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#Post#: 17355--------------------------------------------------
Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Susan Date: July 1, 2019, 1:21 pm
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I got an email from Coursera.org about the Theories of Second
Language Acquisition course offered by Arizona State University
on Coursera.org, that starts today. I believe it is free if you
do not want credit for taking it. Unfortunately, their site is
down for maintenance as I write this, so at the moment I am not
able to sign up and preview it. I had planned to sign up for
it, hoping others of you might also want to sign up for the free
version of it and we can talk about the theories on this thread.
Anyone else interested in seeing what they teach in the course,
and discuss it Second Language Acquisition theories from the
perspective of the learner?
#Post#: 17357--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Nikola Date: July 1, 2019, 2:36 pm
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It sounds really interesting, Susan. I've never taken any such
course. How does it work?
#Post#: 17358--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Alharacas Date: July 1, 2019, 2:47 pm
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Yes, it does sound interesting, Susan - great suggestion!
Edit: I'm a bit puzzled. The site tells me I can participate as
a guest, but it doesn't tell me how to do it. When I click on
"Register", it only gives me the option of 7 days free trial - ?
2nd Edit: Okay, gotcha! They call it "Auditing a course", and
there's a button at the bottom of the "Free Trial" window called
"Audit". After you've clicked this, you can access the material.
(They don't make it easy, do they? ;) )
#Post#: 17363--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Susan Date: July 1, 2019, 6:35 pm
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I have taken some of the courses of Coursera and of EDX.org. I
did sign up for this course and just spent about half an hour
with it. As Alharacas found, you sign up for the course at
Coursera.org and click where it says take the course for free--
but then look carefully for the very small print on the bottom
left to tell it to ¨audit¨ the course, not give you the free 7
day trial. By auditing the course you get access to all the
videos and reading materials. Because I was rapidly skimming
over anything I found boring (unfortunately the whole first week
did not light my fire), I took some of the quizzes just to make
sure I was getting the concepts.
For me, the nice thing about the Coursera videos is they have
the transcript below them and the computer highlights where they
are in the video on the transcript. You can easily highlight and
save a note of any part that interests you. (I also set the
subtitles in Spanish so if I watch the video directly I can see
the Spanish translation and make sure I know the words.) But
what I usually prefer to do is read the English transcript while
I listen to the video. A fast reader can skip around and skim
to the next part that looks interesting, click on that part of
the transcript, to hear all of what they have to say, and then
start skipping again if it gets boring.
In this manner in about 30 minutes I ¨mined the content¨of the
course for the basics without all the pedantic fluff that
professors tend to put in their courses. After a half hour, I
am in week 2 of the course, where I found their description of
the ¨Grammar Translation Method¨ that was popular in the 1880´s
was described. ¨The Grammar Translation¨ method is the first
theory they present on 2nd language acquisition.
I had not heard of this approach except for Phil on italki
mentioning that grammar translation is a time tested technique
that works-- that he says has been used for centuries.
Apparently in the 1880´s teachers believed in teaching Latin and
Greek and having students read the ¨great works¨ in the original
language, translate it into their language, and translate their
language into the language they are learning.
My technique of acquiring Spanish actually uses a lot of this--I
do a lot of translating as exercises to make sure I know how to
say things in Spanish. I never thought of it as a language
learning theory-- I just know I feel like I learn a lot from
reading books in Spanish and also watching movies in Spanish,
and then later using them with English subtitles and trying to
express the thoughts in Spanish again. (My memory is not good
enough to remember word for word the Spanish audio-- I have to
try to put it into my own Spanish.)
Apparently this course is going to go over 8 different
approaches to teaching languages based on theories of second
language acquisition, while also looking at the ¨Pendular Swing
of ESL History¨--- how most theories have been reactions to
weaknesses in prior theories and that each theory makes
suggestions about appropriate techniques for teaching and
learning.
#Post#: 17381--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Nikola Date: July 2, 2019, 3:45 am
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I managed to make it there last night, thanks Alharacas. I'm
starting to understand the concept :) Going to do some studying
today.
#Post#: 17398--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Alharacas Date: July 2, 2019, 11:57 am
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Susan, thanks, it's a relief to hear I wasn't wrong - there's
nothing even faintly interesting in the first week. :D
The grammar translation method - well, I hadn't known either
that this was a special approach with its own particular name,
but that's how I spent several years of learning Latin at
school. Although mercifully without the "... and then back into
your target language" part!
However, I guess it wouldn't have been that helpful without my
father's intransigence. He'd invariably ask me not just to give
him my translation of the bit of Caesar or Ovid I'd had to do as
homework (of course, my big brother had handed me his cribs,
that's what big brothers are for, after all ;) ), he'd demand
answers to his questions about sentence structure (verb,
subject, object, etc.), cases, infinitives, prepositions - in
short, I had to prove I'd really understood how the Latin
sentence worked before he was satisfied with my translation. And
that's the part my classmates - who thought I got my good grades
only thanks to those cribs they would have liked to murder me
for - never really got.
As it is, the ingrained habit of systematically analyzing any
sentence whose meaning isn't absolutely clear has stood me in
good stead, at least as a translator.
If you want to learn a language in order to actually speak it,
however, I think you absolutely need to add the bit where you at
least summarize in your own words in your target language, they
way Susan does it.
Side note: I've just realized that the ASSiMiL books obviously
rely on the Grammar Translation method, at least in part. They
suggest that, as the second step after working through their
books, you start over again, translating their translation of
the lesson texts back into the target language. I wonder if
anybody's ever disciplined enough to do that...
Side note 2: In the video, they say gapfill tasks are a part of
the Grammar Translation method, too. Has anybody ever found
those helpful in any way? Unless you're trying to decipher a
motheaten manuscript, where in life do you ever encounter
gapfill tasks?
#Post#: 17399--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Nikola Date: July 2, 2019, 1:59 pm
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I just completed The Grammar Translation Approach part and,
surprise, also recalled Latin classes ;D We had a very
old-school teacher, cheerful but completely stuck in her ways.
She used to wear a blue labcoat (is it still a labcoat if the
teacher teaches languages?) and make us translate large chapters
from dusty old books and even though I had no trouble
differentiating between nouns, adjectives and verbs, I struggled
because the dictionary would usually offer about four different
meanings for each word. I remember once, out of sheer
frustration, writing out every single meaning I'd found, in my
exam paper, followed by a note "literally not a clue". To my
surprise, I still passed the exam. Anyway, Latin is the only
language I have never made much progress in, despite the fact
that I studied it for about four years and I find it quite easy
to learn new languages. So from my perspective, this method
didn't prove very effective.
Do gapfill tasks mean any tasks where a word or a phrase is left
out for the student to fill in?
#Post#: 17400--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Alharacas Date: July 2, 2019, 2:38 pm
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[quote author=Nikola link=topic=1193.msg17399#msg17399
date=1562093973]
Do gapfill tasks mean any tasks where a word or a phrase is left
out for the student to fill in?
[/quote]
Yep. Depending ___ your level, you need to fill ___
prepositions, verbs, modals... you name it. :D
I always thought they were a pretty modern invention, though,
can't remember having seen any while I was at school. Tell me,
do you think there's anything they're good for, Nikola? Apart
from, maybe, giving the teacher a few minutes' peace and quiet?
Or perhaps giving students the illusion they've achieved
something?
#Post#: 17402--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Irena Date: July 2, 2019, 3:04 pm
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[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=1193.msg17400#msg17400
date=1562096327]
[quote author=Nikola link=topic=1193.msg17399#msg17399
date=1562093973]
Do gapfill tasks mean any tasks where a word or a phrase is left
out for the student to fill in?
[/quote]
Yep. Depending ___ your level, you need to fill ___
prepositions, verbs, modals... you name it. :D
I always thought they were a pretty modern invention, though,
can't remember having seen any while I was at school. Tell me,
do you think there's anything they're good for, Nikola? Apart
from, maybe, giving the teacher a few minutes' peace and quiet?
Or perhaps giving students the illusion they've achieved
something?
[/quote]
Well, it's good for testing (including self-testing). You
shouldn't overdo it, of course, but I do see value in exercises
of this type.
ETA: And it's not just "testing." Say you're trying to memorize
conjugations or what have you. You start with je vais, tu vas,
il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont. Okay, except that in
conversation, you're supposed to do that out of order! So, these
exercises are meant to help with that, and I think they do.
Again, it shouldn't be overdone, but in limited amounts, I think
it can be quite useful.
#Post#: 17403--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Nikola Date: July 2, 2019, 3:28 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=1193.msg17400#msg17400
date=1562096327]
Yep. Depending ___ your level, you need to fill ___
prepositions, verbs, modals... you name it. :D
I always thought they were a pretty modern invention, though,
can't remember having seen any while I was at school. Tell me,
do you think there's anything they're good for, Nikola? Apart
from, maybe, giving the teacher a few minutes' peace and quiet?
Or perhaps giving students the illusion they've achieved
something?
[/quote]
Well, the Oxford University Press student's books and workbooks
are full of them, so is the highly regarded English Grammar in
Use by Raymond Murphy (Cambridge University Press), these are
the books we used at school and that's how I learned English :)
It's possible that I would have learned faster if the teacher
had employed a different method but I found the one she'd chosen
both pleasant and quite effective. They weren't just boring
exercises without context like you describe. Those books use the
gapfill exercises in a really creative and sophisticated way
and, besides other things, often challenge your comprehension
skills at the same time. Obviously, we did other things as well
:)
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