I am honored to be featured in June 7, 2010 episode of the The Get-it-done Guy podcast, Stever Robbins’ popular productivity show. Stever is also the author of The Get-it-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More, an excellent resource for being more effective in both your professional and personal life. I was tempted to send him a thesis on the subject, but in respect of his time and the patience of his audience, I narrowed things down to the following topics:
- Why the classroom is a less than ideal place to learn.
- The importance of short, frequent exposure to the language.
- Using reading to back up your listening activities.
- Using spaced repetition to maximize retention.
| Read and Listen to the Episode |
I believe what especially matters in effective teaching and learning English grammar is how clearly and easily understandable all grammar rules are explained and whether adequate supportive exercises with real life content are practised to master that material. It would take foreign learners much less time to learn grammar rules that are explained to learners than to figure out grammar rules on their own based on even numerous examples because grammar rules may have exceptions and other peculiarities.
Grammar books with explanations and exercises have been published by knowledgeable language specialists to make learning grammar easier so that learners don’t have to discover grammar rules anew the hard long way.
I’ve received some messages from people advocating unconventional English learning methods and promoting English learning products of that kind. I’ve explored some of their websites that contain a number of learners’ comments. Supporters of unconventional learning methods and products claim that learning grammar is unnecessary and inhibits fluent speaking.
A growing number of learners are misled and lose time experiencing delay in language learning progress because of superficial claims of promoters of unconventional English learning methods and products.
I disagree with those speculative claims as knowing grammar rules logically reduces making mistakes by learners. Without adequate knowledge of English grammar rules learners often cannot create their own grammatically correct sentences, and often cannot understand what they read or listen to in English exactly.
Conventional communicative English teaching and learning supported with adequate regular long-term practice in listening comprehension and speaking English yield effective results. Lack of such practice in English by learners produces speculations that conventional English learning and teaching methods don’t work.
A quick question for you: have you learned a foreign language to fluency yourself? I have encountered a lot of EFL teachers who make claims about how to best learn a language but have never done so themselves.
Your comment that “without adequate knowledge of English grammar rules, learners often cannot create their own grammatically correct sentences, and often cannot understand what they read or listen to in English” completely ignores how the brain works. The human brain is hard wired to figure out the grammatical patterns in the language (or languages) it encounters if given enough input and output. You did not learn your native language of English through conscious study of English grammar, nor is such study necessary for learning a foreign language. That said, I do think that adult learners can get some benefit from looking at the basic structures of their target language, but grammar rules are of little use until one has received enough exposure to the language.
Followers of the natural immersion method of learning languages claim that pre-school children learn to speak their mother tongue through constant listening to their native speech and speaking practice, without learning grammar rules and without practising grammar exercises. By that logic a foreign language can be learned even by adults effectively the same way as a mother tongue by little kids. I do not share that view because there are substantial differences between learning a foreign language and native language acquisition, and between kids’ and adults’ learning processes. It’s worth noting that little kids learning to speak their mother tongue are
exposed to hearing only their native speech constantly every day and do not hear any foreign language. Therefore there is no foreign language interference as they develop thinking in their mother tongue only.
It takes them several years even under ideal conditions to speak their native everyday language fluently although their advanced grammar and vocabulary knowledge may be limited. At secondary school students still have to learn the grammar of their native language to master it proficiently especially for academic and professional purposes.
Learning a foreign language, especially by adults is a different matter than acquiring a native language by little kids. Everyday listening and speaking in a foreign language by adults living in their native countries are quite limited at best and often absent for some periods of time, and they think in their native language they already know well, and there is a native language interference in learning a foreign language (in terms of
pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary). A person can think only in the language that a person knows best and not in the language that a person knows little. I believe without knowledge of grammar rules and adequate grammar practice in exercises with communicative content it is impossible to speak, understand and write in a foreign language correctly. Therefore learning a foreign language must include adequate grammar learning as
well.
Look at the science; this is in fact exactly what happens. The belief that conscious study of grammar is needed even for native speakers is simply ridiculous. If this were the case, how do you account for humans learning languages prior to the advent of schools, teachers, and formal curricula? Early humans certainly learned one (or arguably many) languages to fluency without modern academic learning.
It’s true, native speakers continue to hone their language skills throughout life, but what you are referring to is developing one’s style and acquiring additional specialized vocabulary, not a native speaker’s ability to understand and use the syntax of the language (“barring situations of medical abnormality or extreme privation, all the children in a given speech-community converge on very much the same grammar by the age of about five years.” //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition)
Yes, there are differences between child and adult language acquisition (especially in terms of the oh-so important affective factors), but the fundamentals are the same: we both acquire languages through meaningful input and active output.
The modern language learner has unprecedented access to foreign language input and opportunities to practice output no matter where in the world they live. Many adult learners are simply unaware of what’s available, are unmotivated to use the readily available resources, or carry the same misconceptions you are promoting: that language learning should (or can only) happen in formal settings with a teacher and textbook.
Of course you cannot think in a language you don’t yet have sufficient exposure to. But the more time you spend listening to and speaking a language, the easier it becomes to think in that language. The key is to create a direct, subconscious link between “mentalese” (the actual language of the brain) and the arbitrary sounds of a given language; too much conscious study of a language (as you promote) just creates more steps, more interference.
Not to be harsh, but have you actually learned a foreign language to fluency using the methods you propose? I know many English teachers who espouse similar beliefs without ever practicing what they preach.