Boat building and language learning

I am indebted to podlearner.com for the following quote from St. Exupery's Le Petit Prince.

"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

I regularly see reference to approaches to language learning that focus on training us to hear certain sounds or to respond in Pavlovian fashion to different stimulus. I just cannot get interested.

To me language learning is all about motivation and interest. This comes from content and communication. You can build in some systems, as we are doing at The Linguist, but these are there to facilitate the main activity of interacting with the language in a meaningful way.

Comments

[Tim]

http://club.ppstream.com/tuijian/cctvcctvcctv

For me, it would be the best way to learn Chinese : 100% free, most efficient. But if you live in China, there are more options

[Learn Chinese Now]

There are some free Chinese lessons designed by CCTV (China Central TV) on Learn Chinese. You can try.

[Teeya Door]

You can learn Chinese in Beijing Online School of Chinese Language. There are famous Chinese teachers and over 3000 volunteers from China. Practical Chinese, Business Chinese, Children Chinese Course and Chinese Courses for School / University / Corporate.