Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

[Cavesa]

The other thing you said was not true though - you wouldn't need medical attention. FSI and DLI students, not to mention kids plunged straight into a foreign school, do just fine.

FSI/DIL students are very different from children going into schools which the language of instruction isn't their L1(s). Said children do not always do "just fine". In fact they often don't do just fine without a lot of extra support in regards to language learning. Some of them do, but they aren't the norm.

I would like to agree with aokoye here.

I know several former children, who went to foreign schools. Their experience tends to agree on various points. Yes, the results are great, they speak the language very well, in some cases like the natives, they even got to prestigious universities in their new countries. But no, they didn't do just fine. It was harsh. From a good student, they became a really bad one overnight. Sometimes, they were placed one grade under their actual one. They had to get used to it and to working harder than their classmates, and often unlearn habits from their previous education. Yes, they made friends, but it took a lot of time and stress. Going to a new class can be stressful even if you move just to another town. And don't forget these kids, aged 6-18, do not have many of the support mechanisms adults do, including their inner ones. It was not their choice usually, in some cases they didn't agree and just had to obey. Their friendships from home are unlikely to last due to the distance (we, adults, are used to not seeing friends every day even if we live two streets afar). They cannot choose their teachers, unlike adults. If their parents are reasonable, the kids get a lot of extra support. Tutoring, homework with parents, at least some emotional support, fun extracurricular activites (now in the language, of course). This is not "just fine".

It upsets me, when people deliberately dismiss the hardships children and teenagers go through, when it comes to language learning in general and especially immersion. Children and teenagers are not those lucky language sponges who happily and extremely fast learn the language like a native without ever losing smile. Noone is. Some learn better, some learn worse, some take it with optimism, others struggle, some have a learning disability, some are introverts, some are extremely gifted, some are simply not. And experienced langauge learners should know better than perpetuating the idealistic and harmful image of very young learners.

And when it comes to the FSI and DLI students, we shouldn't forget they are not some lucky people, who got very good conditions for their learning. Those are, as far as I understood, employees of the US government or army, who get chosen based on some criteria, while above average ability to learn is likely to be one of them. I believe they do just fine. Because those who wouldn't, don't participate. No matter how well we understand the importance of hard work and various conditions for learning, certain talent or intelligence simply plays a role too, and we shouldn't forget it while comparing various types of learners.

[aokoye]

And when it comes to the FSI and DLI students, we shouldn't forget they are not some lucky people, who got very good conditions for their learning. Those are, as far as I understood, employees of the US government or army, who get chosen based on some criteria, while above average ability to learn is likely to be one of them. I believe they do just fine. Because those who wouldn't, don't participate. No matter how well we understand the importance of hard work and various conditions for learning, certain talent or intelligence simply plays a role too, and we shouldn't forget it while comparing various types of learners.

And to take this a step further, while I don't actually know how valid those aptitude tests are in terms of their ability to predict who can and can't learn a L2 efficiently, their motivation is through the roof (likely far higher than that of a child's for a lot of reasons). I'm also more than willing to bet that the people who aren't doing well do end up getting kicked out of the program.

This is different, but I know a number of people in Portland State University's Russian Flagship Program (which is a government funded program and gets money from some of the same sources as FSI) which gets students to a very high level of, in this case Russian, over the course of four years. Even though they weed out the people who aren't invested very quickly, the students are giving massive amounts of extra support (primarily in the form of one on one tutoring), they're all very motivated, they all study their asses off both alone and with each other, they really struggle. They do get there in the end and I'm envious that I'm not in a similar program, but they work extremely hard.

[smallwhite]

I'm refining my method and I'm seeking improvements.

Thank you in advance for any contributions!

Unfortunately, most of the days I have only the hidden moments, that means 40 to 60 minutes a day in the car, and 0-20 in the lunch break. In the car I'm studying Hebrew, the remaining time I currently use for Romanian. Ideal would be to use the whole time for Romanian or for Hebrew, but ok

I continue to squeeze information from you.

You are refining your method and seeking improvement.
But you must study 40-60m Hebrew in the car and 0-20m Romanian at lunch. These will not change.
Is that right?

And your target is to gain passive skills with a 3000 vocabulary in a Cat IV language in 135 hours or less.
Is that right?

What CEFR level do you target to achieve in each of Listening and Reading in those 135 hours?

[Serpent]

I didn't need medical attention when learning Finnish for up to 8 hours a day, but some days it was as few as four. I'm not sure I've ever done 10 in any language, other than immersion at some point maybe.

FSI students apparently tend to be really stressed and crying a lot is not uncommon either. Sounds like they're expected to "deal with it", but actually some medical support may be good. Mental health is not less important than physical health.

[Cavesa]

Sounds like FSI took inspiration from medical faculties

8 hours per day of extensive reading/listening are definitely doable, at least for shorter periods of time (the time needed to heal from a common cold, for example, an ideal situation for these fun activities).

8 hours of "real" studying are doable for some people, not for everyone. And there are physical and mental health limits. I actually wonder whether some of my classmates don't hide a decubitus under their pants.

But I think the original problem, rapid acquisition of PASSIVE knowledge, doesn't require such drastic measures. For example, 2 hours per day, that should still make the learner progress pretty fast. That way, you could get 360 hours in half a year. In the up to day SC units, that could be 120 movies and 5400 pages (I'm assuming a comfortable pace of 30 pages per min for this example).

Burn out doesn't help. Even rapid progress won't happen in a weak, you need a pace you can keep.

[Cavesa]

Well i disagree because i know several children who moved to France, between the ages of 4 and 12, and became fluent very very quickly. Painlessly, according to their parents.

According to their parents, that may be the problem. Did you ask the children?
Perhaps it is true. Or perhaps the parents pretend not to notice the troubles they put their children through. Or they assume everything is painless, unless the child rebels a lot. Or they simply don't want to admit publicly their child being unhappy for some time because of their choices.

I am not saying all the children struggle, many of them don't. But a part of them does. Of course 4 year olds are unlikely to struggle much, they are in group with natives who are still learning to speak too. Those who start schooling right in the foreign country are usually ok too. Even though several of my brother's classmates are still extremely bad at Czech, despite being here for at least 3 years, being still very young (8), and having a similar native language. Teens and preteens are more likely to struggle, as they basically need to relearn all the previous years. They manage, but it is not that painless. Those who come as teenagers may still keep accent and some mistakes for the rest of their lives, which doesn't prevent them from being successful and living and studying in their new country.

[aokoye]

Well i disagree because i know several children who moved to France, between the ages of 4 and 12, and became fluent very very quickly. Painlessly, according to their parents.

Anecdotes are not data and as Cavesa pointed out, you were talking to the parents, not the children. Looking at statistics of secondary education graduation rates of immigrant children whose L1 is not the language of instruction in the country they immigrated to is a much better indication or really just achievement gaps in general.

[Tristano]

I continue to squeeze information from you.

You are refining your method and seeking improvement.
But you must study 40-60m Hebrew in the car and 0-20m Romanian at lunch. These will not change.
Is that right?

And your target is to gain passive skills with a 3000 vocabulary in a Cat IV language in 135 hours or less.
Is that right?

What CEFR level do you target to achieve in each of Listening and Reading in those 135 hours?

Thanks Sorry but I got distracted by the subtopics that are emerging and completely diverge from my request (although being very interesting).

I'm not sure that I can give you a good answer. There is a theory that says that every new level needs the double of the time than the preceeding one, plus there is a difference in the amount of hours that we need to learn a certain language.

(Everyone knows the fsi language ranking, even if not many people keep in mind that the classification is valid for monolingual native english speakers, and that speakers of different languages would have a different language ranking)

If I have to make a language ranking for a native speaker of Italian, I would put French and Spanish as Cat. I, Romanian, English, Dutch and German as Cat. II, Russian and the other slavic languages as Cat. III, Hebrew still would be at Cat. IV.

I don't think that 135h would suffice for a Cat. IV language at the level I desire (that is somewhere between B1 and B2). 270h for a Cat. IV language are more than decent in my regard.
That would make Cat. III languages scale to 135h, Cat. II to 68h, Cat. I to 34h. I suspect though that I'm a bit too optimistic and that it can take me the 50% more for certain languages. This would be a good goal for me.

[smallwhite]

5 pages and I still haven't received sufficient information from you. Talk about "Rapid passive knowledge acquisition". Nevermind. Thanks for answering some of my questions anyway.

[zenmonkey]

Well i disagree because i know several children who moved to France, between the ages of 4 and 12, and became fluent very very quickly. Painlessly, according to their parents.

According to their parents, that may be the problem. Did you ask the children?
Perhaps it is true. Or perhaps the parents pretend not to notice the troubles they put their children through. Or they assume everything is painless, unless the child rebels a lot. Or they simply don't want to admit publicly their child being unhappy for some time because of their choices.

I am not saying all the children struggle, many of them don't. But a part of them does. Of course 4 year olds are unlikely to struggle much, they are in group with natives who are still learning to speak too. Those who start schooling right in the foreign country are usually ok too. Even though several of my brother's classmates are still extremely bad at Czech, despite being here for at least 3 years, being still very young (8), and having a similar native language. Teens and preteens are more likely to struggle, as they basically need to relearn all the previous years. They manage, but it is not that painless. Those who come as teenagers may still keep accent and some mistakes for the rest of their lives, which doesn't prevent them from being successful and living and studying in their new country.

I appreciate your response. I have a lot of respect for your opinion because you've clearly put in the hard yards and achieved a lot in the languages you use.

Any move brings some pain with it. Hopefully it is a transient and easily manageable thing.

'Painless' here may mean 'my kids did not lock themselves in there rooms for days on end or run away back to their home country.' and it may means 'they finally adjusted from being total language outsiders to having friends and chirping like little birds because that is what children do and they have incredible malleability and don't know any better than getting along in tough places because we, as a species, adjust. And it was fast or fast enough. Or faster than adults do and I'm impressed.'

Signed - been there, done that, both as child and parent.