Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

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aokoye
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Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

Postby aokoye » Sun Aug 09, 2015 8:01 am

By "textbooks for native speakers" that I don't mean textbooks for heritage learners but I mean things like geography textbooks in the language you're learning. I'm wondering if anyone has had experiences that they'd like to share about reading textbooks for native speakers. I just got done reading 20 pages from a 5/6 grade German geography book (for students just entering Gymnasium). I really enjoyed it honestly - it was all stuff I knew but explained in German and given that I generally don't like fiction it was a nice break from the short stories out a graded reader that I've been reading.

What have other people's experiences been reading from textbooks for native speakers? I found this one at Powell's Books (which is local to me - I'm very lucky in that sense) a year or two ago and while it's very easy for me to find kids books that aren't textbooks locally (especially between August and early November because we have a German immersion school - like clockwork that section grows towards the beginning of the school year) but the other two school books that I have (both German language arts books one is 5th or 6th and the other is for students at the end of gymnasium) I ended up getting from Amazon.de.
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Re: Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

Postby Bakunin » Sun Aug 09, 2015 11:58 am

I’ve been using schoolbooks for primary school extensively in learning Thai. I started with grade 1 and got well into grade 3 before other things got more interesting, but I still have a stack of schoolbooks lying around and every time I peek at them I regret not having the time to continue.

I did all subjects but maths: history, physical education/health, Buddhism, science, social studies, professions, Thai, arts etc. I especially liked physical education/health, science, social studies and arts, whereas history often made me angry, and Buddhism was really tough in terms of technical terms.

I’ve learned a lot from these books, mostly vocabulary, but also a lot about culture and social norms. My schoolbooks all contain many illustrations and pictures which make them an excellent source for comprehensible input. Furthermore, they cover almost everything a child needs to know to become a functioning member of their society, and I as a learner need that knowledge as well; this may less important if you’re learning a language from a neighboring culture, but in the case of Thai I found it very valuable.

Schoolbooks cover all the vocabulary and knowledge which is considered a must in that society. They are clearly under-appreciated as a learning resource.
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Re: Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

Postby samfrances » Sun Aug 09, 2015 12:13 pm

This is such a great idea! Maybe it would be a good idea to start a thread for recommendations of good textbooks in various languages, with advice on their language level etc.?
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Re: Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Sun Aug 09, 2015 1:45 pm

I mostly use them for Geography however I always use them for telling the time as well, you always have great images and it's always incredibly clear. It might just be me, but I usually always find explanations for telling the time very cumbersome in adult textbooks and audio courses, so these are awesome for me. I sometimes use them for science but it depends as sometimes they are too technical, in which case I resort to a slightly different approach and buy children's magazines instead.
I managed to buy the complete collection of the magazine Mensch (£13), which is something like 80 issues, it's a science magazine for children and it's very thorough but has great images and some nice examples, plus it also has a double page spread in each about a particular animal each week. Though, I usually also buy a children's encyclopaedia of animals and world atlas anyway.
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Re: Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

Postby Polyclod » Sun Aug 09, 2015 2:15 pm

I have a bunch of these loaded of my Kindle for German...everything from World War I to the Indo-Europeans, the history of the German language, astronomy, Russian history. It's a lot of fun.
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Re: Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

Postby aokoye » Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:07 pm

Polyclod wrote:I have a bunch of these loaded of my Kindle for German...everything from World War I to the Indo-Europeans, the history of the German language, astronomy, Russian history. It's a lot of fun.


Where are you getting the Ebooks?
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Re: Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

Postby aokoye » Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:28 pm

samfrances wrote:This is such a great idea! Maybe it would be a good idea to start a thread for recommendations of good textbooks in various languages, with advice on their language level etc.?


Thanks! I think it would be hard to have a comprehensive review of textbooks like these because there are just so many. Perhaps a, "I read/am reading this book, this is what I do and don't like about it" which isn't necessarily recommending it over other books. That could, of course, be what you mean but it's early on a Sunday ;)

In terms of their language levels that's a tricky one because it is one of those, "how do you map native language skills to learner's proficiencies" conundrums. I was actually trying to do a bit of research on that yesterday and failed somewhat miserably. Perhaps a good place for me to start would be looking at papers/articles on TL proficiency among students who are going to foreign schools abroad. So schools like German schools funded by the German government but outside of Germany, French schools funded by the French government, etc.
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Re: Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

Postby arthaey » Sun Aug 09, 2015 10:39 pm

aokoye wrote:I found this one at Powell's Books (which is local to me - I'm very lucky in that sense)

Where is the :jealous: emoticon? ;)
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Re: Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

Postby samfrances » Sun Aug 09, 2015 10:41 pm

aokoye wrote:
samfrances wrote:This is such a great idea! Maybe it would be a good idea to start a thread for recommendations of good textbooks in various languages, with advice on their language level etc.?


Thanks! I think it would be hard to have a comprehensive review of textbooks like these because there are just so many. Perhaps a, "I read/am reading this book, this is what I do and don't like about it" which isn't necessarily recommending it over other books. That could, of course, be what you mean but it's early on a Sunday ;)

In terms of their language levels that's a tricky one because it is one of those, "how do you map native language skills to learner's proficiencies" conundrums. I was actually trying to do a bit of research on that yesterday and failed somewhat miserably. Perhaps a good place for me to start would be looking at papers/articles on TL proficiency among students who are going to foreign schools abroad. So schools like German schools funded by the German government but outside of Germany, French schools funded by the French government, etc.


I just meant it would be good to have some sort of collaborative thread where people write short recommendations of native speaker textbooks they've read, with some indication of reading level.

I wonder if the CEFR has any system for aligning their language proficiency ratings with the levels usually attained by native speakers at particular ages. If so, that would make it fairly easy to work out the language level of a textbook, if you know which school grade it is aimed at.
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Re: Using Textbooks for Native Speakers

Postby aokoye » Mon Aug 10, 2015 12:00 am

samfrances wrote:I just meant it would be good to have some sort of collaborative thread where people write short recommendations of native speaker textbooks they've read, with some indication of reading level.

I wonder if the CEFR has any system for aligning their language proficiency ratings with the levels usually attained by native speakers at particular ages. If so, that would make it fairly easy to work out the language level of a textbook, if you know which school grade it is aimed at.


Now that I'm awake and understand what you mean the collaborative thread makes a lot of sense and it sounds like a good idea. In regards to the CEFR, I'm skimming through their Learning, Teaching, Assessment document right now and, as I expected, the framework wasn't created based on any sort of analogous competencies that native speakers have. From what little academic stuff that I've read/heard from professors about language assessment doing such would actually be a very difficult task. Reading through the C1 and C2 rubrics it is easy to see that elementary school students meet most if not all of the expectations in their native language. For what it's worth around 8 years ago two 5th graders at the Portland International School passed the highest level of the HSK test.

Edit: I had a conversation a few years ago with this really awesome professor at the University of Oregon who is working with the Chinese immersion school in Eugene and they were saying that they were having trouble with the curriculum for some of their middle school grades because there wasn't material that was age appropriate but also appropriate to their level that was easily available (I have a feeling this was primarily an issue for things that they didn't want to use textbooks native to China for). The material that was at their language level was essentially too mature, age wise, for them. (end of edit)

In short, it seems that grade level is a really poor arbiter of language proficiency. There's also a great quote from the CEFR that says
Level C2, whilst it has been termed ‘Mastery’, is not intended to imply native-speaker or near native-speaker competence. What is intended is to characterise the degree of precision, appropriateness and ease with the language which typifies the speech of those who have been highly successful learners.


Foreign language assessment is really tricky but part of the way I'm starting to look at it in relation to my own goals is, "Ok, I want to be able to successfully function in a university classroom/lecture hall in Germany - what can I do, linguistically, to get me to that point." Part of that does mean that I need to be able to pass eventually pass the TestDaF, the DSH, or the Goethe C2 test (don't get me started on that last bit given that the first two top out at C1 but the Goethe Institut C1 test isn't accepted for admission into a MA (or BA) program) but part of that also means that I'm going to start working towards being able to easily read texts that are designed for students who are trying to pass their Abi.
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