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#Post#: 18306--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Alharacas Date: July 21, 2019, 6:40 pm
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Thanks again for succinctly summarizing the different
approaches, Susan! :)
I see what you mean when you say the problem with the
Communication approach is that you wouldn't know what to expect,
Susan.
On the other hand, in a way, we do know what we expect when
we're looking for a teacher, don't we? We need someone to help
us learn a language. And I think those who already have such a
very clear idea of what will and what won't work for them as
language learners, like you, Susan, are few and far between.
Therefore, the Communication approach solves at least one of the
fundamental problems I see in teaching a language, namely this
futile search for the Holy Grail of methods. Incorporating bits
of what used to work in the past, and also trying to come up
with new activities seems by far the most reasonable thing to
do, at least to me.
I don't know whether it's at all possible to solve the other
fundamental problem, which is culture. I mean, I can see how
having standardized tests the world over is very useful.
However, how many countries are there where significant numbers
of people play tennis or golf, ski or go horse riding? All
activities featuring prominently in Cambridge books and part of
their required vocabulary, right from the start. And I wonder
how people in a very class/caste conscious society react to
being asked to play the waiter's role.
So... what are your conclusions?
#Post#: 18308--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Susan Date: July 21, 2019, 9:33 pm
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Well, I was a little surprised that the most recent approach
they talked about started in the 1980s. Nothing all that new in
almost 40 years? I guess it was a little encouraging that I had
tried pieces of most all the approaches and it suggests that
there are many possible ways to learn a language, with nothong
substantial in the way of evidence that some can make you learn
the language rapidly.
I am more comfortable than ever that I can keep doing what I
enjoy doing-- reading, watching movies and documentaries,
translating, writing a bit, having conversations with my
teachers on those occasions when I have something I want to talk
about.... I guess I have come down to just use the language as
much as possible and have patience.
Yesterday I tried something new... my Amazon account is
currently set to Spanish. Yesterday I needed to resolve a
customer service issue and so the chat with customer service was
at first conducted in Spanish. It worked just fine (I noticed
some little errors but nothing that affected the communication)
until the customer service person needed to transfer me to a
department where a Spanish speaker was not available-- with the
new person we switched to English and I had to re-explain the
problem. The issue turned out to be complicated and the small
grammatical errors of the non-native English speaker made it a
bit complicated to clarify the matter even in English. But that
was a risk I had never taken before-- to do anything with
customer service or technical support in Spanish. It did make
me a little more patient, feeling like the whole thing was not
so much wasted time as it normally feels like.
#Post#: 18316--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Alharacas Date: July 22, 2019, 4:59 am
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[quote author=Susan link=topic=1193.msg18308#msg18308
date=1563762820]
Well, I was a little surprised that the most recent approach
they talked about started in the 1980s. Nothing all that new in
almost 40 years? I guess it was a little encouraging that I had
tried pieces of most all the approaches and it suggests that
there are many possible ways to learn a language, with nothong
substantial in the way of evidence that some can make you learn
the language rapidly.
[/quote]
Fully agree, Susan - unfortunately, no shortcuts
Then again, that's really no surprise, is it? To my knowledge,
nobody's ever suggested there was a way to become a concert
pianist in a matter of months, have they? ;)
Actually, I find it rather encouraging that the
one-size-fits-all, there-must-be-a-Holy-Grail kind of thinking
seems to have gone out of fashion. Hopefully, there's now a real
synthesis evolving which will eventually incorporate bits of all
previous approaches. Given how highly individual the learning
process tends to be, that's pretty much the best we can hope
for, isn't it?
[quote author=Susan link=topic=1193.msg18308#msg18308
date=1563762820]
It did make me a little more patient, feeling like the whole
thing was not so much wasted time as it normally feels like.
[/quote]
Now, this does seem surprising, coming from you, Susan.
Actually, at times I've felt a little envious of the progress
you seem to be making, as per your descriptions of what you do
with your teachers. Still am, for that matter: even at the
height of my fluency in Spanish, shortly before I returned from
10 years of living in Spain, I still found it difficult to come
to grips with reading books written by Spanish authors (as
opposed to ones translated to Spanish from English). :)
#Post#: 18334--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theories of Second Language Acquisition
By: Susan Date: July 22, 2019, 10:05 am
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Oh no, I did not mean that learning Spanish was a waste of time.
What I meant is that calling customer service or technical
support usually makes me impatient because it feels like so much
of my time was wasted. Doing it in Spanish felt like getting
some learning benefit out of the time.
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