Lingformant
The science of linguistics in the news

Comment by Les Herasymchuk 30 Jan 2009 at 2:20 pm

This “breakthru method” has long been a standard practice in Ukraine: they call it audition here. In the past I advised my students to listen to certain CDs. Half a century ago Academician Olexandr Biletsky taught me to study French in the same way. In the same way I used to learn Polish and Greek in the same way.

Comment by Gary Orman 01 Feb 2009 at 11:50 am

I’d like to see the research because the results don’t add up. Maybe the control and research groups proceeded to learn the ‘traditional’ way, in which case the study is meaningless.

Simply listening to a language will not improve your understanding one little bit. Indeed, unless you already understand what you are listening to, you won’t actually ‘hear’ anything.

It is true that your ‘ear’ does require aural training to be able to comprehend native speakers, but the most effective way is to build up an ‘intellectual’ knowledge based on what you already know in your own language (using visual thinking and story-based associations) and to READ EXTENSIVELY.

If you start by reading simple texts (and children’s stories usually aren’t that simple) making sure you LISTEN and SAY OUT LOUD repetitively then your ability to hear and understand native speakers will improve dramatically. It’s like learning to dance: you need constant physical practice, building up from simpler steps. You can’t dance just by watching others.

Don’t waste your time listening to stuff you don’t understand. Get the transcript and study it. Audiobooks/podcasts are great for this.

Comment by anna 18 Feb 2009 at 9:16 am

actually I don’t agree with you Gary. I’ve been learning English for a very long time (reading, grammar exercise, etc.). the result was that I knew all those new words without knowing how to use them in a sentence. language isn’t just words, sentences are more important. my breakthrough came when I started to listen real conversation and interviews from bbc. I can thoroughly recommend their learning english site. I’ve been listen to it in my car without understanding but after a while I know it down pat. I’ve been checking the transcripts of course. English stopped to be just abstract bunch of words.

Comment by Gary Orman 10 Apr 2009 at 6:21 pm

Hi Anna, you are actually corroborating my previous comment: the reason why you were able to make the breakthrough was precisely because you had been reading and building up a vocabulary (what I call ‘intellectual knowledge’ of a language). Grammar isn’t really important, so anything that takes a TOEFL approach is often unhelpful. Grammar is mostly a way that linguists talk to each other about language, but it really doesn’t help learners. A pattern-based approach is more helpful IMHO – combined with colloquial and idiomatic expressions found in the context of modern literature, news, articles and other written works.

If you simply listen to spoken English (or any foreign language), you will not ‘hear’ anything. But – as you have suggested – the moment you READ the transcripts, you will start to HEAR and understand what is being spoken.

But you are also right in implying that it is not as simplistic as I suggest. (I am not able launch into a dissertation in a few sentences!) There is a lot of overlap between ‘intellectual knowledge’, the ‘ear’ and enunciation – and they each consolidate the others. E.g. by saying out loud what you read, repetitively and in an exaggerated manner, not only will you will train your face muscles to speak fluently, but you will also create a kind of muscle memory that will allow you to speak without thinking.

A useful trick for developing a ‘proper’ accent is to mimic native speakers’ accents while talking in your mother tongue: “I like-a to eat-a de pizzzza…”

I am reading Paul Sulzberger’s dissertation and so far I am impressed with the thoroughness of his study. I will update this comment, once I’ve had a chance to read the thesis closely.

Comment by evan 22 Dec 2009 at 12:09 pm

Sulzberger’s research is interesting, and he is by no means the first language instructor to come to this conclusion.
For example, the huge Latinum audio project for teaching Classical Latin through extensive audio exposure ( http://latinum.mypodcast.com ) was set up in response to earlier research into the importance of audio for acquiring grammatical patterns subconsciously, irrespective of meaning.

This goes back to Chomsky’s famous “colourless green ideas sleep furiously” – that grammatical information can be encoded in sentences without meaning.