How to learn with dialogues?

[StringerBell]

(3) How structured should your learning be? If you just watch TV, you happen to learn the language used in your favorite TV series. If you like detective series, for example, your vocabulary would be quite skewed. Would you be able to discuss political systems or climate change? Would you even be able to understand basic cooking recipes or name all the different kinds of animals even small children are supposed to know, at least according to children's books?

I personally don't care about learning things that children should know. I largely focus on learning things that I want to say or understand when I come across them. I've put in 900 hours with Polish and I still don't know the days of the week or the names of most months because I don't at this point have a need to know them. I'll get to them at some point, but there are other things I'd rather learn first.

With Italian, I started out by asking my husband (native Italian speaker) how to say some simple sentences that I actually wanted to say. Things like, "I'd like a glass of wine" / "I'm not hungry" / "Can I have the salt". Sentences like these were usable immediately and I found them much more useful to interact with my non-English speaking in-laws at the dinner table instead of memorizing a list of colors or animals or other "basic" vocabulary.

In choosing native material to watch/listen/read, I decide based on what I'm interested in and what skill I want to improve. I watched extensively and intensively TV series on Netflix to focus on sentence structure and general colloquialisms/phrases. I chose one series (That 70s Show) because it was about a group of teenagers doing everyday things, and were likely to use a lot of language that I, myself, wanted to be able to use.

The benefit of using native media is that you will learn current and useful speech patterns, as opposed to artificial dialogues in textbooks that don't accurately capture how people talk. I remember a few years ago my husband saying that he was really pissed off that he spent so many years studying English textbooks in school that all had dialogues with people saying things like, "How are you doing?" because then he was woefully unprepared to deal with native speakers who rarely if ever spoke like that.

If the only thing you ever watched were skateboarding videos, then you probably wouldn't understand cooking shows very well. Which is a great reason to vary what you watch and listen and read to, and try to expose yourself to a variety of native materials. If you mainly just read history books because you love them, then your vocabulary will probably be skewed (but then so would a native speaker who only ever read one specific thing to the exclusion of all else), but it will also be incredibly rich on that specific topic and you will probably be able to discuss really well a topic that you are passionate about, so I guess it depends what the person's reasons are for learning the language. If it's for pleasure, then being able to discuss a topic that you're passionate about doesn't seem like a bad thing.

My dad is a native English speaker, but he couldn't hold much of a conversation about knitting or swimming; not because he doesn't know the vocabulary (he actually probably doesn't know any knitting or swimming terms now that I think about it), but mainly because he doesn't care about those topics. So I don't think language learners should stress about talking about topics they don't care about (unless it's a requirement for some reason or they just really want to be able to do it.)

So this fictional person who only reads history books may not be able to discuss climate change, but does he even want to? If he did, then I'd assume he'd want to spend some serious time reading and listening about climate change.

[Sayonaroo]

I don't think learning with dialogues has to be that painful. Re-listening is pretty powerful if you break-down the words and grammar etc before doing that and it takes less effort than memorizing or doing bi-directional translation etc.

[smallwhite]

(3) How structured should your learning be? If you just watch TV, you happen to learn the language used in your favorite TV series. If you like detective series, for example, your vocabulary would be quite skewed. Would you be able to discuss political systems or climate change? Would you even be able to understand basic cooking recipes or name all the different kinds of animals even small children are supposed to know, at least according to children's books?

I personally don't care about learning things that children should know. I largely focus on learning things that I want to say or understand when I come across them. I've put in 900 hours with Polish and I still don't know the days of the week or the names of most months because I don't at this point have a need to know them. I'll get to them at some point, but there are other things I'd rather learn first.

With Italian, I started out by asking my husband (native Italian speaker) how to say some simple sentences that I actually wanted to say. Things like, "I'd like a glass of wine" / "I'm not hungry" / "Can I have the salt". Sentences like these were usable immediately and I found them much more useful to interact with my non-English speaking in-laws at the dinner table instead of memorizing a list of colors or animals or other "basic" vocabulary.

In choosing native material to watch/listen/read, I decide based on what I'm interested in and what skill I want to improve. I watched extensively and intensively TV series on Netflix to focus on sentence structure and general colloquialisms/phrases. I chose one series (That 70s Show) because it was about a group of teenagers doing everyday things, and were likely to use a lot of language that I, myself, wanted to be able to use.

The benefit of using native media is that you will learn current and useful speech patterns, as opposed to artificial dialogues in textbooks that don't accurately capture how people talk. I remember a few years ago my husband saying that he was really pissed off that he spent so many years studying English textbooks in school that all had dialogues with people saying things like, "How are you doing?" because then he was woefully unprepared to deal with native speakers who rarely if ever spoke like that.

If the only thing you ever watched were skateboarding videos, then you probably wouldn't understand cooking shows very well. Which is a great reason to vary what you watch and listen and read to, and try to expose yourself to a variety of native materials. If you mainly just read history books because you love them, then your vocabulary will probably be skewed (but then so would a native speaker who only ever read one specific thing to the exclusion of all else), but it will also be incredibly rich on that specific topic and you will probably be able to discuss really well a topic that you are passionate about, so I guess it depends what the person's reasons are for learning the language. If it's for pleasure, then being able to discuss a topic that you're passionate about doesn't seem like a bad thing.

My dad is a native English speaker, but he couldn't hold much of a conversation about knitting or swimming; not because he doesn't know the vocabulary (he actually probably doesn't know any knitting or swimming terms now that I think about it), but mainly because he doesn't care about those topics. So I don't think language learners should stress about talking about topics they don't care about (unless it's a requirement for some reason or they just really want to be able to do it.)

So this fictional person who only reads history books may not be able to discuss climate change, but does he even want to? If he did, then I'd assume he'd want to spend some serious time reading and listening about climate change.

That's the spirit of the CEFR - "topics that are familiar or of personal interest" (B1) or "a wide range of subjects" (B2), or "virtually everything" (C2), etc.

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[Speakeasy]

A person who only reads history books should be able to build a sufficient vocabulary to discuss climate change and many other topics for the purpose of passing the C2 exam. History and philosophy are great sources of non-fiction material.

This corresponds with my personal experiences in learning French and German.

… TV fiction is 90% dialogue …

I disagree and rather strongly, at that. In my opinion, TV fiction is 90% action whereas the dialogues makes up for 10% of the content. The visual scenes change about every 10-to-15 seconds, punctuated by an audible cue, leaving the so-called dialogue, which is composed of snappy one-liners, to be delivered in a simultaneously tense, rapid and mumbled manner which can be incomprehensible for native speakers who are outside of the demographic for which these TV programmes are produced. This “dialogue” (snappy quips) is meant to pass for “authentic speech”; you know, the way “real people” tersely snap at one another constantly in the “real world.”

… FSI graduates spend a lot of time on language drills and face-to-face interaction with experiencd instructors and yet... "...Of all the tasks graduates carry out at post in the foreign language ordinary conversation is the one area of language use in which they unanimously claim to experience the most difficulty..."

First, I do not think that this is relevant to neumanc’s questions and his own thoughts on the matter. Second, having learned to speak French in a truly full-immersion situation, where absolutely no one in the entire region spoke anything other than French, I find the “unanimous claims” of the FSI graduates rather suspect. The people referred to in these reports were all U.S. Embassy staff. Which language is commonly spoken in U.S. embassies? While I have never visited a U.S. embassy, I suspect that day-to-day communications are held in English, irrespective of the country in which the embassy is located. Yes, U.S. embassies probably employ locals as clerks, as drivers, and in other service positions; however, I would wager a month’s pension payment that the vast majority of communications between these people and the American citizens staffing the embassies are conducted in English. It is not surprising, then, that the average FSI graduate, who probably reached a B1-B2 level of competency during their intensive language training, and who delayed the practical application of his newly-acquired linguistic skills, would find “conversation” difficult. Yes, conversation -- true conversation, conversation involving multiple partners and rapidly-changing subjects for discussion -- is very difficult; it does not really occur at the B2 level and it occurs even less frequently at the ossified-B2 level. Delaying day-to-day, intensive and prolonged contact with the L2 acts as an impediment to increased fluency. Conversation is difficult for FSI graduates? They should get out of the embassy and mingle with the locals! Grumpf ... cough, spittle ... grumpffff!

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[neumanc]

I am very sorry to say this, but most of the contributions here don't actually answer my question. You have given me ample reason not to learn with dialogues at all, because they are stilted, unnatural, and overall not enough to learn at language. I know that. As I said, I am not at all against learning with "input", but I don't think "input" and especially watching TV is an answer to everything. If I watch one hour of TV, maybe I will be able to recite one or two lines of it, but not more. In my view, it is essential to really "learn", better "overlearn" a good chunk of the language in order to have it available for producing output (speaking, writing) with automaticity. Learning with dialogues could certainly serve this aim. Getting enough input is also essential, because it lets you acquire new words and expressions that you can insert into the scaffolding you built by (over-)learning basic words and rules (let's say the most frequent 4,000 words and grammar rules up to B2).

The question remains what precisely to do with the dialogues. I really think that this topic is worth discussing, since dialogues are often the centerpiece of language courses, be it those for self-learners or for classroom-use. One possible example has been posted recently on this forum, the "Langfocus approach of learning languages" (https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=9245). It basically consists of shadowing the dialogues and putting all the single vocabulary words and all the sentences into Anki and revising them in both directions (L2-L1 and L1-L2). This approach therefore combines some implicit learning and lots of explicit learning. However, if one takes into account how long it takes to put everything into Anki and how long it takes to revise all these cards, one cannot but wonder if all this time wouldn't better be spent just shadowing the material many times over. You could shadow a one-minute-lesson 15 times in just a quarter of an hour, or else you could shadow it once and then type everything into Anki, revising not included. Just shadowing is comparable to putting on your running shoes and start running right away. On the long run, you will end up having done much more exercise than those who drive to the gym in order to get on the treadmill. If you just shadowed all the material instead of learning it explicitly, you will have listened to the audio and trained your speech apparatus much more than if you spent your time on Anki. You should have really good pronuncuation and perfect prosody. The only question is: When (if ever) will you consciously remember enough in order to be able to begin with output? Is there possibly a perfect mix of implicit and explicit learning that is most productive, for example shadowing 90% of the time combined with conscientiously reciting/rehearsing the sentences 10% of the time? What are YOU doing with your dialogues in order to learn/acquire the most from them?

[Speakeasy]

I’m sorry, but I really do not see the need for a debate here. Dialogues are stilted, artificial, and insufficient for learning a language: and this is supposed to be news? Putting aside the fact that we have yet to clearly define the term “learn a language” at every level in what many of us would admit is a lengthy and uncertain process, my overall reaction is: yes, dialogues are not ideal representations of natural speech, so what? In passing, I have yet to see, anywhere in this discussion thread, the presentation of a truly “practical, efficient, and effective alternative” to dialogues and sentence-pattern exercises for use in a self-instruction situation in the initial stages of language-learning.

By way of analogy, I would say that most students of music who have achieved an advanced level of performance skill with their chosen instruments, including those who have learned on their own without the benefit of formal instruction, would likely agree that the student pieces which they had spent untold hours practicing, and this includes the repetitive chord progressions, scales and arpeggios in the popular genre, were the foundation of their advanced technique. I believe that, by analogy, artificial dialogues and sentence-pattern exercises serve a similar, foundational purpose, irrespective of their lack of originality or inventiveness.

So then, I really couldn’t care if dialogues are unnatural, they serve a very useful purpose as models of how language might be used in a given context. My approach during the A1-A2 levels, is to accept them for what they are, to extract every ounce of value that lies within them by practicing them until I’m blue in the face, and then to move on. Practicing is boring. Practicing stilted, artificial, unimaginative dialogues and exercise sets is even more boring ... but it is quick, efficient, effective and, in the absence of some other technique, fundamental in the initial stages in an independent-study environment. Uh, er, I think?

[reineke]

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