Accelerated Language Exposure and LingQ

Here is the podcast

To learn a language we need exposure to that language, the more the better. One of the great failings of many language teaching programs is the assignment of learning tasks that detract from time the learner could be spending just exposed to the language, or else are so boring as to discourage the learner from spending enough time studying at all.

What LingQ tries to do is to encourage more listening and reading (exposure) while at the same time bringing in all the other components necessary for achieving fluency, vocabulary learning, writing and speaking.

This post on a language learning forum describes a method learning that focuses on using bilingual texts. One of the learning activities suggested is to listen to the target language while reading in your own or a familiar language. I have been testing this and have asked others to test this. Will it work for beginners? For what level of learner does this work? How does it fit into a pattern of study?

I have been using this method for Russian. I plan to test it from scratch with the next language I go to study. Here is what I do.

I am reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. I first listen to 5 chapters of the audio book while at the same time reading quietly from the English translation. This takes about 20-30 minutes. I then go to LingQ and read these 5 chapters on the computer, saving words and phrases. Then I listen to another 5 chapters as before and repeat the process. Every so often I review my saved words and phrases. I find this enjoyable and effective.

We will have content at various levels of difficulty in LingQ, including beginner content like The Power of the Linguist. We have translations in some languages and hope that our members will give us more translations. I believe that a beginner could start with listening to a simple story in a new language for 15 minutes while reading along in a familiar language. This starts to give a flavour of the language. The learner then needs to  read the text in shorter segments in LingQ, building up his or her vocabulary.

I believe this will be more enjoyable and more effective than coming face to face with a lot of explanations and distracting examples and questions or drills right from the beginning.

I would call this approach Accelerated Language Exposure (ALE). I think that when this is done in conjunction with LingQ it can produce results for beginner and intermediate learners who have trouble reading comfortably in the new language. I am looking forward to seeing other people try this.

We hope some of our members will create easy content for us in various languages. We hope some of our members will create near to word for word translations for this material. Don't forget you can earn points for doing so. In the case of works of literature, there are lots of translations available free of charge on the web. It should be possible to experiment with this approach in many ways.

Anyway that will all happen in August, once we get going. Meanwhile I just finished reading 5 chapters of Anna Karenina in Russian at LingQ, reviewing some words and now I am going off to listen to 5 more chapters of my Anna Karenina audio book while at the same time silently reading the English translation.

Let me know if you try this or any variation of it.

Comments

[Edwin]

Steve,
I have tried a variation. A while ago, I found an audio clip of a long interview. It was about 40 minutes long and was entirely in French. I couldn't find a transcript but only another audio clip with the English translation voiced over the original audio.

What I did was to have both audio clips playing side-by-side in my iPod, switching between them a few sentences at a time. Then after a while, I could remember the content more-or-less, and I could figure many French words just by listening to the French clip only.

However, I am skeptical about this method, namely, listening with translation but no transcript, either the audio/text way or the audio/audio way. I feel that it is giving me the illusion that I can understand the whole sentence. But in reality, I am only picking up a few keywords and link them subconsciously through the translation. I am missing the other words in the same sentence.

This reminds me of a popular method that people like to use. They watch foreign movies with subtitles. They would enjoy it but I don't think they can get a lot out of the language at the end.

Of course, I am sure the LingQ system can fill in the hole. But then it is really the 'listening with transcript' method.

[Edwin]

A clarification of my previous comment. By the 'method', I was referring to the variation I was using, which did not have transcript. The method that is suggested in Learn-Any-Language does require you to have transcript.

[Steve]

Edwin,

You are right that there is an element of illusion of learning. However, I still want to continue experimenting. One of the purposes is to bathe yourself in the language. I think reading in your own language is less disruptive than listening in two languages.

I do find that listening ahead while reading, helps me when I then attack the text in LingQ. I have a better understanding of what I am reading.

I also want to try, or ask other people to try this in a brand new language, using easy content. I think that exposure to the language is important, and the reading need not take away from that.

Bear in mind that this is only one technique among many that one can use. I also feel that repetitive listening is important. I also like shuffling my listening. I also enjoy reading, whether intensively looking up words in LingQ or extensivly with a book while not looking up anything.

I enjoy reviewing my words in different ways in LingQ. I review words immediately after finishing a text, and then later on, while reviewing a text. An I also review various lists on their own.

All the different ways we expose ourselves to the language are good.

[Steve]

One short comment. The average length of a chapter in Anna Kerenina is about 1000 word. The ideal amount of content to work in Lingq seems to me to be around 500-700 running words at a time. This equates to about 5-8 minutes of audio content, depending on how fast the speaker speaks. Books are usually read more slowly than we speak in conversation.

Once we get our statistics in LingQ working properly, and once we get more content, you will be able to select content with no more than 15% or so new words, I hope.

[Humberto]

Hi, Steve.

I would like to take this oportunity to ask you something that I think it is bothering me a little bit (even though I have a very strong and positive attitude towards my English learning). I feel that my English speaking skill is falling behind my listening and writing skills. Please, do not get me wrong!. I am fluently in English (thanks to The Linguist!), but I feel that while I still keep improving my listening and writing skills, my speaking does not progress at the same pace. Let me tell you that just last week I wrote a 2000 word-essay down and I only made ONE mistake. It was amazing!But I do not feel the same progress regarding my speaking ability!I suppose that it is normal and it also depends on each individual's characteristics, but I just wanted to share my experience here!.
Thanks!
Humberto

[dave]

hello... wow... Lingq is sooo good... i suppose,,, but to you Humberto... i think it's the other way around...
from what i see... you need oral interaction... conversation is what you need... and never hesitate to speak your mind. don't be hampered by being so conscious, whether you sound natural or your uttering grammatical sentences, i guess... focus on the spontaneity instead... and focus on the discussion... i'd say... Oh i'm sorry Steve, have i over ridden? you're site is good...

kudos to you.