I think doing SOME speaking in the early stages is helpful, if only to reassure the student that they can form the words and other people can understand what they are saying. I agree it doesn’t have to be much and it doesn’t have to be very hard. They get kids to sing nursery rhymes in French at school here and that’s probably as good a place to start as any.
I admit that I would not speak or write as a beginner. My concern is to get the typical beginner or newbie to LingQ in touch with someone who can encourage, inspire and help. It is difficult to get the input based learning philosophy across because most people do not want to read explanations or watch videos. Usually those that do are already interested.
We could have a visitor`s lounge or beginners lounge. Maybe we could somehow have thee testimonials or proposed study plans there with links to the members profiles. Maybe we could encourage the newcomers to post on the members walls.
One thing that beginners could do is submit their lists of words and phrases for native speakers to record. The native speakers could then import these into the library and share them as content, if we created a separate category, Recorded Lists. This is really just for beginners, but may help with input learning, and get them involved with the community. Just an idea.
Should we just have the learners actual study plans, or should we have the proposed “typical plans”? and do we keep the animals?
Perhaps in the community page where it shows the top scorers you could have the animal types next to their names to give an idea as to what their study habits are. New learners could be directed towards the community page and they might become curious about some of the top learners and what their ‘secrets’ are. Then I guess you could have a link to either a description of the animal or a more detailed outline of their study habits. Is this the kind of thing you’re thinking about?
Peter,
I do not know but any ideas are welcome, but hopefully wihtout using programmer resources for the next little while.
A major strength of LingQ is that you can study in the way that suits you as an individual; a major weakness is that that isn’t immediately apparent to the casual browser. Hence I would vote for keeping the animals and the suggested “recipes” for study, and encourage beginners to try them out and then post in the beginners’ lounge the recipe that seems to work best for them.
I would also encourage letting beginners see the learning style as well as the study statistics of all the existing learners. We could all buy cuddly horses and porpoises and be cuddling them in our profile pictures.
Interesting topic. Written comments are even more interesting. Highlight the dilemmas that in professional circles “retired” years ago. Comment ‘‘sprachenfreack’’ is part of the evidence.
Even more simple explanation and answers you can view and listen to the You Tube - Broadcast:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E45F202069EEC35E&search_query=algworld.
Or simply dial in the search box on the David Long ALG Method (part 1,2,3,4,5,6).
My answer to the basic question in this topic is still followed.
My concern is that the diffident beginners who are unsure what to do will be confused/deterred by the choices they have to make.
Also I don’t like instructions such as do this X times. For someone like Peter who already knows French, it may take him only one or two readings of a Spanish text to fully understand it. For someone whose native language is Chinese and with no previous knowledge of French or other romance languages, he/she will have read it a lot more times. I like the way Pimsleur advises learners to move on to a new lesson if they understand 80% of a lesson. It doesn’t matter whether you have to do the lesson once or 20 times. As long as you can understand 80% of it, you can move on. I think any LingQ advice should be similarly performance-based.
A new “How I use LingQ” forum wherein existing members explain how they use LingQ could prove to be very useful to newcomers. Members such as alleray, skyblueteapot, dilemme, etc. have made impressive improvements with LingQ. Their story/advice will assure newcomers that LingQ really works.
Cantotango: “Also I don’t like instructions such as do this X times.”
Nor do I! That’s why I suggest the word recipe instead of plan. I see recipes as starting points only. Some people like onions, others leave them out.
“A new “How I use LingQ” forum wherein existing members explain how they use LingQ …will assure newcomers that LingQ really works.”
If it doesn’t take too much programming time I would suggest a “Newbies” lounge with “Oldie’s” experiences and suggestions made into sticky threads. I wouldn’t use the word “beginners” because it could put off the people who are new to LingQ but experienced language learners.
Sorry for still leaning out off the main topic.
Thank you, alleray and sprachenfreak! With the support of the Language Acquisition Equation, I can now bet my new red Cadillac that Steve have spent more than 1000 hours for his Russian! Please be both my LingQ friends!
I especially like how it illuminates some true facts from my life:
“More often, foreigners live with their own families, and their exposure consists only of managing their daily affairs in the new language. This may seem like a lot of exposure, but when you add up the few seconds here and few seconds there and multiply this by your percentage of understanding, it rarely exceeds 10 minutes a day. At this rate, fluency would take 23 years.”
The only fault I find with this Equation is its simplicity. Couldn’t we add more natural constants into it? The beginning may be like that:
k is the acquisition constant: .0018
e is the natural logarithm base: 2.718
π (pi) is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter: 3.1415.
Don’t get me wrong David, I indeed liked it. It’s funny how reasonably it fits into what we may expect.
P.s. I don’t have red Cadillac.
I love the idea of the animals in a Newbie’s Lounge. If Helen wants a cuddly porpoise for her picture, I’d need a cuddly sloth. As to the hours discussion: when I used to teach years ago, we reckoned 120 hours input for each stage. By input we meant classroom time only, ie a school year for each of the various stages. I know that with LingQ it is much, much faster. One more thing: ToneN: I cannot easily make sense of your posts. Could you please make them a bit simpler, because I would like to be able to follow your reasoning?
Great ranging of ways of studying, Steve! I do rather plan 2, but I wish 3 or 4. Listen at first without reading is pretty new for me, actually I do it other way. Is it more effective? I think I’ll try it myself to find out.
I like to think that I’m a serious student, but I suppose I am a “Porpoise” student! Neither good nor bad, but I just purchased Steve Kaufmann’s book The Way of the Linguist at Amazon.com. To be a Porpoise or not to be? I hope in any case to learn how to become an informed Porpoise. 
Sanne:
Your declaration -on my posts- is unquestionably correct. We are also very aware. I think the point -in my publication- only possible conclusions. At least the guessing. The “apology” I said only one argument. I learnt intensive English only good 4 months (end of May 2009). So I am a typical example of student-beginner.
From the beginner of the very unrealistic to expect to write posts without many, many errors. And yet through the dictionary. Why? There is a logical explanation. Beginner’s vocabulary is essential too little, actually zero and they do not know precisely grammar rules. There is also the main cause for the beginners “avoid” the debate with tutors and do not participate in discussions on this forum.
As I have outlined: a beginner would be the beginning rather quiet. At least until they receive basic training. Children instinctively adhere to this. Adults often their “knowledge” over-estimate. But I do not knowIs is it really wrong or not.
Steve:
I owe you is my answer to your basic questions, which read: "There are many more ways to study at LingQ. I would like to hear if you use anything similar to these approaches. Do you think that showing this Journal would be helpful or confusing Tues Newcomers at LingQ? "
It is true: there are many more ways to study at LingQ. This clearly show all posts on this topic. Hundred people, hundreds of variants. It’s essential where and in what colic during this path leads. Forward this case illustrate the metaphorical. On top of high mountains (language skills) runs several routes (learning methods). Separated after the difficulty (or walking or climbing), after the necessary time (shorter or longer path), and especially after that or are marked (guided explicit) or non-labeled (left to the discretion of the individual). It’s thus walking in the high mountains in various combinations. Some combinations -especially non labeled- but there are also life-threatening (failure to learn).
These codes define the complexity of the animal, which also directly affect the time required. Not that the answer to the most significant. Is itself an essential method of teaching which means that it’s all outlined in advance, defined in detail. Short: run explicit. If members only asking about a work method that means only one thing: this method has not been finally completed as specified. There is why the members could cast doubt. At this point Steve is our thinking clearly different.
What I want to say the following: with beginners is the essence of the leadership, guidance. I hold child’s the hand and they run the right path. If you let go will be quickly found in serious difficulties. In my estimation this is the most critical aspect of LINQ methods. Some tutors are insufficiently aware of this. Many beginners are essentially in doubt. Would vary between whether or not to be. Bad monitor and manage such a beginner can really quickly “lost”: finally. This is definitely not the LingQ primary aim .
I will be thinking about how long it takes to learn a language. But in a way it does not matter. I have been at Russian over 3 years. If I have averaged more than one hour a day that would be over 1000 hours. I have not done any for two weeks but listened to some today and it was clearer than ever.
I will try to refine the study plans and think of how to use them. Keep the ideas and alternate study plans coming, please.
I just read a book, a Portuguese translation of an English book by two brain researchers from the University of London, (Blakemore and Frith). I will be writing on this but it tends to show that~
- the brains learns all the time, and mostly implicitly, not deliberately
- we gradually develop inhibitions which limit our flexibility and ability to discern and learn new things
- when we are very young we are better at picking out new patterns, e.g. grammar. When we are older we are better at learning meaning and words. As we get older our brains become more bilateral, and less left brain oriented in learning grammar or new patterns.
Repetition can help but mostly with short term memory
5) Episodic memory is more long term
6) Emotion is a powerful influence on learning and memory.
There will be more on this, as I am in a free internet access point in Braga, provided by the municipality, my wife is waiting in the hotel and we are about to go touring. But some of this info has to be integrated into how we plan our learning activities at LingQ.
I believe one function of LingQ, perhaps the most important, is to liberate the natural and implicit learning abilities of people, to overcome the accumulated inhibitions, and to use certain techniques, like repetition or flash card review to help with short term memory, until long term memory kicks in. For the long term memory, and the ability to learn from meaning to be effective, the emotional attachment to the content is important.
I just realized that the text boxed skewed the language equation from my above post. The basic language acquisition equation should be:
y = 1-e^(-kx)
where
y is how much language they know (1 = native).
x is how many hours they have understood.
k is the acquisition constant: .0018
e is the natural logarithm base: 2.718
So, given that I’ve listened to and understand a grand total of about 20 hours of Chinese, the equation would be
1-2.178^(-(.0018)(20))
which if you put into Google will tell you that I’ve acquired about 4% of Chinese, which seems pretty reasonable to me, given that I can understand about 500 without context and 1000 words in context and that 50% of all spoken conversation is made up of only about 100 words, at least according to Tony Buzan.
The obvious difficulty with this equation is determining how much language you’ve listened to AND understood, but I think that can be reasonably approximated.
What`s 100% of Chinese?
x (hours of listening & understanding) → infinity, y → 1 (native)
I love that equation and have spent some time scribbling on envelopes since David posted it.
I figured it had to be a y = e to the power minus x equation to make the graph the right shape. It’s one of those curves that starts quickly at y= 0%, then slows down and never actually reaches the y= 100% (I know everything) mark. The gradient (steepness) of the graph depends on:
how hard the new language is compared to the ones you already know (Chinese for English speakers is very hard)
how efficient your learning technique is (for LingQers should be pretty close to 100%)
how many hours of the language you have listened to
what proportion of the listening you understood (which LingQ gives us an approximation of with it’s % of new words statistic).
Most of those you don’t have much control over, so it really does boil down to how many hours you spend on listening and whether you understand what you are listening to (unknown words less than 20%, say).