Language Learning Guide PDF

## A summary of the book There are four things that you need to do when you learn a foreign language: - Principle 1: Work out what your needs are and learn what is most useful for you - Principle 2: Balance your learning across the four strands - Principle 3: Apply conditions that help learning us...

## A summary of the book There are four things that you need to do when you learn a foreign language: - Principle 1: Work out what your needs are and learn what is most useful for you - Principle 2: Balance your learning across the four strands - Principle 3: Apply conditions that help learning using good language learning techniques - Principle 4: Keep motivated and work hard - Do what needs to be done You need to spend equal amounts of time on each of the four strands: - Learning from meaning-focused input (listening and reading) - Learning from meaning-focused output (speaking and writing) - Language-focused learning (studying pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar etc) - Fluency development (getting good at using what you already know) ## Language learning activities You need to be clear why you are learning the language. If speaking the language is your main goal, you need to get some help on pronouncing the language early in your study of the language. If reading is your main goal, do a lot of regular deliberate learning of vocabulary and a lot of reading. There are about twenty language learning techniques that you should use and you need to understand how to use these techniques well and in the right balance. These are described in the activity boxes in this book. ## When you start learning the language, get hold of the 120 item survival vocabulary for that language from Paul Nation's web site, and learn that using word cards. If the survival vocabulary has not been made for your language, get a speaker of that language to help you make it using the English survival list as a guide. If you like using a tablet or cell phone, find a good flash card program for doing your word card learning. Otherwise, use small cards putting the foreign word or phrase on one side and the translation on the other. Become really fluent with the survival vocabulary by practicing it over and over again. ## Get a movie that you like in the foreign language and find the script for it on the web. Watch parts of the movie many times while studying the script. ## Get a short book in the foreign language and start working your way through it with a dictionary. An easy book is best and the books that native-speaking children use at school when they are first taught to read can be a good choice. When you have read the book carefully, read it again at least twice more quickly. Put the repeated words on to word cards to study. ## Do lots of easy reading every week. ## Try to arrange a regular speaking time with a native speaker either face-to-face or on the web. Practice useful role plays of common situations, such as greeting people and saying goodbye, buying things in a shop, asking for help and asking directions. Repeat these role plays several times so they can be done fluently. Keep a list of them so they can be practiced again and varied over several weeks. ## Learn useful phrases and sentences as whole units but also make sure you understand their parts and how they fit together. Understanding the parts makes the whole phrase or sentence easier to remember. ## Avoid learning near synonyms, opposites or members of a lexical set together. Lexical sets are groups like the months of the year, the names of fruit, colours, parts of the body and articles of clothing. If you learn the words in such pairs or groups at the same time, the words in them get mixed up with each other making them harder to learn. ## Spend some time regularly studying and practicing pronunciation, preferably with a teacher who understands about the sounds of the language. This is very important if you are learning a language such as a tone language like Chinese which uses very different sounds from your first language. ## The conditions for language learning The two most important conditions supporting learning are spaced repetition and the _**quality of attention given to items.**_ Quality is increased by recalling what you have met, making varied recalls, analyzing and elaborating on language items, and giving deliberate attention. ## Learning a language involves a lot of work and even the most talented language learners work hard at a learning a language, so be prepared to work hard, work regularly and keep your motivation high by noting your successes in using the language and in increasing your language knowledge. Set regular weekly goals for words to learn, pages to read, and minutes to spend doing listening. Keep a record of what you do so you can see your progress. ## Chapter 1: What do you need to learn a foreign language? This chapter outlines four basic principles that learners should follow when they are learning another language. In the following chapters each of these principles is given much more detailed attention. This chapter thus provides an overview of the book. - **Principle 1:** Work out what your needs are and learn what is most useful for you - **Principle 2:** Balance your learning - **Principle 3:** Apply conditions that help learning - **Principle 4:** Keep motivated and work hard - Do what needs to be done ## Will following the principles described in this book help my learning? This book can help you, and here are some possible reasons why. If your language course does not provide large amounts of input through reading and listening at the right level for you, then you are missing a very important opportunity for learning. Research with very young foreign language learners, found that by increasing the amount of interesting and understandable written input without increasing class time, learners had almost double the language proficiency gains of those who followed a program involving the same amount of class time but with much less input. These gains were maintained a year later. Similarly, if you are not doing deliberate learning through using bilingual word cards, but instead are spending time doing a variety of vocabulary related exercises, you are likely to be learning vocabulary at less than half the rate that you could easily achieve. If your course does not include fluency development activities such as timed reading, then following a timed reading course taking a total of around three hours of study will increase your reading speed in the foreign language by at least 50% and in some cases will double your reading speed. There is a lot of research on learning foreign languages, but the findings of this research do not always get put into practice. Applying the findings of some of this research can result in very dramatic increases in learning. ## Principle 1: Work out what your needs are and learn what is most useful for you If you are clear about why you are learning a language, you can better choose what and how to learn. Most people want to be able to speak a language, but some have the goal of reading it. If you are already part of the way through your language study, then test yourself to see how much you know. ## To get an idea about how much you need to learn when you learn another language, here are some vocabulary size figures from English. It is likely that European languages like French, Spanish, Dutch and German require similar vocabulary sizes. Other languages are likely to require similar sizes but there is no research on this. To be familiar with 98% of the running words in a friendly informal conversation, or to be familiar with 98% of the running words in a movie, you need to know around 6,000 different words. To be familiar with 98% of the running words in a novel or newspaper, you need to know around 8000-9000 different words. This is a lot of words and native speakers learn them at the rate of around 1,000 different words a year, until they reach a vocabulary size of close to 20,000 different words. However, as we shall see, not all words are created equal, and with a vocabulary of 1,000 to 2,000 of the most useful words we can hold adequate conversations and get most things done. ## Principle 2: Balance your learning Balancing learning is probably the most important principle, but it does require some skill and effort in applying it. The principle of the four strands says that if you want to have a well-balanced language course, you need to spend equal amounts of time on - Learning from meaning-focused input (listening and reading) - Learning from meaning-focused output (speaking and writing) - Language-focused learning (studying pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar etc) - Fluency development (getting good at using what you already know). All four strands are important and they need roughly equal amounts of time. In Chapters 3 to 6 we will look at how this can be done. If the language you are learning has a sound system that is very different from your native language, it is worth deliberately learning about the sound system of the foreign language. This means finding a teacher who can do more than say sounds for you to copy; the teacher needs to explain how the sounds are produced in your mouth. An alternative is to do that study yourself. Some people can learn the sounds well without help or study, but if you are having difficulty with the sounds, then it is best to have a teacher. If your goal is only to read the language, then the time that you would spend on output (strand 2) can simply be changed to more reading input. Similarly, if your goal is just to speak the language (particularly if the script of the language you are learning is difficult), you may want to make all of your input strand consist of spoken language. ## Principle 3: Apply conditions that help learning Learning a language involves both deliberate and incidental learning, and these both involve the conditions of repetition, retrieval (recall), varied meetings and varied use, using visuals, and deliberate attention. Good learning also involves avoiding interference which makes learning more difficult. We will look in more detail at these conditions in Chapter 7, but they are mentioned throughout the book because they are so important. Is there a best method for learning a language? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Language learning can occur through all kinds of methods. What is most important is that good principles of learning are applied. You may have heard of methods like grammar-translation, aural-oral, the silent way, Suggestopaedia, the communicative approach, and TPR (Total Physical Response). These all have their supporters and attackers. Each method has its strengths and weaknesses and there is no research that shows the superiority of one method over another. It is fine to follow a particular method although it is not necessary. What is important is that there is a balance of learning opportunities across the four strands of meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development. It is also important that the learning conditions of repetition, retrieval, varied meetings and varied use, deliberate attention, and deep processing occur. ## The most useful items to learn should get the most attention and you need access to material which is at the right level for you. ## Principle 4: Keep motivated and work hard–Do what needs to be done Many people begin learning a language and then give up when they see how much work is required. It takes young native speakers many years to learn their first language and they are highly motivated to learn it. When learning a foreign language, there is often not the immediate motivation of being able to use what you have just learned. It is usually easier to learn when the language is being used around you. A learner of a foreign language needs to set short-term goals where there are signs of progress and achievement. This can be as simple as learning twenty new words, or learning how to answer the telephone. Having clear short term goals can keep motivation high. In Chapter 8 we will look more closely at motivation and working hard. A very useful principle to follow when learning most things is the time-on-task principle. This principle says if you want to learn something, do it a lot. If you want to learn to read, read a lot. If you want to learn to speak, speak a lot. This is a rather crude quantity-based principle, but it works. The more time you spend doing something, usually the better you will become at doing it. It is easy to criticize this principle because it concentrates on quantity rather than quality. However, there is a lot of research to support it. In the following chapter we will look at finding out what you need to learn. ## Chapter 2: Work out what your needs are and learn what is most useful for you To work out what your language learning needs are, first focus on what you already know, and what you plan to do with the language you are learning. What are your reasons for learning that language? ## Why are you learning the language? Language is used for a wide range of purposes and one way of speeding up learning is to focus on a particular purpose and the language needed for that purpose. So, it is helpful to be clear about your purpose in learning a particular language. For example, are you learning the language so that you can travel where that language is spoken? Table 2.1 looks at reasons for learning a language and how these affect what you need to learn. ## Table 2.1 Reasons for learning another language and what you need to learn | Reasons | Learning focuses | |---|---| | I am just interested in the language | Spoken language should be your major focus at the beginning. | | I am living in a country where this language is spoken and I want to be able to communicate with others | Spoken language should be your major focus. You should make a list of your speaking needs and keep adding to it. It is worth starting with some of the Survival vocabulary (Nation and Crabbe, 1993)*. | | My partner or another family member is a native speaker of that language | Spoken language should be your major focus. If the family member is willing and able to help you, you should start with useful repeated routines such as greetings and talking around daily repeated activities such as getting a meal ready or talking about what happened during the day. | | I want to travel in countries where that language is spoken | You do not need to learn a lot of the language. Learn the Survival vocabulary. Aim for a high degree of spoken fluency with the items in that very limited vocabulary. Put all of the survival vocabulary on to word cards. | | I need to know this language to read books related to my work or subject area | You should begin working with the texts you want to read. This is because the technical words in the subject area make up a very large proportion of the running words in such texts (somewhere between 20% and 30% - that is one in every three to five words will be a technical word). If you read outside your subject area you will need to learn many words that are not useful in your subject area. | | I need to study for a degree using this language | Start working with the texts you will use in your study. Put unknown words onto word cards and do the same with repeated phrases. Study these cards every day. | | I want to use this language to do business with people who speak this language | Start working with conversational spoken language and then move to business-focused conversation. | | It is a university or school requirement and I want to pass the final exam | Get examples of the final exam and prepare for the kinds of questions the exam asks. | \*Go to Paul Nation's web site to find the survival vocabulary in a range of different languages in the Vocabulary Resource Booklet The list of reasons in Table 2.1 is roughly ordered according to the strength of motivation to learn the language. The strongest motivation is usually a strong feeling of personal interest. The weakest motivations are those where other people's requirements are forcing you to do something. Motivation is highly likely to have an effect on how hard you work at learning the language. ## Note 2.1: Are all words created equal? If we do a frequency count of words in a text, no matter how long that text is we get the same pattern of results. A small number of words are very frequent, and a large number of words are very infrequent. A rather small number of words are very frequent The ten most frequent words of English typically cover 25% of the words in any text and the 100 most frequent words cover around 50%. Have a look at a page and see how often the word _the_ occurs (It occurs in almost every line in this paragraph!). By itself, that word covers 7% of any written English text. The most frequent 1,000 words cover around 80% of the words in most texts. In some languages the coverage figures are even higher than this. When learning words, it is good to learn the high frequency words first. The effort of learning these words is well repaid by opportunities to meet and use these words. Vocabulary specialists typically see the high frequency words of English as consisting of around 2,000 to 3,000 words. Only a small number of these words are function words (words like _the, a, of, because, it, one, which, that_). Most are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs (content words). or meaning words. You can make a frequency ranked list of the words in the language you want to learn by going to Sketch Engine www.sketchengine.co.uk. (See the instructions near the beginning of Chapter 2 of this book). You don't have to learn these words in exactly the same order in which they occur in the list, but you should learn them in groupings of say 100 words that roughly match the frequency list. A large number of words are very infrequent Half of the words in any text will occur only once in that text. So, if you read a novel which is 100,000 words long from beginning to end, you will meet around 5,000 different words (Captain Blood is 115,879 words long and contains 5,071 different word families). Half of the different words that you meet (well over 2,000) will occur only once. That means there will not be repeated opportunities to meet these words to help learn them, and if you look them up in a dictionary and study them, you may have to wait a long time before you meet them again. One of the skills in learning a language is to know what words are worth learning at each stage of your proficiency development. Because there are many low frequency words, it is best to read material that uses a controlled vocabulary so that your time is not spent on low frequency words that are not useful for you at your present level of proficiency. ## How much language do you need to learn to cope with being a foreign tourist? There is good news here. With around 120 words and phrases (which would take a total of four hours of deliberate study to learn), you can deal with the most basic requirements. These basic requirements include meeting and greeting people, being polite (please, thank you), going shopping, ordering food, seeking directions, reading signs, finding somewhere to stay, talking about yourself, and controlling language input. This survival vocabulary is available in over 20 different languages. It is very similar to the word and phrase lists that you find at the back of tourist guide books, except that this one has been well researched. You can find these lists at [http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation.aspx](http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation.aspx). It is a good idea very early in your language study to make sure that you have covered all the survival vocabulary because this is made up of very useful language items. ## Finding out about useful words and phrases by using a concordancer You can find out about particular words and phrases by using a computer-based tool called a concordancer. It is worth spending an hour or so learning how to use a concordancer because a concordancer can quickly give you lots of examples of a word or phrase you are interested in. These examples can be a great help for learning for the following reasons. - The examples will help you see the range of senses of a word or phrase, and will help you see which are the commonest senses. - The examples can show you how a word or phrase is used. - The number of examples can help you see how frequent a word or phrase is. - The examples can show you what words a particular word occurs with. This information is useful for deciding whether to learn a word or phrase and can help you learn it by enriching the information you have about that word. ## What is a concordancer? A concordancer is a program where you type in a word or phrase or two or more words, and the program searches for examples of these in a collection of texts (a corpus). There are two kinds of concordancers. The easiest to use are online concordancers where you go to a web site and use the program and corpus that the web site provides. Here are some useful web sites. - Netspeak [www.netspeak.org](www.netspeak.org) - Just the word [www.just-the-word.com](www.just-the-word.com) - Wordneighbours [www.wordneighbours.ust.hk](www.wordneighbours.ust.hk) - Word and phrase [www.wordandphrase.info](www.wordandphrase.info) - Compleat Lexical Tutor [www.lextutor.ca](www.lextutor.ca) The concordancer at [www.sketchengine.co.uk](www.sketchengine.co.uk) allows free searching for a limited time in a very wide variety of languages and corpus sizes. The other kind of concordancer is one that you download to your computer and so you do not use it online. You need to provide your own corpus to search for examples. It is not too hard to find a corpus or to make a corpus, but it is best to start learning about concordancers using an online concordancer. The best free downloadable concordancer is AntConc which can be found on Laurence Anthony's web site [http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/software.html](http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/software.html).