Let me reproduce the whole discussion with the coworkers.
First, their told me they listened to some dialogues every English class and they could not catch a single word. When they read the same dialogue (or these dialogue is read by another Russian-speaker) they understand pretty well. But they do not understand spoken English at all. My answer was: LingQ! I said that they need to listen more, but this input should be comprehensible, they should understand what they listen to. So, first they need to read text, and then to listen to the audio version of it. And after several weeks of intensive listening they will understand spoken English a way better. After all I did not understand spoken English at all when I registered on LingQ, although I did not have problems with understanding written English, and my writing skills were quite good too.
And their answer was: ‘No, all we need is to live in an English-speaking country for 6 months.’
My answer was: ‘No, it will not help. First, the input will not be comprehensible. Second, you will find either Russian-speaking immigrants, or an enthusiastic learners of Russian and will communicate only with them.’
And then their answer was: ‘I tried LingQ, downloaded and audio-book, but I did not understand a word!’ — ‘Had you read it before? Had you created lingqs?’ — …
People just do not want to learn English. The company pays their English lessons, so they have to attend classes. And if they pass an international English test, they will receive bonus. So, this goal is to pass the test. Speaking English is not their goal at all.
@redeian: "Native people are willing to talk with immigrate people who cannot speak English well? Do immigrate people have any chance to make friends even they have language barrier? Might it be a reason that immigrate people feel more comfortable to live with other immigrant people. No offence. I’m just curios. "
To tell you my opinion, there are many different kinds of people in the world. I’ve seen people make friends and there was no common language. I guess “broken” English was the common language. Though there are people that do not like to bother to waste time as time is spent making money For some, it’s already hard enough to make friends with fellow native speaking people as it is.
I guess it’s human tendency to stick with your own kind or be with those that are familiar to you. I guess everything is individual, but of course with any place there are extremists and there are racists. I personally, would prefer to be around fellow Aussies as we have a common history (childhood memory), common social behaviour, common topics to talk about (general understanding of current affairs) etc.
Though I do know people who like to meet and interact with other people. You meet some who are nice and you meet some who are not…
I agree with Milan. It all depends on the individual.
I know of an immigrant from China who improved his English by getting on the bus and sitting beside older people and talking. I know of another Chinese immigrant who spoke flawless English. He had a degree in engineering but ended up working for a landscaper after immigrating to Canada and this landscaper needed someone to go door to door selling his services in an area where there were no Chinese. This immigrant took it on, and after 6 months was fluent in English. He is now a successful car salesman.
The bottom line is that if you are an immigrant, you have a lot of time ahead of you, so the effort needed to acquire a language is minimal. The problem is that people don’t know what to do in order to learn or to improve. They think they have to take a class, or study grammar, or talk to native speakers.
For learners of English, there is so much graded material available that all you have to do is expose yourself to it regularly. For other languages, more research may be needed to find appropriate materials.
For immigrants to other countries, the situation may be different. I’ve been in Japan for 6 years, and just during that time, I’ve noticed a marked increase in the amount and quality of graded material for learners. Plus, there are more and better textbooks as well which provide a lot of content and moderate amounts of explanation.
"The bottom line is that if you are an immigrant, you have a lot of time ahead of you, so the effort needed to acquire a language is minimal. "
No, no, no! In my experience if you do not really go after English in the first year, you will just get used to living in your own language. The effort required is not minimal, it is tremendous. The same was true when I moved to Japan. For the most part, only those who committed to the language and in their first year, made any significant progress.
Graded material is not the answer. I have no interest in graded material past the first few months. I prefer authentic material, as soon as possible, as long as it is of interest. Yes it is harder, but that is the point, learning another language is hard work.
You have been in Japan for 6 years and are looking for graded material??
No, I’m not looking for graded material, but I see what’s on the market sometimes when I’m in the bookstore. There is much more now than there was when first I came to Japan. When those Japanese graded reader’s produced by Prof. Sakai’s wife were released, I found them really helpful - that was probably 4 years ago or so. At that time, I was comfortable reading level 3 and I remember wishing that they had been available when I started because they would have helped a lot.
Still though, I have no objection to content created for learners even today. If I saw something interesting, I’d pick it up. The main bookstores have fairly large Japanese-learning sections. And there’s an entire store in Kojimachi dedicated to Japanese learning materials. Sometimes I see interesting things at a more advanced level.
I know lots of people in Japan who didn’t make much progress in their first few years, but then later got more serious about the language. I think it varies a lot from person to person. I also know people who’ve been here for 10 or 15 years and can’t speak at all. If they had just spent 30 minutes a day with level-appropriate material, they would’ve learned Japanese a long time ago. The key for immigrants, I think, is to get to the point where you can interact with the society around you. After that, it kind of takes care of itself.
It also depends on what kind of community you have. The Chinese community in Vancouver is so big that you can successfully live in it. That is not the case for most immigrants in most places. If you’re a Vietnamese immigrant to Vancouver, are you really going to be able to live your life in Vietnamese?
I know you don’t like graded material, but I do. There’s a tremendous amount of material being created in English for learners. Just because the target language is learners doesn’t mean the material won’t be interesting. When I was in France in the summer, I picked up some graded readers. They’re mostly simplifications of famous novels. I’m happy to read them because I can basically understand them and they come with audio. If I’m patient, and continue every day, eventually I’ll naturally transition into authentic material. So long as I have interesting graded content, I don’t have a problem with it.
@ Bortrun: “isn’t LingQ largely based around graded material created for learners?”
I would have said that LingQ is largely based around the tools to help you learn language through whatever material you choose. There is a library of material created BY learners, for learners. It may be people’s shopping lists, diary entries or their kids’ favourite jokes. It isn’t deliberately structured learning material, and sometimes the grading is clearly an afterthought or even automatically generated by the system.
There’s also a lot of content created by non-learners for learners - imported langauge learning podcasts and so on. There’s a lot of great material out there created for language learners. there’s the “journal en francais facile” for french learners, for example.
But I agree that the heart of “LingQ” is the ability to make links and to have those links and known words remembered for future texts.
Anyway, my intention wasn’t to say that it’s easier for immigrants to learn a new langauge, but they do have the luxury of time. If they just keep at it every day, then eventually they’ll get it. It’s certaiinly a lot easier nowadays than it was when my family immigrated to Canada in the 50s.
That is just the point Mark, the immigrants do not have the luxury of time. If they do not make the effort to learn early on, the will likely settle into a pattern of life with little English, or very poor English.
I suspect it was easier to learn English when your parents emigrated because there were fewer immigration settlement organizations, which function more like a cushion, preventing integration and language improvement.
I understand what you mean, but I wonder if those immigrants feel like it’s too late to learn English or something. Or they feel that the task is too overwhelming in the beginning, and so they give up or never try. Maybe if they knew about something like LingQ, they would be able to study at their own pace and be able to integrate and interact more and more over time.
Maybe it was easier to learn English before, but my dad and his siblings (arriving as adults) found it very difficult.
Are you familiar with the ISS in Vancouver? Do you have any opinions on it or the programs it runs?
Ok, it’s the Immigrant Services Society. They have a school downtown which is subsidized and primarily for immigrants - although sometimes study-abroad students go there too. I’ve heard it’s pretty good.
“The bottom line is that if you are an immigrant, you have a lot of time ahead of you, so the effort needed to acquire a language is minimal.”
The bottom line is that you have never been in the skin of an adult immigrant, Mark -:).
Statistically an immigrant, especially in the first year, is a nervous and often an unhappy creature. They doubt if they ever find a decent job and make the ends meet. They have children to feed and educate, the rent or, in the good cases, the full mortgage to pay. They are very far from the idea that they have a lot of time ahead of them. They are motivated to improve in the language. They are not always sure they have right to put all their time and effort into it (“which is still not improving, perhaps because I am already old”) They may opt to deliver a pizza.
I’m not an immigrant, but I’m the child of an immigrant, and I come from a city with a very high level of immigration, so I think I’m familiar enough with the experience.
I have to admit that I’ve now forgotten how this whole conversation got started, but Steve was talking about adults who immigrate and just live in their own culture and don’t learn the local language. My point was that they have a long time to learn, so a little bit every day can make a big difference. They can begin by associating mainly in their own language group, learning the local language as they go, and eventually branching out. Steve seems to think that this will not happen, and immigrants either learn at the beginning or they don’t learn at all.
For immigrants who do not have a support community, or who are not able to find a job because of their low level of language ability, it’s a different situation.
I am sorry I just do not agree that immigrants have no time to improve their English, especially given that it is the most important thing they can do to improve their chances to get a good job. There are long waiting periods to get into the government sponsored ESL programs at places like VCC. I see no evidence that these courses help immigrants very much, and much anecdotal confirmation from immigrants who found the courses not very helpful.
$3,000 per immigrant per year are channeled into these immigrant service organizations with little benefit, from what I can see. If the immigrant were promised $3,000 for achieving a major improvement in his English we might see a difference.
I would tell immigrants that language improvement is going to depend on them, what they listen to and read, where they spend their time etc. and that the classes are not going to help them much.
I know a lot of Asian immigrants in Vancouver, and I came over as a five year old and knew a lot European immigrants in Montreal in the 50’s, none of whom expected the government to teach them English, from what I remember.
A lot of immigrants just think learning English is hard (if not impossible). I believe this is partly due to the promotion of the “critical period” belief by ‘experts’ like Patricia Kuhl discussed in another thread.
