4 ms·
Based on my experience and on my bias for what language acquisition researchers I favour ( :-) ), I don't think #2 will work as you described. The key to langu
by mikekchar 10y ago
Based on my experience and on my bias for what language acquisition researchers I favour ( :-) ), I don't think #2 will work as you described.
The key to language acquisition (acquisition giving you the ability to use the language without undue thought or planning) is repeated exposure in a comprehensible way. So you would think that skimming would be ideal because you can be exposed to the patterns more quickly.
The problem is that research has shown that you require 95% comprehension before you can infer the meaning of unknown language based on context. So unless you are already very familiar with the vast majority constructs and vocabulary, you will not be able to infer anything new and you will not learn anything.
My opinion is that native readers can skim because they already are very familiar with the structures and can guess what's going to be said. This allows them to skip over most of the sentence and still pick out the meaning. The less familiar you are with the structures, the less success you will have (and research shows that the drop off is very dramatic).
On the plus side, the average novel has thousands of unique vocabulary and virtually all commonly used grammar. If you work through a single book, you will cover a huge chunk of the language. And since authors often stick to their favoured vocabulary and sentence structures, once you get half way through, you can usually read without a dictionary. Certainly if you read a second or third book in the series, it can go very quickly.
As an interesting(?) side note, I met my wife when both her English and my Japanese were quite poor. This meant that we had to listen very intently to each other. When the other person got it wrong, we knew it was a mistake and not a matter of not listening. I find that most people (me too) do not listen well in their native language and "skim" conversations -- listening to a small fraction and making the rest up. This is just not possible for beginner-intermediate language learners and ironically it formed the basis for excellent communication between my wife and I. Now that our other language skills have improved, we do not communicate nearly as well!
- rasz_pl 10y ago>repeated exposure in a comprehensible way like a toddler?
- mikekchar 10y agoOne of the main contributions that Chomsky had on language acquisition was to provide a very solid argument that language acquisition in adults is not different than language acquisition in children. So, yes :-). This is the generally accepted point of view at the moment. But this area is very, very difficult to test so there are still some people who disagree.
- oneloop 10y agoWhich is of course false. When you're learning a language as an adult you can read and memorize the other language's grammar from a book. This significantly speeds up your learning.
- mikekchar 10y agoSorry, I was speaking sloppily on a technical topic. Language acquisition is the mechanism by which language that you can remember springs unbidden to your mind when you need it. Chomsky argued that the mechanism for language acquisition is the same for adults and children. It doesn't necessarily follow that the activities will be the same. The person that posted was correct (as far as I understand it). Repeated exposure to comprehensible language (input) leads to acquisition (this is what Stephen Krashen argues, and which is the currently most popular theory as far as I know). The mechanism is the same for adults as well as toddlers (this is what Noam Chomsky argued, and which is generally accepted). Memorising grammar is not necessary for language acquisition in children, nor in adults. The question is whether it can speed things up. Even if you agree with Krashen, it probably can because it provides a framework for reasoning about the meaning of something. It becomes an extra tool for creating comprehensible input rather than relying on context alone. Many people believe that using grammar rules to generate output speeds the acquisition process. My understanding of the literature (now about 5 years out of date, unfortunately) indicates that this is not at all popular. In fact, it is said to be counter productive. My experience teaching English as a foreign language also supports the notion that constructing output from grammar rules should be avoided.
- rasz_pl 10y ago