What we need in language learning

Rosetta Stone raised over $100 million dollars on the stock exchange. Now they are opening retail stores to showcase their learning system. A system that I would not recommend because it does not take you very far, and because it requires you to sit in front of a computer too much of the time.

 Governments spend billions of dollars on language education with minimal results.

On the other hand there is just a limitless supply of interesting podcast and other audio content on the Internet. I have been helping myself to the Portuguese content at TSF. The only problem is that there are not transcripts such as I can find at Echo Moskvi for my Russian.

What we need for language learning is the following.

1) Convince learners that they need to leave the learner content behind as soon as possible. i.e. within 3-6 months.

2) Stop wasting money on text books, schools, conferences, linguistics research, language teacher training, and spend the money on transcribing all the wonderful content that is available free of charge on the Internet.

3) Show learners how to find content of interest, and how to learn from it, meaning mostly listening to it in a concentrated fashion.

A bit extreme perhaps, but then............

Comments

[John Fotheringham]

Right on the money, Steve. I wonder if there are any funds, VCs or angel investors out there who would be willing to fund a massive transcription project?

[Chris S]

I don't know if we need any kind of corporate investment for transcription, I think the word just sort of has to get out and what's the best way, and though the polyglots present on the internet vary in their specifics on learning a language they're all in general agreement that input first is best.

I see things like Wikipedia ran almost completely by people who want to do it for free and all kinds of open source programs, audacity being a prime example where people just do it 'cause it's their hobby. Massive amounts of transcription comes when there's a large enough community that wants to learn this way. I don't think you need (although it would helpful) outside money.

[Dale]

Absolutely! I just found http://dotSUB.com/ recently. As English is my native language, I don't have a need for the subtitled English content, but they have content in a number of other languages. Their aim is to provide translated subtitles for interesting video content, but they start with a transcript of the original language in most if not all cases. It's a strictly volunteer effort.

[victor]

Dale,
if you know other sites with subtitled videos or movies in English, type their URLs right here. Thenk you for dotsub.com.

[jookieapc]

Excuse my ignorance Steve, I have not been following your blog for long - estentially is one of your main techniques listening to language with transpcripts? Are you saying all language learning textbooks are of little use beyond the 3-6 month? I'm not sure I agree with that but then I'm only half fluent in a second language and I've been learning for a long time.

[Steve Kaufmann]

You may or may not need the help of a starter book with some explanations and beginner content. You should keep that book or get a simple grammar book for occasional reference. The sooner you get to interesting and authentic content, and spend most of your time listening and reading, and when possible speaking and writing on subjects that matter to you, the better you will learn. I would use the resources of the Internet, blogs, podcasts, etc, and would not use any kind of text book after the first few months. If you are still using learner material your progress will be slow. Getting on to real content, lots of it, is essential to making rapid progress, in my view.

We do intend to offer Arabic at LingQ in the future.

Here is a recent comment I made on the LingQ Forum.

I do recommend that we all buy a small grammar book with explanations in our own language, to read through every now and then. I also recommend finding grammar resources on the web, like verb tables and case tables. these are useful when writing or when tagging saved words and phrases. But making grammar the focus of one's studies, is in my experience, an unrewarding exercise, since the grammar is elusive, hard to remember, until we have had enough exposure.

How long it all takes depends on many factors, including our goals. So just settle down and enjoy the process and do not worry too much about when you get to the destination. The journey is the goal.

[Tas]

Hi, I basically agree with you, but in the same wise you should quickly move from learning material, you should also leave transcribed material as soon as possible, because the most interesting content for you usually doesn't have transcriptions. My ideal path would be something like that:

1th stage: parallel texts, for example Assimil
2th stage: real native material with transcriptions.
3th stage: you listen and read independently, without having to rely on transcriptions.

I think that in the second stage, if you have problems finding interesting material, you can always use TV series and movies, because they are usually distributed with subtitles. You can split an episode into manageable chunks and import them into your library along with the subtitles. That way you'll also have a better grasp of the colloquial language, in addition to the more formal language usually found in podcasts.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Tas,

The big step is from learner content to authentic content. After that we can decide to read and listen to the same content, listen only, read only, or do whatever we want.

I like movies but not for language learning. I listen to a lot of content but like the transcripts to pick up the words that I am missing. I also find that combining reading and listening reinforces my learning of new words.

I also do not like parallel texts as a beginner, and prefer to look up the words that I do not know.

To each his own.

[evan]

Of course, there is a huge amount of free stuff out there - especially podcasts. Latin language education online was practically non-existent 3 years ago - certainly, not for free. I did a lot of research, reading blogs such as yours, and put together a package - spread out over the net - to facilitate latin language learning.
The model appears to be successful:
Hefe is an article I wrote about it:
WEB 2.0 and Latin

Web 2.0 is leading to a massive resurgence in Latin across the globe: A few months ago, an interview with Evan Millner was published in ‘Iris’ magazine. Evan had just started the Latinum podcast, and the project seemed quaint, and intriguing. Little were we, or he, to know how successful the Latinum podcast would turn out to be. Evan produced latinum.mypodcast.com for free. His podcast has revolutionised Latin study, by making a full course in Latin accessible in even remote parts of the globe, at no cost. In 2 years, it has had over 4 million episodes downloaded. This has occurred with no advertising or production budget.

The new Latin social networking sites on ning.com that have sprung up in the past 2 years have also had a dramatic impact. Three spring to mind – Andrew Reinhardt’s Eclassics.ning.com (in English) and Evan Millner’s Schola.ning.com (in Latin), each with over 1000 members, and Laura Gibb’s Aesopus.ning.com (In Latin and English). These web 2.0 sites are important, having lead to sharing of ideas and collaboration between scattered teachers and students across the globe. Without web 2.0, the productive synergy that exists with Andrew Reinhardt (of EClassics), Evan Millner and Bob Patrick (of the Latin Best Practices email list), and most importantly, Laura Gibbs, who spearheaded much of the web 2.0 activity, this renaissance online would be inconceivable. These new social network architectures do not drive people apart, they do not foster rampant individualism – rather, they throw like minded people together, who can engage in heroic feats of commensual creativity. Schola.ning.com is already, after less than 2 years online, the largest group of people communicating in the Latin language on a daily basis that the world has seen for over 100 years, perhaps far longer. There are daily real-time exchanges in Latin in the chatroom on Schola – watching these unfold before your eyes is a modern-day miracle.

Then there is the wonder that is Google books, an amazing web 2.0 phenomenon, without which much of the above would be impossible. Google has opened up the world’s libraries to classicists across the globe. Books in Latin, that had not been opened or read in hundreds of years, are now freely available to read in living rooms from Mongolia to the Falklands – leading to a huge surge in interest in Latin.

“Latinum’s podcast depends on google – it would have been impossible to make, because it relies on textbooks that were scanned and made available online by Google,” says Evan. “Indeed,” he adds “The key text was initially scanned badly, and when it became apparent it was in demand, Google had it especially re-scanned for the podcast This textbook is so rare, there are ( at last count) only 2 copies in British libraries, and 9 in the USA. Through Google, and publicdomainreprints.com (another web 2.0 application) this, (and any other google scan of an old text), can be reprinted in a decent paperback for around £10.”

Laura’s work also relies heavily on Google scans of ancient texts of Aesop’s fables. Laura is presently engaged in the Herculean task of cataloguing the entire corpus of fable literature in Latin – a task much facilitated by Google.

Finally, the killer web 2.0 app, is the Tar Heel Reader, which burst into the consciousness of Latin teachers in early May 2009. Laura Gibbs, once again, was instrumental in getting this application up and running for Latin teachers. The site was started by the Univerity of North Carolina, as a means of easy publishing, to produce books for teenage kids with learning disabilities. These kids have different needs – they need adult topics in their readers – love, sex romance, but the level still needs to be at the ‘See John, See” stage.
Latin teachers have rapidly colonised the site, which now has its own Latin section. The books are reviewed, and get a gold star if they pass the test of having correct grammar. There are already over 50 beginning illustrated Latin readers - all written for free - have been published on the site. Within weeks, there will be dozens more - a burst of publishing in Latin not seen for over a hundred years.

“At present, it is really hard for a beginning student of Latin to find anything to read – most materials are pitched at far too high a level. There are parents all over the world, who would love to start their kids off with Latin. Now, using the resources on the Tar Heel Site, they can.”
These various web 2.0 projects, taken together, have marvellous synergy – a podcast course, an all-Latin communication site, a library of fun books in Latin for kids aged 1 and up, and collaborative sites for teachers and academics. Laura’s collection of resources, in particular, is extremely rich, both for students, and teachers.

Together, these are already having a dramatic effect on students studying the language, especially for the many thousands across the globe who do not have access to actual live teachers, but who are studying the language with online aids, and old fashioned text-books. (Latin teachers are a bit thin on the ground in most of the world). Web 2.0 is enabling the Classics world to build itself up, to pull itself up by its bootstraps, to effectively create a platform to revive Latin.
What is astonishing, is that all this activity has occurred in only 2 years - and it is the power of web 2.0 that has enabled it. The Classics world is by nature very conservative, and slow moving. However, as we have shown here, all it takes is a very small group of determined people with a shared vision, to initiate major change.
Some people have derided the internet and Web 2.0 as being terrible, as though our culture will be destroyed by some lazy Californian geeks, and the corrosive 'Cult of the Amateur'. When it comes to Latin, this is evidently not the case. “Everyone”, said Socrates, “is eloquent in the area of their own expertise.” Web 2.0 is allowing collaboration on an unprecedented scale. It isn't pulling people apart, it is throwing them together, allowing for enormous bursts of creativity.
You can contact me about this article on
evanmillner AT gmail dot com .

The sites mentioned in this article:

http://tarheelreader.org
http://eclassics.ning.com
http://schola.ning.com
http://latinum.mypodcast.com
http://aesopus.ning.com
http://latinbestpractices.pbworks.com/
http://delicious.com/bestlatin/easylatin

[Accredited psychology degree]

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