jeffers wrote:I agree, and would argue that easier material isn't simply taking a break. The point when you feel like you're not learning anything new is the crucial point for assimilating the language. When you no longer have to ask "what does this mean?", "why is it said like this?", etc, you are absorbing and ingraining the language patterns. The more you listen to native material without having to ask those questions, the more native material you will be able to listen to without asking those questions.
I think there's a mindset thing at play here.
I tend to look on things that are easy as "taking a break" so as to stop myself treating it the same as intense work, and to kind of make myself not look at it as "working"... cos it isn't.
I should also point out that our brains never really take a break. Commonly, research into teaching and learning methods involves an "immediate post-test" after the teaching (or maybe a day after) followed by a "delayed post-test" a week or two later. Subjects typically do better in the delayed post-test than the immediate post-test, because their brain's working away in the background and still learning even in the absence of any subject stimulus.
If you can learn when literally taking a break of lying on a beach for a week, why shouldn't we condition ourselves to view watching a really good film that just happens to be in the language we're learning as a break?
