NoManches wrote:Any thoughts on this article? Do you agree/disagree?
I'm not impressed by the article. It think it makes a few good points, but that the net effect will be to discourage intermediate students from watching TV, when TV is one of the most powerful tools they have.
I'm speaking here as somebody who took his French listening skills from poor (could understand 40% of the "Facile" French podcasts) to pretty solid (could channel surf and enjoy well over half of native TV) with the use of TV, and who had ~40% comprehension of unfamiliar episodes of
Korra within 100 hours of starting Spanish.
- Input needs to be more-or-less comprehensible. I think Victor over at the Mandarin Experiment pretty conclusively demonstrated that learning from incomprehensible TV (with no personal interaction, like you'd get in real life) is ridiculously slow. If you don't have at least 40% comprehension, find something easier or more familiar.
- Game of Thrones is probably a poor choice below C1 level. Even the dubbed French version is one of the harder series on French television! Choose something fun and easy.
- If you don't have at least 3 seasons of a single easy series, and the ability to binge-watch multiple episodes every day, you may not have great results.
- The article claims, "The short version: to efficiently improve basic listening skills, students need comprehensible input without contextual visual support." Personally, I'd argue that "contextual visual support" is the whole point.
I know language learners in real life, too. In my experience, intermediate language learners who binge-watch TV tend to progress by leaps and bounds. The article, on the other hand, recommends:
The short version: to efficiently improve basic listening skills, students need comprehensible input without contextual visual support, self-checking with written materials, and repetition*.
But this is
intensive listening. I did extremely little intensive listening, and yet somehow watching semi-comprehensible TV and reading SF novels improved my listening massively.
Of course, I'm in favor of reading alongside TV, preferably in huge amounts as well.