We haven't got up to 'yes" yet!

General discussion about learning languages
Cainntear
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Re: We haven't got up to 'yes" yet!

Postby Cainntear » Sat Jan 05, 2019 8:11 pm

Cavesa wrote:And some of the weird turns of this whole discussion were not only the insistence on "the book is red" being unnatural, but also the assumption such a sentence was taught in isolation. And then we were suddenly imaging weird people asked to imagine the meaning of "the book is red" in vacuum, without any hint and context.

Nope. You're misinterpreting. I still have a problem with zenmonkey's example, because "the book is red" remains unnatural -- we don't repeat like that -- "the book" should be "it".

As Random Review says, we've got to remember that we're the survivors -- we've managed to learn in spite of the weaknesses. We can't just pretend those weaknesses aren't there.

And one of those weaknesses is that language is often presented as a puzzle. Most of us like intellectual puzzles, so we are happy decoding the rules -- we use the conciously constructed examples with their unnatural repetitions and redundancy as the data for the puzzle.

But not everyone does that. Some people's reaction to artificial redundancy is to just think that they're wasting their time learning the language, because the language is boring and slow.

(Of course, it bears repeating that the solution to this is not the communicative approach -- that's just a superficial attempt to use situations instead of meaningful language, and it just shifts the unnaturalness to somewhere else.)
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Re: We haven't got up to 'yes" yet!

Postby zenmonkey » Sat Jan 05, 2019 9:58 pm

Cainntear wrote:
Cavesa wrote:And some of the weird turns of this whole discussion were not only the insistence on "the book is red" being unnatural, but also the assumption such a sentence was taught in isolation. And then we were suddenly imaging weird people asked to imagine the meaning of "the book is red" in vacuum, without any hint and context.

Nope. You're misinterpreting. I still have a problem with zenmonkey's example, because "the book is red" remains unnatural -- we don't repeat like that -- "the book" should be "it".

As Random Review says, we've got to remember that we're the survivors -- we've managed to learn in spite of the weaknesses. We can't just pretend those weaknesses aren't there.

And one of those weaknesses is that language is often presented as a puzzle. Most of us like intellectual puzzles, so we are happy decoding the rules -- we use the conciously constructed examples with their unnatural repetitions and redundancy as the data for the puzzle.

But not everyone does that. Some people's reaction to artificial redundancy is to just think that they're wasting their time learning the language, because the language is boring and slow.

(Of course, it bears repeating that the solution to this is not the communicative approach -- that's just a superficial attempt to use situations instead of meaningful language, and it just shifts the unnaturalness to somewhere else.)


And you are right that It is unnatural.

And I’ve never met a Pam that has a pin. :D

But that type of construct very quickly went to:

The dog is wet.
It is wet.
Pam is angry.
She is angry.
John has a hat.
He has a hat.
The book is red.
It is red.

Those types of repetitive substitutions are necessary and simplified because they are structured without prior knowledge of the learner. Is he or she coming from French or Tzotzil? Are object and animal pronouns understood to be the same. Is the masculine / feminine subject necessary (not so much in Tibetan) .... Unnatural repetitiveness May help early on. I really wish I had it for Setswana, I’ve been guessing a lot on the object ligands.
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Re: We haven't got up to 'yes" yet!

Postby lowsocks » Sun Jan 06, 2019 1:40 am

In your opinion, when would a learner be ready to understand a sentence such as:
I see a red book and I want it painted black.
...and furthermore, would also understand the difference between the above sentence and:
I see the red book and I want it painted black.
(With apologies to The Rolling Stones.)
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Re: We haven't got up to 'yes" yet!

Postby zenmonkey » Sun Jan 06, 2019 3:27 am

Cainntear wrote:And one of those weaknesses is that language is often presented as a puzzle. Most of us like intellectual puzzles, so we are happy decoding the rules -- we use the conciously constructed examples with their unnatural repetitions and redundancy as the data for the puzzle.

But not everyone does that. Some people's reaction to artificial redundancy is to just think that they're wasting their time learning the language, because the language is boring and slow.


I want to come back to this because I think Cainntear touches something essential that I passed over before. I've bolded the two elements that I'd like to consider.

Learning strategies are, or should be, highly individual. Let me take the example of my two youngest daughters - L (16) & A (14). Both speak 4 languages (we just spent 2 weeks with the Mexican cousins and it's evident they need to work on their Spanish but it is essentially functional). A is good at math, loves puzzles, is a wiz at Rubik's Cube and really enjoy Sudoku. L is slow at computing in her head, hates puzzles but loves communicating. On of them has some elements of grapheme-color synesthesia. The other struggles with attention on subjects that don't interest her.

Each approaches learning languages very differently - spontaneously one uses apps and studies by herself, the other prefers asking questions about grammar, structure and vocabulary.

Level, speed of learning, redundancy, gamification are all parts of language strategies that are built into tools or methods, usually as a one size fits all. And Cainntear is absolutely right that this isn't the best strategy for each and every person.
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Re: We haven't got up to 'yes" yet!

Postby Chupito » Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:38 pm

I got a kick out of my Duolingo lesson today:

Image
Last edited by Chupito on Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: We haven't got up to 'yes" yet!

Postby Cainntear » Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:24 pm

zenmonkey wrote:Learning strategies are, or should be, highly individual.

Are, definitely; should be, not convinced. I believe that in any activity of strategy, there's all the stuff we do to enable learning to happen, and that's where the individual differences come it. But once we've enabled the learning to happen, there's a core of cognitive processes
that I believe we all share.
I believe that the closer the teaching gets to the core cognitive process of learning, the more universal the teaching becomes.
If the teacher "pre-digests" the teaching input right, there's less of the superficial stuff that we need to do to work the material into a form we can learn.
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Re: We haven't got up to 'yes" yet!

Postby zenmonkey » Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:46 pm

Cainntear wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:Learning strategies are, or should be, highly individual.

Are, definitely; should be, not convinced. I believe that in any activity of strategy, there's all the stuff we do to enable learning to happen, and that's where the individual differences come it. But once we've enabled the learning to happen, there's a core of cognitive processes
that I believe we all share.
I believe that the closer the teaching gets to the core cognitive process of learning, the more universal the teaching becomes.
If the teacher "pre-digests" the teaching input right, there's less of the superficial stuff that we need to do to work the material into a form we can learn.


But our past language history, our strengths and weaknesses, our goals, the material we enjoy, the external pressures we face, etc... tend to be different.

Consciously or unconsciously, a good teacher takes those elements into consideration and "pre-digests" the student parameters, too. That's what I'm talking about when I consider learning strategies being individual. This is perhaps more valid on a one on one case or when we talk of self-study and not group learning.
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Re: We haven't got up to 'yes" yet!

Postby Cainntear » Mon Jan 14, 2019 1:16 pm

(Quoting out of order on purpose)
zenmonkey wrote:But our past language history,

Language history determines what has to be taught, not how to teach it.
If I've learned German and am now learning Russian, I don't need to learn the new concept of "declensions" -- just the specific forms and uses of them in Russian.
the material we enjoy

That's what again -- you can do almost exactly the same tasks with a sci-fi novel as a history book.
our goals

Again, that's what -- what specific vocab (including phrases) we need to cover in the course.
It can have an influence on teaching techniques in extreme cases (e.g. "speaking at a conference in 1 month") but in the general case, the teacher will mostly make changes in ordering of material and do what they've found works.
our strengths and weaknesses

In a sense, this is a what as well -- if the weakness makes learning language difficult, you've got to teach the weakness away before you can fully teach the language.

I stand by my belief that we all learn the same, and that a focus on the superficial differences between learners rather than the deeper similarities is one of the reasons that language teaching keep changing but rarely improves between generations.
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Re: We haven't got up to 'yes" yet!

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Jan 14, 2019 8:00 pm

Cainntear wrote:(Quoting out of order on purpose)

I don't think I've stated anything opposing the idea that most people learn with deep similarities.

When I wrote about using different learning strategies, I'd include the "what and how" together. Concretely, learning two opaque languages, for me, the amount of effort I am focusing on pronunciation and learning to hear the languages are quite different. The methods I use in one language to train my ear to get a 1/3 of the register I am missing are specific to my language past and that L2 differences, simply because for one I have little to no issues in pronouncing the sounds of the other L2 language. You can call that the "what" or "how", but my overall learning strategy is different versus someone that has already spent time with that language family.

You clearly gave an example of how some people enjoy intellectual puzzles and others dislike artificial redundancy. I consider that enjoyment in one important factor that influences adherence. I agreed with you that these differences in preference exist. I also consider the positive or negative responsiveness to gamification or other learning methods to be factors on what methods drive adherence.
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