(teach) successful learners in Earl Stevick's book: what worked

[karenstanleyma-3]

Back in 1989, Earl Stevick published a book, "Success with
Foreign Languages:  Seven who achieved it and what worked for them"

This is now available free (legally) for download as a PDF file at

http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/languagelearning/booksbackinprint/successwithforeignlanguages/success.pdf

 - or -

http://tinyurl.com/l7e2g2

He looks at the fact that different successful learners found value in different approaches and techniques, some of which seem to be diametrically opposed to each other.  I quote from a section of his summary:

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The learners we have met in this book often differ markedly with regard to what they consider to be `natural,' and what they prefer to do or not to do. They differ also with regard to the kinds of data they seem to hold onto best. Ann depends on her ear and is quite content to repeat things before she has seen them in writing; Frieda would probably have failed Hebrew if she had not found a way to see the printed lessons ahead of time. Ed, Eugene and some of the others want to understand the structure of things before they practice them; Carla is ready to practice immediately, but has trouble with the requirement to deal with grammar. Gwen dislikes drills and Carla was defeated by them, but Bert, Derek, Ed and Frieda place high value on this kind of relatively mechanical activity. Ann is excellent at mimicry, while Bert didn't even try it. Ann simply cannot learn words out of context; Bob, Bert and Dexter are good at it. And so on. Hardly a clear model for an aspiring language student who wants to profit from their example!'

But a learner should also be cautious about accepting guidance from us specialists in language pedagogy. Too often, we fail to resist the human urge to `construct an entire method on one brilliant insight' - to `latch onto one key idea and follow it long and far,' as Karl Diller once put it.[2] Somebody notices that much can be gained, at least with certain learners, by practicing sentences aloud before seeing them, or by picking up grammar without formally studying it, or by understanding grammar before practicing it, or by maintaining a tranquil atmosphere in class, or in some other way. These insights all too easily lead to the conclusion that reading should be minimized, or that grammar study should be done away with, or that it should be given first place, or that teacher-generated challenges are always bad or the like. In one of A. A. Milne's verses, the discovery that `marmalade is tasty if it's very thickly spread' brought about an immediate movement to delete butter from the king's breakfast menu altogether.

Nevertheless, I think I see emerging out of all these contrasts and contradictions an overall pattern....
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I leave it to you to read the remainder if you find this interesting.

Karen
http://karen.stanley.people.cpcc.edu
Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

[John Pullen]

From my own efforts to study Mandarin while in China, I found that staying with one method did not keep me motivated and became stale so I needed to find new activities and processes nearly every few months.  At times I wanted grammar, but for others times I looked to immerse myself into conversations and everyday activities to make jumps in ability to use the language.  My ability to learn a language is very low and so it may help account for the need to vary so much.


john    
Life's a journey not a destination, help others along the way.

--- karen stanley wrote:

Back in 1989, Earl Stevick published a book, "Success with
Foreign Languages: Seven who achieved it and what worked for them"


He looks at the fact that different successful learners found value in different approaches and techniques, some of which seem to be diametrically opposed to each other. I quote from a section of his summary:

------------ --------- --------- ----
The learners we have met in this book often differ markedly with regard to what they consider to be `natural,' and what they prefer to do or not to do. They differ also with regard to the kinds of data they seem to hold onto best.


 
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Nelson Bank]

>I found that staying with one method did not keep me motivated and became stale>

I took less than 6 months of Chinese vocabulary and grammar when I first arrived in China.  It opened up a world of understanding.  I was not able to converse about Yang Yun's new shoes with the fresh vegetable vendor on the roadside, but then he hadn't read my textbook, but I did manage to exchange some of the construction parts, for example the name of a vegetable instead of 'shoe' in a similarly constructed real conversational exchange.  Just knowing that the subject goes before the verb in Chinese, as it does in English, helped me immensely.

Nelson Bank