I'm starting out on my language teaching career (English, native speaker), and I think students who choose to attend traditional physical classrooms where there's a teacher, whiteboard, maybe textbook, etc. do it because it's a familiar structure that includes a lot of guidance and assistance. Going into a new language with no guide and no idea of where to start is extremely intimidating, so without that I think a lot of people would give up. I don't think you necessarily need to stick closely to specific grammar rules, but creating an environment where students can be exposed to new concepts and then practice them with the teacher/other classmates is really helpful. I think the advantage of a traditional classroom is not in learning specific grammar rules but that it's an environment where you can interact with other people - language is for communicating, after all. Motivation is important, like you say, and I think for a lot of people, knowing that they can speak to others is very motivating and it might be their #1 goal (especially if they're an immigrant/refugee/worker in a new country). The classroom isn't about the activities and grammar rules for their own sake; it's about giving students the ability to use the language with each other in real time, while a teacher stands by if they need help. Speaking for myself, I like structure. I like to know my boundaries and goals; being thrown into something blind is not helpful for me. Students should definitely do their own 'studying' on their own time (watching tv shows, talking to people in the community, reading books, etc.) but having a guide who can show you the next step is crucial for a lot of students. The way I process and learn things means that I actually love learning about the technical things and grammar points (I studied linguistics, after all) and having this background knowledge, something tangible I can refer to, helps a lot in learning something new. I think transfer is one of the most important aspects of language learning - taking something you already know and applying it to the new situation. Having a structure and a context is so helpful for me, and I imagine that's something a lot of students are looking for. I think, ultimately, it's a balance between structure and creativity. From my own experience, I've been consuming Korean for over a decade - music, tv shows, movies, etc. I've learned how to read and write (or rather, I taught myself hangeul) and can understand a lot just from listening, but I've never taken a class or followed a textbook. I don't think I could have a very productive conversation with a Korean speaker at all. I guess this could be attributed to the fact that it's been all input and no output, but to contrast my Korean experience, I have my Japanese experience - I learned it in college classes with textbooks that focused on grammar points, all that jazz. I can't understand as much of spoken Japanese, but I feel a lot more confident in my ability to have a basic conversation. To get my Japanese listening skills to my Korean level, I would need to watch and listen to a lot more Japanese content (and I have a decade to catch up on). To get my Korean conversation/grammar skills to my Japanese level, I need to learn more about how Korean works internally, and this may include learning specific grammar points, while also implementing more output. I think this shows that input is extremely important, but it's also not everything. It's likely different for each learner; maybe there are people out there that can learn to speak fluently just by being surrounded by a language (I think this would require complete immersion - being in the country, not able to use any other language for communication). For whom that doesn't work, learning about the inner structure of a language - the "why"s - is extremely helpful. I thrive on structures and knowing *why* something is the way it is; maybe others are fine just absorbing it. And there are many different learning styles in between, which all has to be taken into account in a classroom, in which case I think a balanced approach that includes all kinds of input and output is best. All this is not to criticize or disagree or anything, I'm kinda just formulating my thoughts on this in real time as I learn how I can be a great teacher.
I fully agree with you, Steve, however, I think that these days there is a lot of pressure on language teachers because of the language exams. Many students want to take the exam quickly without spending too much time with the language. And thus there is no time for fun stuff only for the most important things.
I'm an English teacher and I think that most teachers never really think about the lesson from the students' perspective. I'm always amazed at how much some teachers talk, not realising that it's the student who needs to talk. Another mistake that I have seen so many teachers make (even highly qualified ones) is just telling students the answers or telling students exactly what their mistake was without first giving the student a chance to correct themselves or figure out the mistake for themselves. In my lessons I have a lesson plan and I am just there to guide the student through the lesson. As the lesson goes on my aim is to hand more and more control over to the student, get them to figure things out, to use the language creatively. I will add that teaching is not an easy job. Being a good teacher takes a lot of patience and focus. After a full day of teaching my brain is usually fried.
Well said. I agree 100%. I chose to study a foreign language with my objective being to fully experience what my students experience. What I have been learning has helped me to improve my teaching far more than any university class in education.
As a language teacher, I'd say that you are right in claiming that they/we mostly only pay lip service to the communicative approach. Personally, I think the term 'Language Teacher' is an oxymoron. No one in the history of the world has ever taught another person a language, if you think about it. People acquire language on their own! A coach that provides some motivation and a bit of help is a different matter. Everyone could do with some of that.
For myself, I would add, a good language teacher is one that answers my questions when I have them. I have a Korean teacher from iTalki. We have two activities that I term reading and conversation. i have started to read a book - actually several months ago. I send her the pages which I photograph, and we read it together. Between sessions, I import the text into LingQ - photograph the text, optical Character recognition, editing - and try to understand the story. With LingQ I find the meanings of words almost instantly - one main reason I value LingQ - and I have several sources for getting answers to how words are used. Then, when we meet, I read, translate, and ask questions about what doesn't make sense. This gives me items to look at in more detail. Conversation is my learning to tell stories in Korean. I do, for myself, a short version in English that reminds me of what I want to say, which I type out. When we meet, I tell the story in Korean. If she understands, she gives me ideas on how I can say the same thing more clearly, or idiomatically, or correctly. If she does not understand, then free conversation where I try to explain in Korean. I a worst case, she understands English well enough so that I can say it that way. I am slowly beginning to be able to ask my questions in Koran and understand the answers. I like the reading, and the book - though beyond my ability - keeps me interested. I like telling stories, although it involves using structures and words that I don't know. I can feel my improvement, and I enjoy the lessons. One last note: one thing that deadens my interest is not being able to get an answer to a question right away. LingQ is invaluable to me for reading, and the teachers for unraveling difficult and idiomatic expressions and structures. The faster I get an answer, the more I can cover comfortably, and the more my interest remains high.
Thanks for the video. I'm currently studying to get a degree in French Teaching. I find the info really helpful. We need to listen ti people like you, who have such great experience in learning languages. You inspire me to learn more!
You make a lot good points here, Steve! What I really dislike is when students or sometimes their parents almost force the teacher to focus on passing exams rather than on acquiring the language. I believe it’s the wrong way to go. It’s like choosing a small but immediate goal over a really important but a more distant one.
To me learning and teaching grammar is essential because it gives one an autonomy of self-expression. Grammar allows for creating your own sentences and narratives, instead of forcing upon you repetition of what someone else have expressed in a textbook or a phrase book. (Btw, this why I have heard many times from many people that they absolutely hate the Callan Method and that attending Callan courses didn't teach them a language or didn't allow them to become "fluent"). I see one common element very often: people who don't know grammar very well find it very hard to move from a begginer to an independent- user level. This is something I have noticed in any language I have taught to others or have learned myself so far. For example during obligatory group classes or commercial group courses which I have attended due to my education. I was also forced to learn Swedish from a scratch without any grammar, in a mixed group of international adult students. And guess what have happend? Entire group went on strike demanding the introduction to grammar. Now after years, knowing more about adult brain than I knew at the time, I finally understand why. Beyond certain age we do think in grammar structures which we already know. This happens regardless of our will or any conscious decision- making. So it's really hard for adults to learn a new foriegn language without learning grammar. Especially if this language is not very similar to their own native language. It's a bit different story with kids and very young adults, but looks like everything changes for us once we go past the age of 16, beyond so called neural-pruning period. My fellow students who went on "teach us Swedish grammar "strike were around 22 -23 years old at that time. So I suppose that adults older than them might feel the urge that their brain needs to learn grammar even more intensly.
From my small experience with languages and my bigger experience with music I think the more I'm trying to learn languages the more I believe learning a language is just like learning and practicing a music instrument.
Thanks! Great video! I've been watching many of your videos for almost two months. Your methods have been working for my Mandarin study. Looking forward to future videos.
While it is true that the key to teaching a language is to motivate the learn to be curious and challenge themselves, the unfortunate fact is that very few students in a traditional k-12 langauge classroom have anything like that kind if mindset. They want an A in their tramscript. Having students who have can be motivated in that way is quite rare. Adult learners are different.
Children don't focus on accuracy first when they learn to speak their native language, they make lots of mistakes. So, we don't need to worry about accuracy before we can understand the language, then when we already can speak we should focus on pronunciation and grammar.
Totally agree. It would be really useful if we could encourage teachers to produce reading/ listening materials on interesting topics. Norsklærer Karense TH-cam (Norwegian teaching) produces podcasts (on podomatic) of around 40 minutes talking about daily life and what is happening in Norway. Her TH-cam channel is full of short useful videos explaining in Norwegian grammar points and idioms. They are great because when you come across a construction you don't understand you can click on the video and get a quick explanation but it also gives you listening practice. So you are motivated to go to the channel just for the listening practice. It doesn't matter if I forget the point because I got some listening practice
I do expect grammar, but I expect comprehending Spanish 2, French 2, German 2 etc, by the end of the school year more than grammar rules . If not then, by the end of taking it in college. I've had two out of three teachers/professors who focused way too long on conjugating verbs. We never got to the other parts of speech with the exception of some nouns and adjectives for vocabulary quizzes. By the time I took Spanish 3 in college , I was lost. That professor finally focused on understanding the parts of speech and the word order. The problem came in when he only spoke in Spanish. I was devastated. I barely skimmed by with a "C". 10 years later, and my Spanish comprehension is of a newborn baby . My speaking is of a 2 year old girl. My reading is 1st grade elementary, and my spelling is 5th grade.
I am Arab, and an Arabic/English teacher and I'm impressed by your motivation to learn Arabic, it is not an easy language AT ALL, it needs real determination. I'm a full time job worker, but I would love to help you and volunteer whenever I have free time ❤ This will work with adults, children are impossible to be motivated trust me 😂😂 About the books I encourage you to read school books, preferred syrian "I've grown up in different countries and learned different curriculums" , it's kinda basic language, history, geography whatever you want, download it online, it'll help
Ryland Dickman I think their problem is testability. They want to dissect a language in such away that they can measure students' progress with an objective metric. The problem in this case is the entire way our school systems are set up; not so much to improve abilities, but to measure masses of students.
bocephushere Language Transfer is much better than Michel Thomas because he makes you aware of everything at a totally different level. Language Transfer is much more systematic. I've learned to speak Spanish, Italian, Portuguese & French thanks to Language Transfer. It's the thought processes that make all the difference. Language Transfer teaches the grammar effortlessly so you get the biggest burden out of the way right away & it doesn't even feel like you're learning grammar because he explores what for example Spanish might be thinking when it makes the distinction between Ser & Estar.
Jim Beane the pdf is basically only for teaching purposes e.g. I've taught Spanish to a couple of my friends with it. You shouldn't really listen to the tracks when driving or so. If you're in a bus or so, it's fine as long as you can pause the audio before you hear the answer & build the sentence yourself. In case you didn't listen to the intro track: You have to participate by pausing the audio before heading the answer & then build the sentence yourself. Then once you say it out loud, listen to the voluntary student's answer. If you don't build the sentence yourself, you'll think that you're learning when in reality you're just witnessing someone else's learning experience.
T33K3SS3LCH3N I just wrote about this, but your answer was short compared to mines. I too said that listening comprehension and pronunciation is subjective. Grammar and spelling is objective. I think this is why they focus more on those two parts of language learning.
Hey Steve, as someone who loves to read on LingQ (Especially during the night). I was wondering what you thought about LingQ introducing a night time reading mode. Where the white background wouldn't be so intense on the eyes, but maybe a softer color.
As for Arabic material, I recommend you Media Development Center TH-cam Channel. They offer very nice audio stories. For example, المجنون. Unfortunately, I couldn't find pdf version of the stories.
Hi Steve, I am interested to volunteer in helping you to learn Arabic. I found your Email here in your reply to Fit Henry. Hi Fit. Actually, I got very interested in your approach for learning/acquisition 2nd language. First of all I'm not a professional language teacher, but an engineer. my narrow specialty is Naval Architecture. I posses M. SC. in Naval Architecture, and Ph.D. in Total Quality Management. Throughout my business life, Education (learning and teaching) about what is up to date in my field, attracted me at the time. Lately, I myself, found that the best thing to assist Non-Arabic speakers how to learn Arabic, would be easier through International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA). I am enthusiastic to assist you within my capacity. I am Egyptian, 75 years old. I put a research idea that includes multidisciplinary specialties; for making pronunciation of Arabic easier to Non-Arabic speakers, using the modern digital techniques available in each specialty, through E-learning. It is a sophisticated specific scientific research, that needs long time and effort to accomplish. However, I think my English fluency will improve when working together with your team. Email: aboulnaga1942@yahoo.com
I think they focus on grammar because it's something they can objectively grade. Listening comprehension and pronunciation is subjective. I remember my teacher in 10th grade, had each student come to her desk individually, and recite numbers 1 thru 100 in Spanish. I scored high, but I think she weaseled me out of a few points. Had there been 2 second opinion there about my pronunciation since it is subjective , I think I would have scored higher. Here's an idea. Maybe have every professor who teaches that specific language, come and test listening comprehension and pronunciation. They could do it similar to a judging panel. They ask each student a few questions in Spanish, listening to their pronunciation and grammar, then score them. Next, base off how many judges are on the panel, they can divide their scores by the amount of judges to get a score. The con to this is the time it would take, but I think it's worth it.
Hi Steve! I find your videos always very helpful and open-minding. For last 1,5 year approximately I started my "polyglot" journey and I'm learning languages like crazy and starting watching your videos really helped me with new approaches. Thanks! I am also a student of Belarusian philology, so here is my question, would you like to have some Belarusian stories on Lingq?
Believe it or not we have our mini-stories translated into Belarusian at LingQ. However, we are always interested in more content. You can register free of charge and have a look.
I just want to say, I do not think anyone should learn Egyptian Arabic or any regional Arabic. It seems to me it would be really weird to learn non standard Arabic. I mean one could use some vocabulary from some region like Egypt, but to learn Egyptian Arabic primarily, does not seem useful to me.
It makes sense if you are living there or about to spend some time (several years) because of your job for example. Oterwise it is better to learn standard as it is probably the most universal starting point and more common.
Merci Steve pour vos vidéos. Elles sont une grande source d'inspiration. Petite remarque: pour parler d'un livre sur un ordinateur, le terme n'est pas "digital" en français, mais c'est "numérique". La question à poser est, "Est-ce que vous avez le livre en version numérique?"
Hi, Steve! I am using Lingq and, despite it being a totally different learning method / system to traditional learning, I really am getting so much out of it in Mandarin. It's fantastic. My question is, do I spend time learning each vocabulary word or just exposing myself to new material and barreling ahead as I go. I am finding the incidental learning of new words / characters to be great, but I wonder how much time to devote to mnemonics and things to memorize each word.
From my experience with Mandarin, you do need to put deliberate work into learning new characters. Otherwise, my approach is to mix up the deliberate study of vocabulary items using our activities with more reading and listening. I like to vary things. It is all exposure, and whatever we think we have learned, we are about to forget.
Yes, I agree! I've picked up so much incidentally in the characters, as well. I've done about 40 lessons and I barely had to memorize any of the characters until the last few. I know this is just the beginning, but I love Lingq!
Your language learning skills, in Arabic is so poor. Let me explain. Any non-Arab, learning Arabic, HAS TO learn, something called SARF 'morphology' . You cannot learn Arabic without it, if you are non-Arab. Once you have acquired it, you will know the meaning of the roof of one word, and derive from it, 10-50 words.
I think learning a language from a non-native speaker is like learning to play a musical instrument from a person who has neither a sense of rhythm nor an ear for music.
Interesting point of view. I tried both and found out I have skills for both, I wonder if there is a reason, a relation for that. However languages require less effort for me, I didn't stick with music.
I believe you haven't watched the video. One doesn't learn a language from a teacher. A teacher is more like a coach, someone who will GUIDE, MOTIVATE and SUPPORT the student toward learning, providing resources and other stuff. Hence, your teacher doesn't need to be a native speaker, but he has to provide you with the aforementioned things.
I'm starting out on my language teaching career (English, native speaker), and I think students who choose to attend traditional physical classrooms where there's a teacher, whiteboard, maybe textbook, etc. do it because it's a familiar structure that includes a lot of guidance and assistance. Going into a new language with no guide and no idea of where to start is extremely intimidating, so without that I think a lot of people would give up. I don't think you necessarily need to stick closely to specific grammar rules, but creating an environment where students can be exposed to new concepts and then practice them with the teacher/other classmates is really helpful. I think the advantage of a traditional classroom is not in learning specific grammar rules but that it's an environment where you can interact with other people - language is for communicating, after all.
Motivation is important, like you say, and I think for a lot of people, knowing that they can speak to others is very motivating and it might be their #1 goal (especially if they're an immigrant/refugee/worker in a new country). The classroom isn't about the activities and grammar rules for their own sake; it's about giving students the ability to use the language with each other in real time, while a teacher stands by if they need help.
Speaking for myself, I like structure. I like to know my boundaries and goals; being thrown into something blind is not helpful for me. Students should definitely do their own 'studying' on their own time (watching tv shows, talking to people in the community, reading books, etc.) but having a guide who can show you the next step is crucial for a lot of students. The way I process and learn things means that I actually love learning about the technical things and grammar points (I studied linguistics, after all) and having this background knowledge, something tangible I can refer to, helps a lot in learning something new. I think transfer is one of the most important aspects of language learning - taking something you already know and applying it to the new situation. Having a structure and a context is so helpful for me, and I imagine that's something a lot of students are looking for.
I think, ultimately, it's a balance between structure and creativity. From my own experience, I've been consuming Korean for over a decade - music, tv shows, movies, etc. I've learned how to read and write (or rather, I taught myself hangeul) and can understand a lot just from listening, but I've never taken a class or followed a textbook. I don't think I could have a very productive conversation with a Korean speaker at all. I guess this could be attributed to the fact that it's been all input and no output, but to contrast my Korean experience, I have my Japanese experience - I learned it in college classes with textbooks that focused on grammar points, all that jazz. I can't understand as much of spoken Japanese, but I feel a lot more confident in my ability to have a basic conversation. To get my Japanese listening skills to my Korean level, I would need to watch and listen to a lot more Japanese content (and I have a decade to catch up on). To get my Korean conversation/grammar skills to my Japanese level, I need to learn more about how Korean works internally, and this may include learning specific grammar points, while also implementing more output.
I think this shows that input is extremely important, but it's also not everything. It's likely different for each learner; maybe there are people out there that can learn to speak fluently just by being surrounded by a language (I think this would require complete immersion - being in the country, not able to use any other language for communication). For whom that doesn't work, learning about the inner structure of a language - the "why"s - is extremely helpful. I thrive on structures and knowing *why* something is the way it is; maybe others are fine just absorbing it. And there are many different learning styles in between, which all has to be taken into account in a classroom, in which case I think a balanced approach that includes all kinds of input and output is best.
All this is not to criticize or disagree or anything, I'm kinda just formulating my thoughts on this in real time as I learn how I can be a great teacher.
I fully agree with you, Steve, however, I think that these days there is a lot of pressure on language teachers because of the language exams. Many students want to take the exam quickly without spending too much time with the language. And thus there is no time for fun stuff only for the most important things.
I'm an English teacher and I think that most teachers never really think about the lesson from the students' perspective. I'm always amazed at how much some teachers talk, not realising that it's the student who needs to talk. Another mistake that I have seen so many teachers make (even highly qualified ones) is just telling students the answers or telling students exactly what their mistake was without first giving the student a chance to correct themselves or figure out the mistake for themselves. In my lessons I have a lesson plan and I am just there to guide the student through the lesson. As the lesson goes on my aim is to hand more and more control over to the student, get them to figure things out, to use the language creatively.
I will add that teaching is not an easy job. Being a good teacher takes a lot of patience and focus. After a full day of teaching my brain is usually fried.
Well said. I agree 100%. I chose to study a foreign language with my objective being to fully experience what my students experience. What I have been learning has helped me to improve my teaching far more than any university class in education.
That's fully right
As a language teacher, I'd say that you are right in claiming that they/we mostly only pay lip service to the communicative approach. Personally, I think the term 'Language Teacher' is an oxymoron. No one in the history of the world has ever taught another person a language, if you think about it. People acquire language on their own! A coach that provides some motivation and a bit of help is a different matter. Everyone could do with some of that.
For myself, I would add, a good language teacher is one that answers my questions when I have them. I have a Korean teacher from iTalki. We have two activities that I term reading and conversation. i have started to read a book - actually several months ago. I send her the pages which I photograph, and we read it together. Between sessions, I import the text into LingQ - photograph the text, optical Character recognition, editing - and try to understand the story. With LingQ I find the meanings of words almost instantly - one main reason I value LingQ - and I have several sources for getting answers to how words are used. Then, when we meet, I read, translate, and ask questions about what doesn't make sense. This gives me items to look at in more detail.
Conversation is my learning to tell stories in Korean. I do, for myself, a short version in English that reminds me of what I want to say, which I type out. When we meet, I tell the story in Korean. If she understands, she gives me ideas on how I can say the same thing more clearly, or idiomatically, or correctly. If she does not understand, then free conversation where I try to explain in Korean. I a worst case, she understands English well enough so that I can say it that way. I am slowly beginning to be able to ask my questions in Koran and understand the answers.
I like the reading, and the book - though beyond my ability - keeps me interested. I like telling stories, although it involves using structures and words that I don't know. I can feel my improvement, and I enjoy the lessons.
One last note: one thing that deadens my interest is not being able to get an answer to a question right away. LingQ is invaluable to me for reading, and the teachers for unraveling difficult and idiomatic expressions and structures. The faster I get an answer, the more I can cover comfortably, and the more my interest remains high.
The reason is two fold: 1) assessing accuracy and grammar is very easy to do and 2) the educational systems are built on the foundation of assessments
Thanks for the video. I'm currently studying to get a degree in French Teaching. I find the info really helpful. We need to listen ti people like you, who have such great experience in learning languages. You inspire me to learn more!
You make a lot good points here, Steve! What I really dislike is when students or sometimes their parents almost force the teacher to focus on passing exams rather than on acquiring the language. I believe it’s the wrong way to go. It’s like choosing a small but immediate goal over a really important but a more distant one.
To me learning and teaching grammar is essential because it gives one an autonomy of self-expression. Grammar allows for creating your own sentences and narratives, instead of forcing upon you repetition of what someone else have expressed in a textbook or a phrase book. (Btw, this why I have heard many times from many people that they absolutely hate the Callan Method and that attending Callan courses didn't teach them a language or didn't allow them to become "fluent"). I see one common element very often: people who don't know grammar very well find it very hard to move from a begginer to an independent- user level. This is something I have noticed in any language I have taught to others or have learned myself so far. For example during obligatory group classes or commercial group courses which I have attended due to my education. I was also forced to learn Swedish from a scratch without any grammar, in a mixed group of international adult students. And guess what have happend? Entire group went on strike demanding the introduction to grammar. Now after years, knowing more about adult brain than I knew at the time, I finally understand why. Beyond certain age we do think in grammar structures which we already know. This happens regardless of our will or any conscious decision- making. So it's really hard for adults to learn a new foriegn language without learning grammar. Especially if this language is not very similar to their own native language. It's a bit different story with kids and very young adults, but looks like everything changes for us once we go past the age of 16, beyond so called neural-pruning period. My fellow students who went on "teach us Swedish grammar "strike were around 22 -23 years old at that time. So I suppose that adults older than them might feel the urge that their brain needs to learn grammar even more intensly.
From my small experience with languages and my bigger experience with music I think the more I'm trying to learn languages the more I believe learning a language is just like learning and practicing a music instrument.
Thanks! Great video! I've been watching many of your videos for almost two months. Your methods have been working for my Mandarin study. Looking forward to future videos.
As a language teacher I enjoy very much these topics.
While it is true that the key to teaching a language is to motivate the learn to be curious and challenge themselves, the unfortunate fact is that very few students in a traditional k-12 langauge classroom have anything like that kind if mindset. They want an A in their tramscript. Having students who have can be motivated in that way is quite rare. Adult learners are different.
Children don't focus on accuracy first when they learn to speak their native language, they make lots of mistakes. So, we don't need to worry about accuracy before we can understand the language, then when we already can speak we should focus on pronunciation and grammar.
i wish you the best in learning arabic
Thank you, and for the comment above
Totally agree. It would be really useful if we could encourage teachers to produce reading/ listening materials on interesting topics. Norsklærer Karense TH-cam (Norwegian teaching) produces podcasts (on podomatic) of around 40 minutes talking about daily life and what is happening in Norway. Her TH-cam channel is full of short useful videos explaining in Norwegian grammar points and idioms. They are great because when you come across a construction you don't understand you can click on the video and get a quick explanation but it also gives you listening practice. So you are motivated to go to the channel just for the listening practice. It doesn't matter if I forget the point because I got some listening practice
Muchas gracias, Steve, por este tema tan importante y que desvela a muchos.
Steve then you are the best teacher ;) always motivates us to become better language learners.
9:15 Hahaha je m'attendais tellement à ce que tu parles français et encore moin avec un tel accent , incroyable !
I do expect grammar, but I expect comprehending Spanish 2, French 2, German 2 etc, by the end of the school year more than grammar rules . If not then, by the end of taking it in college. I've had two out of three teachers/professors who focused way too long on conjugating verbs.
We never got to the other parts of speech with the exception of some nouns and adjectives for vocabulary quizzes.
By the time I took Spanish 3 in college , I was lost. That professor finally focused on understanding the parts of speech and the word order. The problem came in when he only spoke in Spanish. I was devastated. I barely skimmed by with a "C".
10 years later, and my Spanish comprehension is of a newborn baby . My speaking is of a 2 year old girl. My reading is 1st grade elementary, and my spelling is 5th grade.
I am Arab, and an Arabic/English teacher and I'm impressed by your motivation to learn Arabic, it is not an easy language AT ALL, it needs real determination.
I'm a full time job worker, but I would love to help you and volunteer whenever I have free time ❤
This will work with adults, children are impossible to be motivated trust me 😂😂
About the books I encourage you to read school books, preferred syrian "I've grown up in different countries and learned different curriculums" , it's kinda basic language, history, geography whatever you want, download it online, it'll help
You deserve a lot more suscribers Steve, you are great
Excellent points. I never thought about a teacher acting as a guide before, interesting
Cheers Steve
You would think that these language teachers would finally realize by now that the grammar is not helping people progress.
Ryland Dickman I think their problem is testability. They want to dissect a language in such away that they can measure students' progress with an objective metric.
The problem in this case is the entire way our school systems are set up; not so much to improve abilities, but to measure masses of students.
bocephushere try Language Transfer course on Spanish it's a really good free course. You can find it on TH-cam by searching "Language Transfer"
bocephushere Language Transfer is much better than Michel Thomas because he makes you aware of everything at a totally different level. Language Transfer is much more systematic. I've learned to speak Spanish, Italian, Portuguese & French thanks to Language Transfer. It's the thought processes that make all the difference. Language Transfer teaches the grammar effortlessly so you get the biggest burden out of the way right away & it doesn't even feel like you're learning grammar because he explores what for example Spanish might be thinking when it makes the distinction between Ser & Estar.
Jim Beane the pdf is basically only for teaching purposes e.g. I've taught Spanish to a couple of my friends with it. You shouldn't really listen to the tracks when driving or so. If you're in a bus or so, it's fine as long as you can pause the audio before you hear the answer & build the sentence yourself. In case you didn't listen to the intro track: You have to participate by pausing the audio before heading the answer & then build the sentence yourself. Then once you say it out loud, listen to the voluntary student's answer. If you don't build the sentence yourself, you'll think that you're learning when in reality you're just witnessing someone else's learning experience.
T33K3SS3LCH3N I just wrote about this, but your answer was short compared to mines.
I too said that listening comprehension and pronunciation is subjective. Grammar and spelling is objective. I think this is why they focus more on those two parts of language learning.
Such an important topic, that so few people understand the importance of.
Thanks Steve for another great video
love your channel man
'something concrete they can teach'. I'd add 'something easy they can test'.
Dear sir sir,Please suggest which language is better for teaching jobs in abroad
Hey Steve, as someone who loves to read on LingQ (Especially during the night). I was wondering what you thought about LingQ introducing a night time reading mode. Where the white background wouldn't be so intense on the eyes, but maybe a softer color.
I will look into it and get you an answer.
Mark Chavez just use flux
This is something that has been discussed but is not a priority now. There are settings on your portable device. I started using these on my iPad.
Thank you for the reply Steve, and looking into it for us. :)
Downloaded Flux onto my computer, Wow! does it do a difference thank you for the suggestion! And Happy Langauge learning!
Thanks Steve😄
always very helpful!!
As for Arabic material, I recommend you Media Development Center TH-cam Channel. They offer very nice audio stories. For example, المجنون. Unfortunately, I couldn't find pdf version of the stories.
Hi steve how can i volunteer for the levantine arabic translation.
Thanks a lot. Please send me an email at steve@lingq.com and I can provide more information.
Hi Steve, I am interested to volunteer in helping you to learn Arabic. I found your Email here in your reply to Fit Henry. Hi Fit.
Actually, I got very interested in your approach for learning/acquisition 2nd language. First of all I'm not a professional language teacher, but an engineer. my narrow specialty is Naval Architecture. I posses M. SC. in Naval Architecture, and Ph.D. in Total Quality Management. Throughout my business life, Education (learning and teaching) about what is up to date in my field, attracted me at the time. Lately, I myself, found that the best thing to assist Non-Arabic speakers how to learn Arabic, would be easier through International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA). I am enthusiastic to assist you within my capacity. I am Egyptian, 75 years old. I put a research idea that includes multidisciplinary specialties; for making pronunciation of Arabic easier to Non-Arabic speakers, using the modern digital techniques available in each specialty, through E-learning. It is a sophisticated specific scientific research, that needs long time and effort to accomplish. However, I think my English fluency will improve when working together with your team. Email: aboulnaga1942@yahoo.com
I think they focus on grammar because it's something they can objectively grade. Listening comprehension and pronunciation is subjective.
I remember my teacher in 10th grade, had each student come to her desk individually, and recite numbers 1 thru 100 in Spanish. I scored high, but I think she weaseled me out of a few points. Had there been 2 second opinion there about my pronunciation since it is subjective , I think I would have scored higher.
Here's an idea. Maybe have every professor who teaches that specific language, come and test listening comprehension and pronunciation. They could do it similar to a judging panel. They ask each student a few questions in Spanish, listening to their pronunciation and grammar, then score them. Next, base off how many judges are on the panel, they can divide their scores by the amount of judges to get a score. The con to this is the time it would take, but I think it's worth it.
Hi Steve!
I find your videos always very helpful and open-minding. For last 1,5 year approximately I started my "polyglot" journey and I'm learning languages like crazy and starting watching your videos really helped me with new approaches. Thanks!
I am also a student of Belarusian philology, so here is my question, would you like to have some Belarusian stories on Lingq?
Believe it or not we have our mini-stories translated into Belarusian at LingQ. However, we are always interested in more content. You can register free of charge and have a look.
I wonder if there are classrom language teachers that have set their students up on Lingq. Would be interesting to see how it would work.
We are in touch with the number of teachers who use LingQ in the classroom.
كم عدد الدروس ؟
من الممكن ان اساعد فيها
I just want to say, I do not think anyone should learn Egyptian Arabic or any regional Arabic. It seems to me it would be really weird to learn non standard Arabic. I mean one could use some vocabulary from some region like Egypt, but to learn Egyptian Arabic primarily, does not seem useful to me.
It makes sense if you are living there or about to spend some time (several years) because of your job for example. Oterwise it is better to learn standard as it is probably the most universal starting point and more common.
Merci Steve pour vos vidéos. Elles sont une grande source d'inspiration. Petite remarque: pour parler d'un livre sur un ordinateur, le terme n'est pas "digital" en français, mais c'est "numérique". La question à poser est, "Est-ce que vous avez le livre en version numérique?"
I can translate the arabic levantine . I am palestanian jordanian and syrian
Can you speak russian please. Long time no see
OK Will try to do so next time
Steve Kaufmann - lingosteve 👌
"I don't understand it very well (scratches ear) or at all really" steve Kaufmann on learning languages.XD I love it so much honesty
Hi, Steve! I am using Lingq and, despite it being a totally different learning method / system to traditional learning, I really am getting so much out of it in Mandarin. It's fantastic. My question is, do I spend time learning each vocabulary word or just exposing myself to new material and barreling ahead as I go. I am finding the incidental learning of new words / characters to be great, but I wonder how much time to devote to mnemonics and things to memorize each word.
From my experience with Mandarin, you do need to put deliberate work into learning new characters. Otherwise, my approach is to mix up the deliberate study of vocabulary items using our activities with more reading and listening. I like to vary things. It is all exposure, and whatever we think we have learned, we are about to forget.
Yes, I agree! I've picked up so much incidentally in the characters, as well. I've done about 40 lessons and I barely had to memorize any of the characters until the last few. I know this is just the beginning, but I love Lingq!
Hello Steve, how many languages you have a good level of comprehension?
probably around 15
I can only do recordings for French and Esperanto. ^^
If you're looking for an external motivation other than from yourself to learn a language, it won't last.
Hello I am from Egypt , if this offer is still valid, I would gladly record some stories for you in my Egyptian accent
❤if you're interested I'm here
I am her for the poster😶
The problem with language teachers is that they are expensive...
That is why you need to leverage them. Lots of hours of listening and reading with a few hours a week of face-to-face instruction is enough.
I am an Arab and I don’t mind helping :)
Mr. Steve, I think you should meet Canguro English. It is a youtube channel. He is the best teacher I have ever known. He thinks just like you.
The belief is people won't "study" if they're not "forced."
Aquarian Christianity I sadly have to agree 😂😅
العربية لغة جميلة سوف تكتشف هذا بنفسك
Your language learning skills, in Arabic is so poor. Let me explain. Any non-Arab, learning Arabic, HAS TO learn, something called SARF 'morphology' . You cannot learn Arabic without it, if you are non-Arab. Once you have acquired it, you will know the meaning of the roof of one word, and derive from it, 10-50 words.
I think learning a language from a non-native speaker is like learning to play a musical instrument from a person who has neither a sense of rhythm nor an ear for music.
Interesting point of view. I tried both and found out I have skills for both, I wonder if there is a reason, a relation for that. However languages require less effort for me, I didn't stick with music.
I believe you haven't watched the video. One doesn't learn a language from a teacher. A teacher is more like a coach, someone who will GUIDE, MOTIVATE and SUPPORT the student toward learning, providing resources and other stuff. Hence, your teacher doesn't need to be a native speaker, but he has to provide you with the aforementioned things.
not really