jeff_lindqvist wrote:I also began studying Dutch a number of years ago (autumn 2012), with "Nederlands voor buitenlanders". Also monolingual, two CDs. To this day, I haven't finished the course.
Is it just a boring course?
jeff_lindqvist wrote:I also began studying Dutch a number of years ago (autumn 2012), with "Nederlands voor buitenlanders". Also monolingual, two CDs. To this day, I haven't finished the course.
Le Baron wrote:jeff_lindqvist wrote:I also began studying Dutch a number of years ago (autumn 2012), with "Nederlands voor buitenlanders". Also monolingual, two CDs. To this day, I haven't finished the course.
Is it just a boring course?
mokibao wrote:On one hand you have things like LLPSI, on the other hand you have courses like Language Transfer that are essentially in English apart from drills yet they receive only praise (for the Greek and Spanish ones, at least). The more acquainted I get with resources the more I have this feeling that the method doesn't matter very much at all and it's all contingent on the quality of the material and the teacher (and the student, I guess).
Cavesa wrote:mokibao wrote:On one hand you have things like LLPSI, on the other hand you have courses like Language Transfer that are essentially in English apart from drills yet they receive only praise (for the Greek and Spanish ones, at least). The more acquainted I get with resources the more I have this feeling that the method doesn't matter very much at all and it's all contingent on the quality of the material and the teacher (and the student, I guess).
I don't think these are good examples at all, especially as you are picking them as representants of the mono and bilingual approach. If you want to go the "on one hand" vs "on the other hand", you've chosen wrong. Both things you've mentioned are extremely marginal on the language learning market, and very different from the typical examples. Don't get me wrong, I believe they are both excellent resources, they are just so rarely used (if we take language learning in general, not communities like this one), and so different from the main types of monolingual and bilingual courses, that they really cannot be used like that.
Beli Tsar wrote:While it's true these are marginal, there's something to be said for Mokibao's general point that a good course, whatever the philosophy, is better than a course that's badly done with some optimal philosophy.
In other words, the language learning world in general (not here, so much!) frets far too much about the method, whereas just using a textbook that's really well designed, whatever the method, will get you results. Implementation trumps philosophy, even if philosophy matters.
Cavesa wrote:Beli Tsar wrote:While it's true these are marginal, there's something to be said for Mokibao's general point that a good course, whatever the philosophy, is better than a course that's badly done with some optimal philosophy.
In other words, the language learning world in general (not here, so much!) frets far too much about the method, whereas just using a textbook that's really well designed, whatever the method, will get you results. Implementation trumps philosophy, even if philosophy matters.
Is bilingual vs monolingual really a question of "philosophy"? I think the difference is far too practical to fall into that term.
Even the best monolingual Greek or Japanese coursebook won't be too accessible to a self teaching beginner, and will a be a huge problem with a bad teacher. It's not a question of "philosophy". It's a question of practicality and some advantages (and disadvantages) belonging to each of the two categories. And oppositely, sticking to bilingual resources will almost necessarily lead to stagnating on a plateau, because vast majority doesn't lead far enough to comfortable let the learner out in the real world. Again, it is a matter or practical issues, not "philosophy".
Also, I sort of agreed with Mokibao's point, don't misunderstand me, because there is nothing to disagree with. It is just one of the very generalized and totally worthless (no offence meant) statements, it doesn't really say anything. We all know it depends on each combination student+the book (+teacher, if you want one), so we could just close the forum as there is clearly nothing to discuss
The point of this thread was to discuss the differences of these two big categories, and whom is each of them more useful to, wasn't it?
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