The Linguist - language learning should be fun

Which accent should I learn?

From the Forum at LingQ.

Hi Steve

I have a question about accents when learning languages.

I cant really decide what would be the best solution regarding acquisition of foreign accents when learning my target languages.
On one hand, I think that it would be best if I focused on one type of accent. For instance, using the spanish to the latin american type of accent, when learning spanish, I could be more consistent in my learning experience and more convincing when speaking maybe.
On the other hand, I think learning diferent accents would make my language skills more allround, more multi-faceted - should I happen to talk with a person from Spain, I could use that accent, and should I one day happen to speak with a person from Mexico, use that accent etc.

What do you think? - Thanks

I see no harm in listening to a variety of accents in order to be familiar with them. At first you may even have trouble telling which is which.

As to which accent to imitate, that is a personal decision. Usually it is easier to copy an accent that you find pleasing. This may also be the accent that is most useful to you, in other words Brazilian if you are going to work in Brazil, or Quebecois if you are going to work in Quebec, or Australian or whatever. In many languages there is a sort of accepted standard accent, or a few. There is a standard American accent which is found in the MidWest, and West and in Canada. The accent in the Northern half of France, or Hoch Deutsch, or Northern Chinese, or the Tokyo accent etc. Usually it is wise to go with the standard. There may two standards, one in Spain, say, and another in Mexico or Latin America..and Argentinian would be considered an outlier.

However it is matter of taste. The more you like an accent, and even the voice you are listening to, and the content you are listening to, the easier it will be to imitate it. As David says it is a matter of attitude. You sort of have to like something to imitate it, at least it helps.

Learning need not take place in a classroom.

In Manfred Spitzer's book on learning and the brain, he makes the point that learning takes place in the brain and not in the classroom. Last year  the US Department of Education reported that elearning is more effective than classroom learning. In New York schools they find that listening to iPods is much more effective in helping ESL learners than the classroom. Universities are putting courses on the web. Teachers are learning from students how to use iPhones and iPods for learning. A new world is unfolding, and fast!  It will reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of education.

Please read this recent comment on a previous post on this blog.

"Hi! Same here where I live (Spain). The average of English, even with people who have university degree is very poor. In part, that is because, for example, school kids only have 2 or 3 hours in English a week. And of course, they almost always study grammar.

The sad thing is that, every year, they review what they studied the year before, because they forget almost everything (imagine to study present perfect, and so on again and again) So this way, kids tends to hate learning languages, and it's a pity. I myself hated learning English, but now it's different, because I like reading and listening interesting stuff for me, and I feel that I am not studying, but I am getting fun.

I am a software engineer, and the vast majority of my colleages have rudimentary knowledge of English (mostly when they read, not speaking). And it's supposed that a software enginner has to master English!

Òscar (Catalonia, Spain)

PD: Sorry if my English is not very accurate. I do my best :-)"

But the education establishment is mostly resisting.

#language - Open education and innovation in San Diego versus the education mafia at home - a let down.

One of the most exciting themes at the ACTFL was the spontaneous development of innovative education solutions. At one end the University of Texas is offering first rate language learning resources, including whole courses, freely on the web, with the students having the chance to print these as textbooks via print on demand services like QOOP.

On the other hand there is an explosion of new learning apps being created for the iPod and iPhone. Many teachers were still unaware of how the iPod can be used, or even what it is in many cases. But many of those that I met,  will certainly learn, and will learn quickly, and will develop innovative learning programs. 

It makes sense for languages. There is evidence in this article from the NY Times that ESL kids do much much better with iPods than with classroom instruction.

Exciting stuff.

Then I returned to Vancouver, back to earth, back to Canada, where a language "cosa nostra" decides what learners are allowed to do. Apparently the Chinese government sponsored Chinese language service called the Confucius Institute was going to produce and distribute, free of charge via the internet, course materials for learning Chinese, to people in British Columbia. They were told in no uncertain terms to back off by the British Columbia Teachers Federation. BCTF. They backed off.

And then we have the Canadian Immigration department. The Department is at the mercy of a similar mafia group of outdated language teachers,opposed to any learning method that does not conform to their Canadian Benchmark System. The same group is also fighting the government's attempt to introduce vouchers, whereby the immigrants would be allowed to spend money on the school of their choice. Why should learners decide anything? It is for the teachers to impose. That is the teachers right and privilege.

And the government backs down, and so does the Confucius Institute. Why are we allowing the education mafia to dictate how learners are allowed to learn, especially given the poor results with the existing teaching methodology?

Discouraging stuff. Why is Canada such a backwater?

The # language learning revolution, an example from #actfl.

A teacher of Chinese in the Los Angeles area creates lessons and Flash Cards for her students with the characters they need to know for the week. The Flash Cards are attractive, and have her recorded pronunciation of the words. She checks the students iPods to see what they have been doing on them. She was helped in all of this by her teen-age daughters.

Large Chinese presence at ACTFL language show

ACFTL second day. A few impressions before I walk into the morning fog for my daily 45 minute walk to the Convention site from my hotel (while listening to Russian)

The presence of Chinese teachers, Chinese exhibitors, Chinese seminars etc. is amazing. The interest in China and the Confucius Institute are obviously big reasons.

I have met many dedicated teachers, including a lot of non-native speaking American language teachers who speak the foreign languages they teach very well. Impressed.

Lots of high school teachers, principals, and "World Language Supervisors"

More later since I am running late.

Why language students drop out. Demotivation.

Apparently the greatest drop off in  language courses at university occurs from the first year to the second year. In a Chinese program at a US university, the professor asked the students why. The answer was that many were disappointed that they were still only able to say very little, and they did not like having to engage in childish conversations in a language which they did not master well enough to really say anything.

Yes. It is demotivating for many people to have to talk in a language before they have enough familiarity and enough vocabulary. So, why do most language programs insist on it? Why not encourage the students to just enjoy learning the language, somewhat passively, focusing on input, and let them "produce" the language when they are ready, really want to, and can  actually say something?

Language learning research

Day one at the ACTFL Conference in San Diego. Over 5,000 delegates, mostly teachers and professors of languages. But these people do not only teach, they do research.

Yesterday I sat through a presentation by the head of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of America, a PhD in Linguistics and Chinese professor, on "Finding research topics and designing empirical studies on CFL." CFL is not the Canadian Football League that I am used to, but Chinese as a Foreign Language.

The presentation was supposed to last from 1 to 2.30, but did not finish much before 5, mostly a monologue in quite heavily accented English. I learned about such conclusions from research as: ( I have cleansed this of academic jargon)

a) Students learning Chinese characters had an easier time recognizing them than writing them, did better on characters with fewer strokes ,and those students who had trouble recognizing characters also had trouble writing them.

b) Students typically could only recognize 58% of characters even tough they had learned them, but if they could pronounce them this went up to 90%.

c) In a "reading strategy" study it was found that advanced learners, with more vocabulary, were better at processing characters rapidly and inferring meaning than intermediate level learners. 

When someone suggested that these results were not exactly surprising, we were told that what was difficult was setting up rigid research parameters to ensure that the results were valid.

I wonder how much of this kind of research goes on, for all languages that are taught. I wonder what would happen to language learning in the world if there was a moratorium on all language learning research.

"Second-Language Learning in Canada's Universities." The bureaucrats speak and people don't learn.

Education ministers across Canada talk but fewer people learn French.The  Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), collectively commended the Commissioner of Official Languages today for undertaking the study "Two Languages, A World of Opportunities: Second-Language Learning in Canada's Universities." 

As I read through this report about bureaucrats congratulating one another, and describing yet again the language teaching offerings of our universities, as if the Universities do not already do that, I ask myself what is this all about. What does the following mean?

"In Learn Canada 2020, the joint framework that ministers of education are using to guide enhancements to Canada's education systems, ministers have identified official languages as a priority activity area and have committed to the objective of promoting and implementing support programs for minority-language education and second-language learning that are among the most comprehensive in the world."

All I know is that second language proficiency is declining and will continue to decline in Canada, despite all the bureaucratese.

See the rise of the monoglots.

You cannot force or shame people into learning a language. All the lofty phrasing will do nothing till the way languages are taught is changed in Canada.

Language learning is like walking through the fog.

Please check out Walking through the fog  from Burritolingus.

 It contains the following statements from a renowned Japanese educator.

.....it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little....

......It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet.

When you get wet in a fog, it is very difficult to dry yourself. So there is no need to worry about progress. It is like studying a foreign language. You cannot do it all of a sudden, but by repeating it over and over, you will master it.

Why people learn languages (Mark Rosenfelder) or, language learning and golf.

Thanks to Kevin, I was  sent to the following article called "Why and when people learn languages."  by Mark Rosenfelder. In this article Mark says the following:

"Languages take immense effort to learn, and people will only learn them if it's socially or economically inescapable."

My reply is that it takes an immense effort to learn to play golf well, very few people succeed, and yet many people continue to play golf. The whole point of LingQ is to make language learning enjoyable. So that people can just keep doing it. Unlike golf, people will almost certainly improve.

Read Mark's article, there is a lot there that I agree with.