Self-taught study

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desafiar
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Re: Self-taught study

Postby desafiar » Wed Sep 21, 2022 1:10 am

badger wrote:
desafiar wrote:But for the practiced skills, a solid B2 in written work, perhaps C1 on a good day could probably be obtained. Aural skills would be harder to predict, but if half the specified time were dedicated to audio, that would be about 150 hours. Probably enough to make a solid B1, or low B2.

half of 10 months at four hours/day would be ~600 hours, which I would have thought would be plenty for a decent B2 level of listening comprehension.

I love your profile image btw :)


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Re: Self-taught study

Postby leosmith » Sun Sep 25, 2022 2:57 pm

John Dunne wrote:Let's take a student with a low level of English (let's say A2). If he\she practises alone four hours a day for ten months (writing and correction with automatic programmes, grammar exercises, reading and translation of texts, listening to audio with transcription attempt), what level could he\she reach after ten months?

I wouldn't burn out, but I guess some people here would. But why wouldn't she converse with a tutor too? Has she no interest in conversing?

TopDog_IK wrote:Why doesn't this student just do like tens of millions of other young people these days and learn English by watching English-language TV shows, films and youtube?
Almost nobody learns like this because it's incredibly ineffective. "Young people" typically take lots of English classes in addition to these activities.
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Le Baron
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Re: Self-taught study

Postby Le Baron » Sun Sep 25, 2022 5:03 pm

leosmith wrote:Almost nobody learns like this because it's incredibly ineffective. "Young people" typically take lots of English classes in addition to these activities.

Yes, the fact that English is widely taught in secondary education in foreign schools seems to be discounted, when it in fact plays enough of a role to support any further language acquisition. This is a very common form of language-learning amnesia, where a learner forgets all the groundwork or periphery learning they've been exposed to and focus-in on things they were doing when it 'clicked' and they felt they had finally understood.
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Re: Self-taught study

Postby TopDog_IK » Mon Sep 26, 2022 4:25 am

leosmith wrote:
TopDog_IK wrote:Why doesn't this student just do like tens of millions of other young people these days and learn English by watching English-language TV shows, films and youtube?
Almost nobody learns like this because it's incredibly ineffective. "Young people" typically take lots of English classes in addition to these activities.


Almost nobody? What about the millions of people around the world who have learned English through movies, games, tv shows and youtube, and who never had formal English education at school?
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Re: Self-taught study

Postby anitarrc » Mon Sep 26, 2022 5:49 am

TopDog_IK wrote:
Almost nobody? What about the millions of people around the world who have learned English through movies, games, tv shows and youtube, and who never had formal English education at school?


True. My friend the OIJ drug police detective learnt English just like that, from US crime and action series. His specialist vocabulary helps him in the job, too. Being half Columbian he often works among the undercover specialists and also with US agencies.. you'd be surprised how well he speaks.

Grammar? Well after decade on the job he finally had a formal course paid for and passed with all bells and whistles.
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Re: Self-taught study

Postby Le Baron » Mon Sep 26, 2022 3:22 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:Almost nobody? What about the millions of people around the world who have learned English through movies, games, tv shows and youtube, and who never had formal English education at school?

I suppose you've interviewed all these millions to discover whether or not they also had any formal instruction? You could also ask if I have, but I'm not making the assertion that they're all doing one particular thing. The fact remains that with the status of English it has ended up being a default language taught in secondary education in more and more places. It also has a large presence in both wider culture and business, so the unconscious input and knowledge of structure starts early. In this sense English is in a wholly different position which creates a different level of both access and exposure. It is therefore not a yardstick by which to measure wider language learning.

Your argument is that regardless of the language all a person has to do is lazily watch TV and read and it all sorts itself out. You are wrong.
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Re: Self-taught study

Postby rdearman » Mon Sep 26, 2022 4:54 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:
Almost nobody? What about the millions of people around the world who have learned English through movies, games, tv shows and youtube, and who never had formal English education at school?

How long before this magic happens? I have watched well over 200 hours of Korean films and I can't even put together a simple sentence. Nor do I understand anything being said to me. So how many hours before I understand and can produce grammatical correct Korean? Or does this magic only happen for English learners? When is someone going to wave the f#£-ing magic Krashen wand over my head? :twisted:
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Re: Self-taught study

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Sep 26, 2022 5:21 pm

rdearman wrote:
TopDog_IK wrote:
Almost nobody? What about the millions of people around the world who have learned English through movies, games, tv shows and youtube, and who never had formal English education at school?


How long before this magic happens?


Possibly two thousand hours. (See also the TV method.)
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Le Baron
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Re: Self-taught study

Postby Le Baron » Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:21 pm

The great error is in interpreting 'formal study' as being some attempt to just learn dry, isolated 'rules' and then go through some enormous effort to transform these into real-time performance. As though any mention of looking at structure means the promotion of a method whereby you learn something by piling rule on top of rule until you know all the rules and then you do the thing.

There's really nothing worse than evangelism because all criticism and limits seem to go out of the window. I think back to my father talking about how tailoring knowledge was passed on (and indeed how I picked it up from him). It wasn't just that I went and got exposure to how the processes work. I did do that, but it required commentary and demonstration along the way. There were old copies of the Tailor & Cutter periodical and some well-known texts offering 'golden tips'. These things really were golden. The point is that he was 'taught' just as much as he 'learned'. It's a hybrid thing, where you see, then understand...sort of; sometimes get an explanation and understand more, or ask for an explanation and understand it even better. Those explanations are not superfluous, they are like little eureka moments as look again and understand more.

I can't speak for everyone here, but I think that almost everyone agrees that the greatest amount of learning will be large-scale input of listening and reading in order to be exposed to examples and become accustomed to shapes and patterns and sounds. Yet this is not foolproof and neither is it equal to how you learned your native language. You're an adult learner, there is massive interference.
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Re: Self-taught study

Postby rdearman » Mon Sep 26, 2022 9:43 pm

@lebaron, your father wasn't the guy referred to in those old assimil books by any chance?
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