perfect, graded TV content, how will access it? If by TV you mean media content over the internet, like streaming services or YouTube, it gets easier . But searching that stuff is an effort in itself. And no, Peppa Pig is not the answer for everything :D
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby dlt529 » Thu Sep 29, 2022 9:37 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:Let's put some boundaries on this comparison. On the one hand we have a native English speaker who spent 800 hours in a classroom learning French. This learner has not spent any time at all watching French TV. His only experience with French is in the classroom. On the other hand, we have an immersion learner who spent 800 hours watching progressively more difficult French TV, but spent zero time in a classroom and zero time using traditional learning techniques, studying grammar, etc.

Who will have better comprehension for a regular adult show on French TV?


So, a few things. One, we've known since about 1995 or so that input alone is not enough. The Output Hypothesis is well-known and well-cited in applied linguistics, and has led to a number of different theories over the years, including the Interactionist approach, which underlies a lot of langauge teaching in US universities. I don't have the Output Hypothesis stuff handy but I can look it up for you if you're interested. I bring up output because I truly feel that very few people get into language learning just to understand (read or listen) to the TL, its because, eventually, they're going to want to say something to someone. And that's where one of the the problems is with input-only approaches.

There was also recently a discussion of Krashen's ideas through the lens of contemporary Second Language Acquisition research https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/19449720/2021/54/2. I've only read the first one in depth, but essentially the discussion boils down to this: Krashen had some great ideas, many are still found in the empirical research, but it wasn't the final word--which makes sense because he wrote it in the 1970s. No serious language teacher or language acquisition research will tell you that input is not important. No one will also, seriously, tell you that its all you need.

You're clearly passionate about this topic, feel free to DM me and I can send you copies of the papers if you don't have access.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby TopDog_IK » Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:15 pm

dlt529 wrote:So, a few things. One, we've known since about 1995 or so that input alone is not enough.


Not enough for what exactly? Conversational fluency? Or some higher standard?
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby Spaceman » Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:21 pm

I don't know the name of it, but I'm willing to bet there's a philosophical precept that states the following:

All things being equal, the more you would prefer a statement to be true, the less likely it is to be true.


Not because the world is inherently bad, but rather because all statements are being proposed and discussed by human beings. No one is asking or discussing whether it is optimal to learn a language by shouting grammatical drills out loud while riding public transportation. No one wants that to be true, so no one is asking. Someone is asking about watching TV all day, because they do want that to be true. Thus it's much less likely to be true.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby Le Baron » Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:26 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:
dlt529 wrote:So, a few things. One, we've known since about 1995 or so that input alone is not enough.


Not enough for what exactly? Conversational fluency? Or some higher standard?

Not even for conversational fluency. Understanding and producing language is not some guaranteed continuum where one follows from the other.
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