The Best Way to Learn a New Language
Why the typical classroom style learning doesn’t work for me
Going through high school I found it nearly impossible to learn how to speak a new language. The class was not that difficult to me. I received an “A” and was inducted into the French National Honor Society, but if someone asked me how to say a word in French I wouldn’t be able to. Memorizing French translations didn’t work well for me. This brought me to the question what is the best way to become fluent in a language?
Many different companies like Rosetta Stone will try and convince you that their product is the best and fastest way to learn. But most neuroscientists would agree that a person has to be surrounded by native speakers to fully become fluent. A study done by a professor at Georgetown University suggests the same results. Professor Ullman said, “Those who trained with the classroom method also became more native-like in their brain processing. But only the immersion group showed full native-like processing of the grammar.” These results show that learning in a classroom can help one learn a language, but being fully immersed in a language is much better.
James Paul Gee is a highly accredited linguist. In his journal “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction” he says the same thin as Ullman. He says that it’s necessary for one to have “social practice”. A person can’t just sit in a classroom and learn a language. They have to be surrounded by it and be hearing/using it every day. Much like when we all learned our first language. Yeah our parents had us read books and write out the letters of the alphabet, but we truly learned how to speak from everyday use. We had no choice but to learn the language or it would have been impossible for us to get what we wanted.
Through my experiences I would have to agree with the two examples above. Sitting in a classroom didn’t help me out very much. I found myself just doing what I needed to do to get an “A”, not trying to actually understand the language. The thing that really convinced me learning in a class was the wrong way to do it was when we would take listening tests. This is when we would actually listen to a French native speaker talk and be quizzed on it. The minute that person started talking I had no idea what was going on. I could know all the translations in the world, but hearing a French Native speak it completely messed me up. Now I am not saying that a person has to go to France to learn Fench, but they should at least be around native French speakers. Hear what they are saying and try to communicate to them. I believe that is the best way to learn a new language.
If you would like to see the article done by the professor at Georgetown University follow this link.
If you want to read James Paul Gees book follow this link.
https://verbafacture.wikispaces.com/file/view/Gee.Discourse.pdf
