Learning a foreign language: a collection of delusions
How to learn a foreign language? Almost everyone was faced with learning a foreign language in their life: at school, in high school, someone went to a course, studied with a tutor, or tried to study on their own. Everybody tried, but it was far from all. Why?
To answer this question, you need to understand that we are doing "not so." The problem, in my opinion, lies in the so-called “folk linguodidactic”, which is built on the common misconceptions about what language is, how it works and how it should be studied. These errors are common both among those who study and among those who teach.
Let's look at the most noticeable misconceptions and see why they are wrong and how they prevent us from learning the language.
So let's start with the most important thing:
')
The fallacy here is not the statement itself, but its absolutization. Yes, language is used for communication and we do it every day. What is mistaken here is that the majority believes that the communicative function of the language is the main one and almost the only one. And what else does a person need a language for?
In fact, communication is only the visible part of the iceberg, which is our ability to speak. The fact is that language is closely connected with our thinking. And this connection is much more complicated than “I thought of what to say - I said.” Thinking (in its full sense), its most complex forms need language, without it they do not exist.
This does not mean that language is equal to thinking. But without language, thinking would be limited only by the most primitive forms — direct reactions to the situation, simple expressions of desires and emotions.
If you “look into yourself” a little, think about how language affects the formation of our thoughts, then you can try to see its role.
You probably happened to understand some difficult material, for example, in some complex concept or in the device of something complex. You have read the description, definition, examples of work or use. It seems everything is clear. Not completely, but in general terms ... sort of ... understandable ...
Now try to describe out loud what you have just "sort of understood." If you really understand everything well, then you will be able to tell everything immediately, in a simple and understandable language. If the understanding was incomplete, then you will notice it very quickly - you will begin to stumble, turn to the source text, get confused. But as soon as you can finally “speak out” the new concept completely (or write it), you can be sure that you have understood everything.
This mechanism lies, for example, at the heart of the practice of note-taking. If you wrote notes on your own, if you wrote, understanding that you were writing, and not “dictation”, then most likely you will not have to re-read them - you already understood and remembered everything. Therefore, it makes sense to read other people's notes only in a most hopeless situation, since there will be very little use from this activity.
Did you write “spurs” before exams? I wrote. But never used. Once I managed to write down all the Latin grammar studied in a year on six tiny little leaves. He wrote only the most important thing (there is little space!), For which he had to dig in reference books and textbooks, he wrote, squeezing everything, pulling out the most essential. After the “spurs” were ready, I realized that I remembered everything. Since then, I have been preparing for exams this way many times - I wrote cribs, but I never used them. The secret is very simple - an explicit description (oral or written) of some thought puts it in order, compresses it into a tight lump, leaving only the most important thing. And this consciousness, which is properly structured, can be easily swallowed by our consciousness and stored in memory.
And one more trick, how to understand something complicated: try to explain it to someone. The mechanism is the same - pronunciation, the design of raw thought by means of language brings it to a completely usable state.
But if language is more than just a means of communication, then what is the word?
It would seem - this is obvious! Here is the word - it is written in letters (or pronounced with the help of sounds), it has a meaning (translation). What is there to invent?
Speaking of the word, as a set of letters "with value", we replace the content with a description. It’s about how to say that a person is skin with meat)) Yes, we both have skin and “meat”, but not only that, to put it mildly))
To understand what a word is, let's again “look into ourselves.” Close your eyes and ask someone to say any word. If you concentrate on this word, you will see not letters, not some abstractspherical object in a vacuum , but some real situation in which there is an object called by this word, and which you have already met in life or imagined. Some associations, perhaps fragments of memories ... but enough - open your eyes.
The secret of this effect of the word lies in the fact that the word does not exist by itself, simply as a set of letters and sounds with a certain abstract meaning. The word always exists in context. Even an isolated word, “drags” behind itself some images, situations, memories. Remember “ Night, street, lantern, pharmacy. "? It would seem - just a listing of nouns. But where does a strong and lively image come from? It is from there - from those images that we (each have our own) associated with these words and their combination.
But how then do we understand each other, if we each have “our own” words? The fact is that the meaning of a word is dynamic and consists of two parts - a constant (relatively) and a variable. The constant part consists of the most repetitive contexts and is activated when there are no other contexts (“by default”). And the variable part is always bound to the context (for more details, see Kecskes ). Therefore, when you are asked to close the door in the room where you are, you do not need to languidly close your eyes and imagine the door of your childhood. The door is one - the context is defined. Go and close.
By the way, now it becomes clear why many who begin to learn a foreign language always translate everything. For example, to say something in the target language, you have to first “think up” what to say in your native language, and only then translate. This happens precisely because foreign words are still devoid of their contexts, and without them, even knowing the meaning of the word (usually by translating it into our native language), we are not able to construct a complex thought (which then turns into a statement). “Dead” carcasses of foreign words, consisting only of their external appearance (writing and sounding) and nailing “meanings” nailed into them in the form of a translation into their native language, are not capable of independently combining into more complex structures. Therefore, you have to constantly “fall out” into your native language in order to build a thought and give it a form of expression.
Mnemonic methods (memorizing words according to, for example, their consonance with words in their native language) lead only to the fact that you can memorize more words and translate them faster (if the meaning of consonant words is close in meaning to the words being studied), you get a sort of "carcass on steroids ", But fundamentally this approach does not change anything. As well as other methods of accelerated memorization of vocabulary cards, interval repetition, etc. Although, if your main goal is memorizing words, then these methods will help you. But to learn something more complex than playing the memorized, you will not succeed. All these methods are useful only as a first step to mastering words, but in themselves they are not sufficient.
Worse, only translation methods of memorizing words tightly tie “your” foreign language to their native language. It will be very difficult for you later to “tear off” your foreign speech from the model of perception of reality (global set of “default” contexts) with which your native language is connected.
I do not consider the use of translations harmful. It is just the first (simple and natural) step towards acquaintance with a word in a foreign language. I am against it being the only one (as is often the case). Obtained with the help of translation and memorizing the "carcass" must be revived, giving it a context from a living language.
What is grammar? "Skeleton" is it or not? There is a point of view in modern linguistics that we are all born with “built-in” grammar. That is, the ability to build words into logical sentences (we can read Chomsky and Pinker on this subject) is already at the genetic level “embedded” in us. So our head almost from birth is crammed with either the "skeletons" themselves, or blanks for them.
But not everyone agrees with this point of view and believes that the language develops in parallel with our thinking (for example, Vygotsky ) and / or is a consequence of social development ( Sampson and many others).
Question debatable. But the second point of view is closer to me with some modification. The modification lies in the fact that the language should be considered as a dynamic system (in the understanding of the Theory of Dynamic Systems ), which develops due to the interaction of its constituent processes, moving from a stable state to an unstable state and vice versa. Perhaps, we already have mechanisms for the operation of this system. But to imagine that some basic grammar is ready-made in us is difficult for me.
Language is by nature dynamic. And the dynamics are inherent not only in lexical meanings in connection with contexts, but also in their combinations - statements. A grammar is a kind of abstract description of possible interactions of contexts that are associated with words. Therefore, it is not the grammar that defines the structure of the utterance, but the words, the interaction of their meanings. And what we see in textbooks and grammar reference books is only a kind of generalization of the most frequent cases of such interaction.
Yes and no. Yes, if we proceed from the above understanding of words and grammar. And no, if we believe that words are what is written in the dictionary, and grammar is what is described in the textbook.
The traditional reduction of the language to a set of combinations of words, understood as “bricks”, and grammar, understood as the basis (“skeleton”) of the utterance, leads to the fact that most people who want to learn the language enthusiastically begin to learn word lists and crammed grammatical rules.
The saddest thing is that even the most stubborn and hardworking, who have learned thousands of words and are able to reproduce from memory all the rules of grammar, can neither speak, nor write, nor understand by ear, nor can they read with difficulty.
But in spite of all the horrors of a misunderstanding of the language, there are many people who are quite tolerable, and sometimes they are very good at foreign languages. Why do they do it?
If you ask a person who is fluent in the language how he did it, then most likely we will hear that he watched a lot of films in the target language, listened to songs (and even sang along!), May have talked with native speakers, or even lived “there ".
In fact, everything is logical - such a person did not spend all his time on brewing and memorizing the external attributes of elements of the language, but memorized words in contexts. Already at the early stages of such training, a person forms a viable (albeit quite small) system of interacting values ​​/ contexts that can independently unite into utterances without the help of translation (by the way, translation is a very costly operation, I'm not talking about the mass of difficulties associated ethno-cultural aspects of translation).
It would seem, here it is - a solution! Alas, not so simple.
To some extent, you can learn, you can even speak fluently and understand a lot, but there are also problems here.
First, there is a threshold of entry. You can not understand the series in a foreign language, not knowing at least basic vocabulary and grammar (in whatever sense you do not understand these terms).
Secondly, without external "guidance" we ourselves can "invent" such a version of the language being studied, which will have little in common with reality. For example, one of my friends argued that all English verbs should be used with the ending -ing , since "it is more conversational and modern."
There are methods of learning a foreign language, which are built on memorizing a large number of phrases and sentences, on listening (even without understanding!) Large fragments of audio texts, and so on, from the first lessons. Neither translation, nor zubrzhki ...
The problem with these methods is that we are so arranged that it is difficult for us to keep in mind a large amount of unstructured information. Our consciousness will try to “squeeze” the incoming flow of information. This can lead either to the creation of a “own version of the grammar” of a foreign language, which has little in common with the realities of this language, or to the fact that the student of this language after the euphoria of the first days of classes (“I spoke in a foreign language at the first lesson!”) He will quickly fall into sadness-sadness, since he cannot remember the whole flow of information and began to forget what seemed simple and clear at first. Usually, people give up, give up such miracle courses, and sometimes even come to the conclusion that they generally have no ability to learn the language.
There are also such cases when the victim of express methods comes to the conclusion that it is worth confining to a couple of grammatical structures, since the rest are “outdated and almost no one uses them now.”
You can, of course, “leave it that way” - the basic level of communication can be achieved by such methods, but it is very difficult to consider this semi-finished product as knowledge of a foreign language.
A complication of this option is that the victim of such a technique forms an incorrect idea of ​​the language, which then will be very difficult to correct.
The fact that a language consists of contexts, of our experiences, leads to the conclusion that language learning is very individual. American linguist Krashen believes that the effectiveness of learning a foreign language is affected, for example, even by the emotional context - something that is boring, we do not remember, but we are likely to remember what surprised or pleased us. Therefore, for example, we well remember words and expressions from favorite songs in a foreign language. But it is very difficult to find a song that everyone would like. And not every song, from those that we like, contains that language material that may be useful to us outside the context of this song - how often you will have to use the lexicon of some composition in style, the name of which contains the words death, thrash, hard ?)
At the same time, learning cannot be spontaneous when all the decisions and conclusions must be made by the student himself.
I think that a more detailed description of the "ideal" system of teaching foreign languages ​​deserves a separate discussion, but here we can mention some important characteristics of such a system.
To answer this question, you need to understand that we are doing "not so." The problem, in my opinion, lies in the so-called “folk linguodidactic”, which is built on the common misconceptions about what language is, how it works and how it should be studied. These errors are common both among those who study and among those who teach.
Let's look at the most noticeable misconceptions and see why they are wrong and how they prevent us from learning the language.
So let's start with the most important thing:
')
Misconception the first: Language - a means of communication.
The fallacy here is not the statement itself, but its absolutization. Yes, language is used for communication and we do it every day. What is mistaken here is that the majority believes that the communicative function of the language is the main one and almost the only one. And what else does a person need a language for?
In fact, communication is only the visible part of the iceberg, which is our ability to speak. The fact is that language is closely connected with our thinking. And this connection is much more complicated than “I thought of what to say - I said.” Thinking (in its full sense), its most complex forms need language, without it they do not exist.
This does not mean that language is equal to thinking. But without language, thinking would be limited only by the most primitive forms — direct reactions to the situation, simple expressions of desires and emotions.
If you “look into yourself” a little, think about how language affects the formation of our thoughts, then you can try to see its role.
You probably happened to understand some difficult material, for example, in some complex concept or in the device of something complex. You have read the description, definition, examples of work or use. It seems everything is clear. Not completely, but in general terms ... sort of ... understandable ...
Now try to describe out loud what you have just "sort of understood." If you really understand everything well, then you will be able to tell everything immediately, in a simple and understandable language. If the understanding was incomplete, then you will notice it very quickly - you will begin to stumble, turn to the source text, get confused. But as soon as you can finally “speak out” the new concept completely (or write it), you can be sure that you have understood everything.
This mechanism lies, for example, at the heart of the practice of note-taking. If you wrote notes on your own, if you wrote, understanding that you were writing, and not “dictation”, then most likely you will not have to re-read them - you already understood and remembered everything. Therefore, it makes sense to read other people's notes only in a most hopeless situation, since there will be very little use from this activity.
Did you write “spurs” before exams? I wrote. But never used. Once I managed to write down all the Latin grammar studied in a year on six tiny little leaves. He wrote only the most important thing (there is little space!), For which he had to dig in reference books and textbooks, he wrote, squeezing everything, pulling out the most essential. After the “spurs” were ready, I realized that I remembered everything. Since then, I have been preparing for exams this way many times - I wrote cribs, but I never used them. The secret is very simple - an explicit description (oral or written) of some thought puts it in order, compresses it into a tight lump, leaving only the most important thing. And this consciousness, which is properly structured, can be easily swallowed by our consciousness and stored in memory.
And one more trick, how to understand something complicated: try to explain it to someone. The mechanism is the same - pronunciation, the design of raw thought by means of language brings it to a completely usable state.
But if language is more than just a means of communication, then what is the word?
Misconception the second: The word - consists of letters (sounds) and is a "brick" for constructing statements using grammar
It would seem - this is obvious! Here is the word - it is written in letters (or pronounced with the help of sounds), it has a meaning (translation). What is there to invent?
Speaking of the word, as a set of letters "with value", we replace the content with a description. It’s about how to say that a person is skin with meat)) Yes, we both have skin and “meat”, but not only that, to put it mildly))
To understand what a word is, let's again “look into ourselves.” Close your eyes and ask someone to say any word. If you concentrate on this word, you will see not letters, not some abstract
The secret of this effect of the word lies in the fact that the word does not exist by itself, simply as a set of letters and sounds with a certain abstract meaning. The word always exists in context. Even an isolated word, “drags” behind itself some images, situations, memories. Remember “ Night, street, lantern, pharmacy. "? It would seem - just a listing of nouns. But where does a strong and lively image come from? It is from there - from those images that we (each have our own) associated with these words and their combination.
But how then do we understand each other, if we each have “our own” words? The fact is that the meaning of a word is dynamic and consists of two parts - a constant (relatively) and a variable. The constant part consists of the most repetitive contexts and is activated when there are no other contexts (“by default”). And the variable part is always bound to the context (for more details, see Kecskes ). Therefore, when you are asked to close the door in the room where you are, you do not need to languidly close your eyes and imagine the door of your childhood. The door is one - the context is defined. Go and close.
By the way, now it becomes clear why many who begin to learn a foreign language always translate everything. For example, to say something in the target language, you have to first “think up” what to say in your native language, and only then translate. This happens precisely because foreign words are still devoid of their contexts, and without them, even knowing the meaning of the word (usually by translating it into our native language), we are not able to construct a complex thought (which then turns into a statement). “Dead” carcasses of foreign words, consisting only of their external appearance (writing and sounding) and nailing “meanings” nailed into them in the form of a translation into their native language, are not capable of independently combining into more complex structures. Therefore, you have to constantly “fall out” into your native language in order to build a thought and give it a form of expression.
Mnemonic methods (memorizing words according to, for example, their consonance with words in their native language) lead only to the fact that you can memorize more words and translate them faster (if the meaning of consonant words is close in meaning to the words being studied), you get a sort of "carcass on steroids ", But fundamentally this approach does not change anything. As well as other methods of accelerated memorization of vocabulary cards, interval repetition, etc. Although, if your main goal is memorizing words, then these methods will help you. But to learn something more complex than playing the memorized, you will not succeed. All these methods are useful only as a first step to mastering words, but in themselves they are not sufficient.
Worse, only translation methods of memorizing words tightly tie “your” foreign language to their native language. It will be very difficult for you later to “tear off” your foreign speech from the model of perception of reality (global set of “default” contexts) with which your native language is connected.
I do not consider the use of translations harmful. It is just the first (simple and natural) step towards acquaintance with a word in a foreign language. I am against it being the only one (as is often the case). Obtained with the help of translation and memorizing the "carcass" must be revived, giving it a context from a living language.
Misconception the third: Grammar - "skeleton" of the statement on which words are strung.
What is grammar? "Skeleton" is it or not? There is a point of view in modern linguistics that we are all born with “built-in” grammar. That is, the ability to build words into logical sentences (we can read Chomsky and Pinker on this subject) is already at the genetic level “embedded” in us. So our head almost from birth is crammed with either the "skeletons" themselves, or blanks for them.
But not everyone agrees with this point of view and believes that the language develops in parallel with our thinking (for example, Vygotsky ) and / or is a consequence of social development ( Sampson and many others).
Question debatable. But the second point of view is closer to me with some modification. The modification lies in the fact that the language should be considered as a dynamic system (in the understanding of the Theory of Dynamic Systems ), which develops due to the interaction of its constituent processes, moving from a stable state to an unstable state and vice versa. Perhaps, we already have mechanisms for the operation of this system. But to imagine that some basic grammar is ready-made in us is difficult for me.
Language is by nature dynamic. And the dynamics are inherent not only in lexical meanings in connection with contexts, but also in their combinations - statements. A grammar is a kind of abstract description of possible interactions of contexts that are associated with words. Therefore, it is not the grammar that defines the structure of the utterance, but the words, the interaction of their meanings. And what we see in textbooks and grammar reference books is only a kind of generalization of the most frequent cases of such interaction.
Misconception number four: A language consists of words and grammar, and to learn a foreign language, you need to learn words and memorize grammar.
Yes and no. Yes, if we proceed from the above understanding of words and grammar. And no, if we believe that words are what is written in the dictionary, and grammar is what is described in the textbook.
The traditional reduction of the language to a set of combinations of words, understood as “bricks”, and grammar, understood as the basis (“skeleton”) of the utterance, leads to the fact that most people who want to learn the language enthusiastically begin to learn word lists and crammed grammatical rules.
The saddest thing is that even the most stubborn and hardworking, who have learned thousands of words and are able to reproduce from memory all the rules of grammar, can neither speak, nor write, nor understand by ear, nor can they read with difficulty.
But in spite of all the horrors of a misunderstanding of the language, there are many people who are quite tolerable, and sometimes they are very good at foreign languages. Why do they do it?
If you ask a person who is fluent in the language how he did it, then most likely we will hear that he watched a lot of films in the target language, listened to songs (and even sang along!), May have talked with native speakers, or even lived “there ".
In fact, everything is logical - such a person did not spend all his time on brewing and memorizing the external attributes of elements of the language, but memorized words in contexts. Already at the early stages of such training, a person forms a viable (albeit quite small) system of interacting values ​​/ contexts that can independently unite into utterances without the help of translation (by the way, translation is a very costly operation, I'm not talking about the mass of difficulties associated ethno-cultural aspects of translation).
It would seem, here it is - a solution! Alas, not so simple.
And again a delusion: Language can be learned from songs, movies and with the help of “live” communication.
To some extent, you can learn, you can even speak fluently and understand a lot, but there are also problems here.
First, there is a threshold of entry. You can not understand the series in a foreign language, not knowing at least basic vocabulary and grammar (in whatever sense you do not understand these terms).
Secondly, without external "guidance" we ourselves can "invent" such a version of the language being studied, which will have little in common with reality. For example, one of my friends argued that all English verbs should be used with the ending -ing , since "it is more conversational and modern."
There are methods of learning a foreign language, which are built on memorizing a large number of phrases and sentences, on listening (even without understanding!) Large fragments of audio texts, and so on, from the first lessons. Neither translation, nor zubrzhki ...
The problem with these methods is that we are so arranged that it is difficult for us to keep in mind a large amount of unstructured information. Our consciousness will try to “squeeze” the incoming flow of information. This can lead either to the creation of a “own version of the grammar” of a foreign language, which has little in common with the realities of this language, or to the fact that the student of this language after the euphoria of the first days of classes (“I spoke in a foreign language at the first lesson!”) He will quickly fall into sadness-sadness, since he cannot remember the whole flow of information and began to forget what seemed simple and clear at first. Usually, people give up, give up such miracle courses, and sometimes even come to the conclusion that they generally have no ability to learn the language.
There are also such cases when the victim of express methods comes to the conclusion that it is worth confining to a couple of grammatical structures, since the rest are “outdated and almost no one uses them now.”
You can, of course, “leave it that way” - the basic level of communication can be achieved by such methods, but it is very difficult to consider this semi-finished product as knowledge of a foreign language.
A complication of this option is that the victim of such a technique forms an incorrect idea of ​​the language, which then will be very difficult to correct.
So what to do?
The fact that a language consists of contexts, of our experiences, leads to the conclusion that language learning is very individual. American linguist Krashen believes that the effectiveness of learning a foreign language is affected, for example, even by the emotional context - something that is boring, we do not remember, but we are likely to remember what surprised or pleased us. Therefore, for example, we well remember words and expressions from favorite songs in a foreign language. But it is very difficult to find a song that everyone would like. And not every song, from those that we like, contains that language material that may be useful to us outside the context of this song - how often you will have to use the lexicon of some composition in style, the name of which contains the words death, thrash, hard ?)
At the same time, learning cannot be spontaneous when all the decisions and conclusions must be made by the student himself.
I think that a more detailed description of the "ideal" system of teaching foreign languages ​​deserves a separate discussion, but here we can mention some important characteristics of such a system.
- individual selection of training materials (it is possible that on the basis of self-selection of the student)
The language must be studied on the material that is subjectively important, interesting and useful. Only in this way can we “convince” our mind to remember what we are trying to remember. - learning words in contexts, not reducing learning words to their memorization
For example, if you have a list of words, try to have them related contextually rather than thematically.
So, a list that combines the words “animals”
elephant, dog, giraffe, cow, hippo
more difficult to remember than a list describing a certain "default" context
elephant, Africa, savanna, heat, sun - the system should be able to determine which step in the training needs to be done for this particular student (Vygotsky's zone of proximal development ), his individual learning trajectory
The contexts studied should determine where to go next (taking into account clause 1) so that each next step is given with the least effort, as already mastered contexts have already prepared the ground for this step. - theory, generalization should not precede new material. On the contrary: from a living language to generalization.
A formal description of a grammar should follow simple examples, and not precede them. The examples themselves should, again, be “tied” to us by those that are interesting, amusing, etc.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/364967/
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