Correction... how useful...?

General discussion about learning languages
Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3449
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8601
Contact:

Re: Correction... how useful...?

Postby Cainntear » Tue Mar 21, 2023 2:13 pm

Irena wrote:@Cainntear

Please remember that "@Cainntear" doesn't count as tagging me on phpBB -- here you have to use the quote mechanism for me to be tagged.

Oh, the father could certainly lie.

Which then takes us back to the point I made earlier that a direct response to a direct question doesn't prove anything.
But even then, it probably means "please don't bother me with this again." If you choose to bother him with it again, then tread lightly, and understand that you're running the risk of damaging your relationship with him by refusing to drop the matter.

Which is a different matter from what you were talking about. This is brings us back to ineffective or poorly planned teaching, and whether it's proven or not, the possibility that teaching is to blame is justification enough for the teacher to try to improve.

And as for those crying students: if they were being graded on their performance, it's perfectly possible that they were crying because they were about to get a bad grade.

Did you meet these people or did I meet them? Have you made any probing questions to attempt to understand the situation better or have you simply made blanket statements that ignore the fact that I knew them personally.
In that case, there are various possible explanations for their lack of progress. Teaching methodology is one possible explanation. Lack of brain power is another.

Should lack of brainpower be the default assumption with lack of evidence, or should teachers be trying to improve their methods so that their students learn better?

I am in the latter camp, because I believe that assuming the student is stupid is blaming the student and is not fair. Consider that ethnic minorities generally do worse in school than majorities. A default assumption of "the student is stupid" then leads to a situation where the overall statistics justify racism. Think about the chain of logic:
people who do bad in school are stupid;
people with purple skin do worse in school on average than people with green skin;
=>therefore people with purple skin are more stupid than people with green skin.

Your argument tacitly accepts racism. Given the prejudice against slavs in western Europe, I find that worrying.

Seriously, why do you think states give citizenship to immigrants who only managed to reach the measly B1 level in the language of their adopted country? Because it would appear that for a great many otherwise competent human adults, it is extremely difficult to reach a higher level, even after a decade of residing in a country in which their target language is spoken.

No. It's not an intelligence test, it's realism: people who don't have the language will have difficulty integrating.

The problem is, though, that this doesn't result in bettering the language tuition.
For example, if you are an adult native English speaker, it might not be the best idea to go for Scottish Gaelic first. Try Italian first, and then Scottish Gaelic. Still too hard? Then try Esperanto first. Still too hard? Then it's probably hopeless.

If someone can learn Esperanto but not Italian, that's because their Italian teacher is rubbish, as far as I can see. Being a better teacher (in my opinion) means you can teach more people.
0 x

Irena
Green Belt
Posts: 392
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2022 11:42 am
Languages: Serbian (N), English (C2), French (C1), Russian (C1), Czech (C1), dabbled in a couple of others, dreaming of many others
x 861

Re: Correction... how useful...?

Postby Irena » Tue Mar 21, 2023 2:41 pm

Cainntear wrote:Should lack of brainpower be the default assumption with lack of evidence, or should teachers be trying to improve their methods so that their students learn better?

The "default assumption" should be that some teachers are more skilled than others and that some students are smarter (and more experienced, etc.) than others. Those factors, plus a number of others (such as the amount of informal exposure that learners get to their target language), will account for actual outcomes. By making "poor teaching" the default assumption, you are just helping turn teaching into an unattractive profession, thereby reducing the quality of teaching. Who would want to be an oncologist if every time a cancer patient died, the default assumption was that it was the oncologist's fault?

Cainntear wrote:Your argument tacitly accepts racism.

No-one mentioned race until you suddenly did.

As for Querneus' father: it is not Querneus' job to teach his father. The father learned English in some way (we don't know the details), his pronunciation was lacking, and Querneus tried to help in a casual way, as a friend or (in this case) family member might do. It didn't work. Oh, well. Querneus was almost certainly right to stop trying. Good thing that it worked for Querneus' mother.
3 x

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3449
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8601
Contact:

Re: Correction... how useful...?

Postby Cainntear » Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:11 pm

Irena wrote:
Cainntear wrote:Should lack of brainpower be the default assumption with lack of evidence, or should teachers be trying to improve their methods so that their students learn better?

The "default assumption" should be that some teachers are more skilled than others

Ah, so if I'm really correctly between the lines, you're saying that I'm a less skilled teacher than other teachers...?
and that some students are smarter (and more experienced, etc.) than others.

And you still have not addressed the big elephant in the room:
How can a teacher tell which students are smart?

A teacher who says it based on their results is making the (massive) presumption that they are using the best methods possible.
By making "poor teaching" the default assumption, you are just helping turn teaching into an unattractive profession, thereby reducing the quality of teaching.

If people who are not willing to challenge their preconceptions and make their classes better every time they deliver them should choose to leave the profession, how does that reduce the quality of the teaching? If people who are in the profession genuinely want to do better year on year, does that not actually improve the quality of teaching?

I'm not blaming teachers wholesale (hell, I am one!) but I am saying that any teacher who blames the student is someone who's just not trying to be better. Student blame is a self-defence mechanism.

Who would want to be an oncologist if every time a cancer patient died, the default assumption was that it was the oncologist's fault?

Well if oncologists were flat out refusing to follow oncological science and instead said "everyone's different so treatment needs to be tailored to the individual" and therefore disregarded chemotherapy or radiotherapy as being "cultism" and referred to it disparagingly as a "One True Cure"...

Cainntear wrote:Your argument tacitly accepts racism.

No-one mentioned race until you suddenly did.

No indeed. And I brought racism into it because I know that similar arguments as yours have been used by racists in the past and are still used by racists to this very day.

It is now up to you to either explain why your argument isn't the same as the racist argument, which it looks a lot like to me...

Querneus was almost certainly right to stop trying.

Yes, he was right to stop trying. But he didn't stop trying because he assumed his father to be unintelligent, did he...?
0 x

tractor
Green Belt
Posts: 377
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2016 10:58 am
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English, Spanish, Catalan, French, German, Italian, Latin
x 766

Re: Correction... how useful...?

Postby tractor » Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:05 pm

Cainntear wrote:
Irena wrote:
Cainntear wrote:Your argument tacitly accepts racism.

No-one mentioned race until you suddenly did.

No indeed. And I brought racism into it because I know that similar arguments as yours have been used by racists in the past and are still used by racists to this very day.

It is now up to you to either explain why your argument isn't the same as the racist argument, which it looks a lot like to me...

She said:
Irena wrote:In that case, there are various possible explanations for their lack of progress. Teaching methodology is one possible explanation. Lack of brain power is another.

She didn't say it was the only possible explanation. She didn't rule out other explanations. She didn't rule out the possibility that one person may fail because of inefficient teaching methodology and another because of lack of brain power. She didn't rule out the possiblity that things could be more complex and that there may be various factors working in conjunction.

She can't be held responsible for you reading too much between the lines and drawing unfounded conclusions from that.
4 x

tractor
Green Belt
Posts: 377
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2016 10:58 am
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English, Spanish, Catalan, French, German, Italian, Latin
x 766

Re: Correction... how useful...?

Postby tractor » Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:29 pm

Cainntear wrote:Recent studies have questioned the wisdom of minimal pair practice -- i.e. listening to an audio and deciding if it's "ship" or "sheep", or "ship" or "chip". Findings (from a Japanese university unless I'm mistaken) have suggested that students who did regular minimal pair exercises did significantly better at a minimal pairs test at the end of the study, but that they're comprehension and production outside of a dedicated minimal pairs exercise was no better than people who hadn't spent months doing minimal pairs.

Is spending months doing minimal pair practice conventional wisdom? I have learnt languages at school, I have studied languages at various universities, I have studied languages on my own. Never ever have I heard anyone suggest that one should spend months doing minimal pair exercises.
0 x

User avatar
Iversen
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4759
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:36 pm
Location: Denmark
Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more...
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
x 14924

Re: Correction... how useful...?

Postby Iversen » Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:36 pm

An hour of so listening to minimal pairs might be a sensible idea, but not several months...
2 x

User avatar
Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3480
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
x 9315

Re: Correction... how useful...?

Postby Le Baron » Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:47 pm

Who cares about minimal pairs? If a person hears 'board the ship now' and thinks it might be 'sheep' they need more than their ears syringing.
0 x

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3449
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8601
Contact:

Re: Correction... how useful...?

Postby Cainntear » Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:15 pm

tractor wrote:
Cainntear wrote:Recent studies have questioned the wisdom of minimal pair practice -- i.e. listening to an audio and deciding if it's "ship" or "sheep", or "ship" or "chip". Findings (from a Japanese university unless I'm mistaken) have suggested that students who did regular minimal pair exercises did significantly better at a minimal pairs test at the end of the study, but that they're comprehension and production outside of a dedicated minimal pairs exercise was no better than people who hadn't spent months doing minimal pairs.

Is spending months doing minimal pair practice conventional wisdom? I have learnt languages at school, I have studied languages at various universities, I have studied languages on my own. Never ever have I heard anyone suggest that one should spend months doing minimal pair exercises.

Minimal pairs is even now reasonably standard, and I can't remember the details of the study, but I think it challenged something that was fairly orthodox in the Far East -- because of the low phoneme count of Chinese and Japanese, the belief was that being forced to tell phonemes apart would result in accent reduction. I've had minimal pair tasks I've had to give students in other countries, but not to the same intensity perhaps.

I think the intensity in the study was just that the students were split into different tutorial groups and some had one close-listening activity a week for five or ten minutes.

Actually the more I think about it, the more I think they gave one group the minimal pairs practice one term and the other the other term, and there was really no divergence in production or reception in either term.

edited to add: As the eastern schools are a bit obsessed with it due to having simpler phonologies than most, I reckon that schools in Scandinavia are very unlikely to put any time into it given the phonemic range you've already got in your own language...
1 x

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3449
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8601
Contact:

Re: Correction... how useful...?

Postby Cainntear » Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:23 pm

Le Baron wrote:Who cares about minimal pairs?

Not me.
If a person hears 'board the ship now' and thinks it might be 'sheep' they need more than their ears syringing.

Which actually highlights the problem that the proponents of minimal pairs were trying to address.

Krashen says that if you here "board the ship now" enough times, you will intuitively learn how to say "ship"; Krashen is wrong.

Minimal pairs were an attempt to teach the distinction between "ship" and "sheep" because it had become patently obvious that listening alone wasn't cutting it.

The problem is (as I said) that minimal pair practice really only appears to develop the ability to consciously distinguish between them, but doesn't lead to being able to do it unconsciously.

I think that really shows that teaching someone how to pronounce the sounds early is best.
(N.B. Thomas doesn't do this anyway -- one of many faults in his courses.)
1 x

User avatar
Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3480
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
x 9315

Re: Correction... how useful...?

Postby Le Baron » Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:25 pm

Cainntear wrote:Krashen says that if you here "board the ship now" enough times, you will intuitively learn how to say "ship"; Krashen is wrong.

Minimal pairs were an attempt to teach the distinction between "ship" and "sheep" because it had become patently obvious that listening alone wasn't cutting it.

Surely these two things are opposites and ignore obvious context?
0 x


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: guyome and 2 guests