Most of you who have learned a foreign language probably remember certain
methods of teaching that you were supposed to learn by, such as repeated
grammar drills and lots of "busy work".  That was the method by which I
learned the first three foreign languages I had in high school, and similar
methods had been used for years before that.

The current trend in language teaching, however, is to have little to no
grammar instruction and an emphasis on spoken communication.  The school
I did my undergraduate work in taught German, for example, by the "Natural
Approach", a method first developed by Stephen Krashen.  They used NO
English in the classroom, starting the students in with very complicated
dialogues in the first chapter, and had the students speaking by the
second week.  They also taught the students almost no formal grammar.

The idea of the "Natural Approach" is that this is how people actually learn
language -- babies, for example, do not need to be overtly taught grammar
and vocabulary items.  The advocates of this method say that it is most
useful in language teaching to take advantage of the natural way our brain
seems to acquire language, and incorporate that into the classroom.  The
opponents of this method say that it isn't right to assume adults learn the
same way children learn.  Results of research done on this topic have been
conflicting.  What do YOU think?

Griz

P.S.  I'll try to be "fairwitness-y" about this, but please realize this is
a topic I have extremely strong opinions on.

24 responses total.

        You don't have to be impartial to be the fairwitness; you merely have
to have the gift of getting people to participate in discussions.  You're
doing fine, jennie.

        Learning by rote -- memorize and drill, memorize and drill -- is a
terrible way to understand anything.  It is a pretty good way to learn to
hate something, though.  I would think that any alternative would be
better.
        How did "natural learning" work for you?  From your list of
languages, it would make sense to assume you've tried both methods, so
you'd be a good subject to determine which works better.

I haven't "tried both methods".  I learned by one and helped teach by the
other.

Griz

It sounds like a useful method to me.  However, I would assume that
grammar is taught somewhere along the line.  Otherwise, the students
would all be talking baby talk.

That's seems ok for something like modern languages, but I can't see someone
learning Latin or Greek that way, let alone a semitic language.  

Actually, I guess I learned french by something similar to what Jennie 
described in #0.  (with a little rote grammar thrown in for good measure)
My Greek textbook was *terrible* in my opinion.  There was so much 
emphasis on translation that it seemed like grammar lessons got lost in the 
shuffle.  It was a lot of paragraph translation, with an accompanying 
section on the grammar you would need, but never was there, for example,
a list of sentences to demonstrate each specific grammar point.  That was
once instance where I would have loved to have some "busy work".

Re #4:

What you describe for your learning of Greek, Ty, is called the "grammar-
translation method".  It is the oldest method of learning a foreign language
still used today.

Griz

I learned by both methods.  In my college level Spanish courses, classtime
was conducted ALL in Spanish.  It was strenuous and you really had to 
conentrate on the lecture.  Although we probably did learn "every day
Spanish" quicker, I noticed that a lot of students would be too 
intimidated to ask questions because they were afraid they wouldn't
understand the prof's answer anyways.

Some immersion is good, but total immersion right from the start will lost
a lot of people who don't pick it up quickly.  And when you fall behind
in a language, you are LOST.
  
As ty says, you can't really learn certain languages by the "natural 
method"--Biblical Hebrew or Latin are primarily read-only (unless you're
planning to do cantellation).

Hm, my ancient Greek language textbook was full of rules and tables.

Adult learning styles vary so widely that I doubt that there is a
"best" way for a grown-up to learn a language.  When you're a
small child, you don't have much choice but to learn language by
immersion, interacting with others, but adults have other options.
My own learning style is very much one of solitary study,
reflection, and contemplation, although there are other people who
learn best in social, group situations.  The "Natural Approach"
described in #0 might be fine for some people, but I think it
would so adversely affect my comfort level that it wouldn't work
at all for me.

The few brushes I had with another language where the drill method, with the
exception of German.  I never took a German class, can't read it, can't speak
it...but 1 brother and 2 sisters all took 4 years of German in school.  I can
understand some phrases and questions just from being in the same house while
they did their work and practiced talking together.  One of them can ask a
simple question in German and I automatically answer in English without it
really registering what it was they really asked.  STeve one mumbled a question
in German and I answered him the same way I would have answered one of my sibs.
It blew him away as he knew that I hadn't taken any German and didn't speak it.

At this point I can still do this and feel that it probably won't be that 
difficult for me the actually learn German.  I may even try it at some point.

How about a hybrid approach. Rote is useful for learning large chunks of
vocabulary quickly, and immersion is good for learning conversation
skills. I would not reject either method outright.
I don't believe in throwing out the baby with the bath water.

The biggest problem with immersion, in my experience, is not falling behind and
getting lost but rather that it is usually done with groups of students who
will simply use their native tongues with each other.  One motivation for 
learning language is realizing that you simply can't communicate without it.
If there is an alternate route of communication (being with others who speak
your langauge, restricting transactions to pointing and grunting, etc.),
language learning motivation is decreased.  I didn't start speaking my first
language until my father said, "Enough!  Nobody give him anything until he
*asks* for it -- no more pointing".  I was a little over two at the time, and
perfectly capable of speaking, but I had just gotten accustomed to more 
straightforward communication.

I could not *stand* to merely mouth sounds without have some written 
reference to see what I was supposedly saying and why it made sense.
I also would advocate a hybrid approach:  Be introduced to some key
conversational language intercourse, then see it written down (or at the
same time), and then start to pick apart the syntactical & grammatical 
pieces to build your comprehension arsenal.  One thing to keep in mind 
though is that most languages that people want to learn *do* have the
spoken component, so it must be learned for its sounds, not just the way
it looks when written down.

This discussion so far has pointed out two reasons for learning a foreign
language.  One is to be able to hear and understand (and to respond and be
understood) with the spoken language.  The other is to be able to read and
understand (and hopefully, at least eventually, to be able to respond by
writing something that is useful and/or meaningful).  As a child one learns
first the spoken language, and years later the written language.  As an adult,
one wants to make use of the ability to read and write, because it is quite
naturally understood to be a useful tool in acquiring further knowledge or
competence.  To rely upon a strictly verbal method prevents you from being
able to make use of taking written notes.  And a lot of our memory is
connected with having a "visual" as well as an "audio" association.  So most
people, once they are "literate" are happier to be able to have some "notes"
- or to be able to make some notes - to help them in the process of acquiring
another language.  

(I did *not* go back & read the earlier responses, I'm afraid.)
That's quite true, but not the whole story.  In the first place, the written
language is normally a fairly limited subset of the spoken language, in that
vocal modulations, body language, & whatnot are poorly represented.  In the
second place, in societies where literacy is rare (or unknown), quite a lot
of people develop memories which are (by our standards) phenomenal, which
ameliorates the lack of written memory aids somewhat.

Again, I'm not contradicting anything you said, Tsuko.  Certainly the written
forms of languages get put to so many uses that, once literacy becomes common,
illiteracy is a tremendous handicap.  But (he writes to others who will
hopefully read it later) an inability to actually communicate fluently &
flexibly with others is also really important, and even now is kind of hard
to imagine without the kind of contacts that can't be purely written.

When I took Spanish in high school, I remember one student who was
from Mexico.  He could speak Spanish, yes, but had a terrible time
with formal grammar and written testing, as well as speaking formally
& politely.  I imagine he has had a difficult time in the job market.
In most modern societies where being literate (as in able to communicate
for purposes of transacting personal and other business, as well as
reading formal works of literature) is important, I'd say a combination
of both the "natural" approach for learning to speak the language
(hopefully properly and not the "gutter" Spanish that my fellow classmate
continued to spout while the teacher kept verbally correcting him in
formal Spanish), followed by a more grammatical approach to connecting
the spoken word with the written word would be reasonable for becoming
fluent in both written and spoken forms.  Isn't that much the way we learn
as children?  Guess it all depends on your goals for using the language.

I take Spanish now, and I am very poor at understanding spoken language.  If
I turn on the Spanish channel, the only things that make even a little sense
are the advertisements, because the point they are trying to make is so clear.
Written Spanish is another matter, though.  I'm quite comfortable with written
Spanish and grammer, because that's the way I've been taught.  (Except my
vocabulary is rather limited at this point).  The "Natural Approach" sounds
like it would really help somebody at my level.  I believe that both methods
should be applied, because of many of the points above.  Teachers should think
about a curriculum that involves both methods, then uses them to work on each
student's weak point in the language.

Coyote- practice, time and exposure.  I still don't get a whole conversation
on tv, but I generally get the gist.  I'm happier with print, too, except
that reading classical Spanish lit. kind of made my vocabulary and speech
pattern a bit archaic for a while.  Which is really odd since I have a bit
of a Cuban accent.  (can't help it, I grew up in S. Florida, and when I'm
not absolutely sure of my grammar and word choice, I revert)

My sister was in Argentina for six months, and while she was down there she
taped a lot of shows off of TV so we could see them up here.  Unfortunately,
the VCRs down there work differently, so they had to be transfered to new
tapes which was finally done yesterday.  She taped things like "Los Simpsons",
One Crazy Summer, Beetlejuice, and she bought a copy of 101 Dalmations, which
has the best title in Spanish.  It's "La Noche de las Narices Frias."  (Which,
for all you who don't know, that translates directly to "The Night of the Cold
Noses"!).  These are gonna be fun to watch!

And how _were_ those noses, coyote?

Heh... still haven't watched that one, as of yet.

i think both methods are useful.

My grandfather arrived in New York City at age about 16, which is four years
too late to learn a new language without an accent, and apparently also too
late to learn grammar without instructions, as his English remained terrible
until he died at age 95.  Adults definitely learn differently from children,
which is a good thing, as they do not usually have ten years of full-time
immersion to learn a new language.  I went to one summer school that tried
to use the immersion method and had us repeat sentences that we heard on tape.
I have a good memory and a good ear for intonation and they thought I was
doing wonderfully, but I had not the slightest idea what I was saying.  I
would recommend a few months of formal training (learning pronunciation and
grammar) in one's native language before attempting the immersion method, or
you will simply continue to speak the new language badly as you learn more
words.

The nitpick in me finds the idea that "age 16 is four years too late
to learn a foreign language
without an accent" to be something of an over-generalization, seeing as I
know people who have been an exception to this rule.  But that's
nitpicking.

Personally, I would really vote for the immersion idea.  I took six years
of German in junior high and high school, using the rote memorization
method.  I actually learned it fairly quickly, because I happen to be
fairly good at understanding grammar rules.  I think that most people in
the class weren't, and that this frustrated them.  It frustrated *me* in
addition,
because I truly wasn't learning anything.  We essentially reviewed the
exact same grammar rules the fourth and fifth years as we had the first
and second, going over the exact same things again and again, never
actually using the language in anything other than drills.  I suffered
through it because I really wanted to learn German, but it was an
unpleasant experience, and I think that everyone in my German classes,
regardless of how well they did, hated the experience.

Took French in college.  A very refreshing experience.  The first two
semesters were again memorization, except that they actually moved at a
college-level pace, unlike in high school where we would spend an entire
semester learning one verb.  They also mixed the grammar lessons with
readings in French, and by second year expected us to use almost entirely
French in the class.  This really helped and forced us to use the
language, to see it as a living method of communication and not simply as
an infinite list of verbs that could be conjugated.  After the second year
I went to France for a semester and was forced to rapidly improve through
immersion.  This helped amazingly, and I now speak French (which I've
studied for three years) much more fluently and comfortably than I do
German (which I've studied for over six).

Japanese was again some memorization -- I think that you have to do *some*
slightly repetitious work at first for the language to become familiar,
particularly when you must learn three foreign alphabets -- but once again
my Japanese teacher expected us to actually *use* the language, to talk
with one another in Japanese, to write compositions (short ones, since we
were only first-year students, but being made to write in the language
really helped to make it more active of a learning experience), to only
revert to English when we were absolutely stuck.  She integrated a lot of
things into the class, from a field trip to a Japanese market to some
games to having some of the Japanese exchange students come in and chat
with us in small groups.  It was unquestionably the most challenging
first-year language class I've ever taken, but also the most rewarding,
the most enjoyable, and the most educational.  

Um... this is more than long enough now... sorry.  The point is that I
very much favor immersion (with some grammar drills at the beginning), and
that I really really hate it when teachers underestimate their studetns'
intelligence.  So perhaps this is more a criticism of high schools than of
the rote memorization method.

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss