18 July 2013

The power of listening

student_listening-skills

Two evenings ago I had dinner with a Brazilian couple and we spoke Portuguese. Last night I had dinner with a Chinese person and we spoke Mandarin. I just finished a Skype conversation in Czech with a person in Prague, who is a member of a political party there. In all cases I was able to hear directly from native speakers about issues in their countries. What I take away from these discussions is not so much what I had to say, but what I heard them say in their languages. I derive immense pleasure and satisfaction from the fact that I’m able to understand what people say in a variety of languages.

I listen to podcasts and audiobooks to learn languages. This not only helps me to learn these languages, but introduces me to a wonderful world where words conjure up images in my mind about countries and cultures far away, in space or time. I usually have access to texts or transcripts to help me understand what I’m listening to. The written language is just a record or representation of the spoken language. In a way, reading is also a form of listening since I usually find myself sub vocalizing when I read in a foreign language.

Many people, when they study languages, are motivated to speak as soon as possible. In my case, I prefer to listen before I speak. A large part of my motivation in learning the language is to learn more about the history and culture connected with that language. I know that if I pursue my interest in listening and reading I will eventually be able to speak. In the meantime, however, the enjoyment of listening is its own reward.

17 July 2013

Noticing in language learning

How do we get better at noticing when we learn languages? Here are some examples from my current experience with Portuguese.

15 July 2013

Many kinds of literacy?

literacy

We have literacy proliferation these days. I just googled emotional literacy, physical literacy, health literacy, social literacy, and different kinds of literacy. I was amazed at what I found.

To me literacy means the ability to read. The invention of writing is one of mankind’s most useful creations. With writing, we can record things. Writing is at the heart of the development of civilization and science. What is more, reading is an essential skill in today’s society. People who read well, do better professionally and academically. Children’s success in school depends on their ability to read well. As this video points out, listening is closely related to reading. Children who read well also listen well. Children who read poorly have trouble listening in class. It is a vicious circle, since the ability to listen and to understand the spoken word, is extremely important in the development of reading skills.

For people who read well, the written word provides instant meaning. If we see something written, we cannot help but read it and understand it, assuming we know that language. People who don’t read, or read poorly, are missing out on a major opportunity to learn and discover things about their world.

Once people read well they can read about health, politics, or any other subject that interests them. As to terms like physical or emotional literacy, these concepts have nothing to do with reading, and represent a misuse of the word literacy, in my view.

Reading is a powerful way to improve one’s vocabulary and familiarity with a new language. I mostly listen when learning another language because I can do so while engaged in other tasks. However if I have dedicated time to devote to language learning, my favorite activity is reading. Someone who is a poor reader in his or her own language, will probably have difficulty reading in a second language.

Many jobs require the ability to read fairly difficult texts. Safety manuals, operating manuals, or even instructions on products that we buy, are often written in very difficult to understand language. People who have trouble reading are at a significant disadvantage.

So I think it would be a good idea if educators and social scientist stopped confusing the issue of literacy with other forms of knowledge, social skills, or physical training.

 

14 July 2013

How to maintain our languages?

How do we maintain or refresh our languages? After all, we don’t always have a chance to use them. Here are some examples from my own situation.

11 July 2013

Quantity over quality in vocabulary learning

students-safety

Yet another thread at LingQ on vocabulary learning.

I am quoted as having said the following:

“To me a word is like a person you get to know and who is going to help you learn the language. You know lots of people without knowing them in detail. The more often you meet them in different situations, the better you get to know them. It is the same with words. The task in language learning is not only meeting words or friends for the first time but also getting to know them through frequent exposure. If you focus your efforts on trying to know a few words very throughly, then you won’t have the time to expose yourself to the words you have already met. We constantly need to see and hear even the most basic words that we are always getting to know better and better.”

I believe that reading and listening, and LingQing as much as possible, is the fastest way to accumulate a large vocabulary. Some people agree and some people don’t. Here is a comment on one of my YouTube videos from a person who understands what I’m talking about:

“In my mind, at least, the more my comprehension grows, the more naturally I can speak. If I was focused on speaking, however, sure, I could say a hundred sentences from a phrasebook, but if I can’t understand the response, what good is it? In my experience, focusing on output slows down the development of my comprehension, whereas focusing on input increases both my speaking and comprehension ability simultaneously.”

But these are the comments of language learners. For an in-depth look at what Paul Nation, a leading vocabulary learning expert, has to say, check out the following article.

9 July 2013

How many words you can learn a day?

What is the average number of words you can learn a day?

This is the title of an interesting thread at our LingQ Forum. I also did a video on this subject that keeps on coming up.

There are many different points of view. I thought this comment from an English teacher was quite interesting.

“During my CELTA certification I was taught to plan for 7+/-2 new words in any 90 minute lesson – call it 5 words per hour. The focus was not on building a large passive vocabulary but in being able to produce this new language quickly. If the latter is your own goal for a foreign language then I’d argue that this is a reasonable benchmark.

Do you want to be able to USE a vocabulary of 5000 words or word families? Expect 1000 hours of study.”

In other words, the position of this commenter is that you can only learn what the teacher doles out to you in the classroom. Needless to say I disagree. You have to reach out and find what interests you and learn the words that interest you.

8 July 2013

Donald Trump, Mouton Rothschild 2006 and other subjects

donald_trump (1)

Donald Trump has successfully sued a woman $5 million for saying nasty things about him, or rather about a beauty pageant that he organized. I don’t think Donald Trump’s reputation, nor the good name of beauty pageants, is worth $5 million. In my mind neither has much honor. I don’t understand how a judge could award such a ridiculous amount. It’s not as if Trump needs the money, nor is held in high regard by most people. To me this action by Trump just confirms him as a dishonorable person.

While on the subject of money and what things are worth, an interesting thing happened to me two evenings ago. A dear friend and his wife came to dinner. He had recently celebrated his 80th birthday. A friend of his, whom he had known forty years ago, when they were both teachers, had sent him a birthday gift. This friend of his had become very wealthy. The gift was a bottle of wine. My friend brought the bottle to our place and told us it was a special bottle. He didn’t tell us the price of this bottle of wine. It tasted very nice but to our minds it was nothing special. After dinner we looked up the price of this Mouton Rothschild 2006 Pauillac wine.  The price tag was $1200 per bottle. To me it tasted marginally better then my normal wine, which I pay $15-$20 a bottle for.

wine

What are things really worth? What is Donald Trump’s reputation worth? What is a nice bottle of wine worth? What, for that matter, is learning a language worth? I guess it is all in the eye of the beholder. I’ll take learning a language over an expensive bottle of wine or Donald Trump’s reputation anytime.

While on the subject of language learning and what things cost, here is another example of strange values. The Canadian government spent $16 million to put up a website called the Canadian language portal. Mind-boggling, and they are probably continuing to spend lots on this silly project.. But then the Canadian government spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on English language training for immigrants. This ESL training is largely irrelevant to the language success of immigrants. Those immigrants who want to learn do so mostly on their own. Those immigrants who rely on government funded ESL schools tend not to improve their language skills very much, according to this recent study.

6 July 2013

Why do some people struggle to learn languages?

The main reason is simply because they haven’t done it before. Anyone can learn, regardless of age, nationality, or “talent.”

4 July 2013

“Ser” or “Estar” in Spanish, which one should we use?

10194947_m

One of the fine points of Spanish is deciding when to use “ser” or “estar” . Both verbs mean “to be”. If you Google “ser or estar” you will find 350 million pages in .29 seconds.

At this one site you will find the definition that I have copied below as well as lots of examples. You you can also check out the other sites for similar definitions and examples. In fact you can find abundant sources of information about grammatical issues, in most commonly studied languages, in less than a second, just by googling. But does it really matter.

Of course it does matter. We would all like to speak correctly. However if you confuse the two verbs,  ”ser” and “estar”, you will still be perfectly well understood. On the other hand if you have a limited vocabulary, you won’t understand much of what people are saying and you won’t be able to say very much.

When I have a choice between perfection in grammar and a large vocabulary, I always  choose vocabulary. This does not mean that I don’t want to speak correctly and accurately, I do. I know that I can eventually achieve a high level of grammatical accuracy in the language that I’m studying. But I am in no hurry to get there. On the other hand I am usually driven to increase my vocabulary as fast as possible so that I can understand more interesting things that I want to listen to and read.

Ser is used with:

Elements pertinent to your or others’ identity

physical description, personality and character, nationality, race, gender, profession, origin, What things are made of

Things which “Take Place” or “Occur” in Time:

Dates, days, seasons, time, events, concerts, parties

Possession

Click here to Review Ser and to see more examples

Estar is used for States of Being

Emotional, physical & mental states of (our bodies’) being:

  • Feelings/moods/emotions, physical conditions or appearances, civil state (married, single, divorced, dead)

Placement State of Being:

  • Location of things and people (but not events)

Motion State of Being

Click here to Review Estar and to see more examples

3 July 2013

Language Learning and ugh! Money

Should language learning be free? I don’t understand this tremendous aversion to commercialism in education. The greater the variety of educational services available the better in my mind.