Perhaps the single best source I've found on rational language learning - especially her advice on the importance of grammar and categorisation. So refreshing to hear someone who's prepared to build from established first principles and call out the bullshit. And she knows her stuff - she's a highly credentialed cognitive psychologist with a lifetime of experience in developing literacy programmes around the world. As a relative newcomer to language learning with a background in training, I've found it surprising how much of the trendy current advice flies directly in the face of everything that we know about the psychology of skill learning. Helen's advice here is grounded on the principles that we've learned work for other skills. I was wary of the idea that language learning is some kind of special case where these insights don't apply, and this talk gives me more confidence that I'm on the right track. Three hearty cheers - I hope that this authoritative talk reaches a wide audience.
@Al 72 A quack? I'll bet she speaks a lot more languages than you do. Your experience was a special case, and not practical for the vast majority of learners. Luckily there are other approaches that work, as Abadzi points out. If your way was the only way, hardly anyone would learn more than one or two new languages.
@Al 72 I don't know what it is about language learning, but a lot of people find a way that works for them and then develop a quasi-religious view that it's the Only True Way and that anyone teaching any other way is a fraud. But if you read accounts from successful polyglots they use a very wide range of methods - different people learn in different ways. Some don't use grammar, but most do. Your argument against grammar goes - "I did a course that included grammar and it didn't work so clearly grammar is useless". But that's a logical fallacy - it's HOW you use the grammar that's key. Just because it's not helpful in one context doesn't mean it's useless in all contexts. I'm currently working with a coach who gets phenomenal results with his approach, which includes the study of grammar. Many of his students achieve C1 within months, working on their own at home part-time surrounded by their native language.
@Al 72 Knowledge/skill (driving a car, swinging a golf club, speaking a language) being at an unconscious competence level does not minimise the need for conscious learning of the rules of how it works. That said, I agree that there is an optimal point of learning grammar- and some evolution of conventional wisdom on the appropriate timing needs to occur. Btw- even a native speaker's language and understanding of it should evolve including being able to explain why one speaks the way do- otherwise, how does one consistently edit or explain any edits proposed to other people's writing or speech. When correcting others, there is a need for native speakers to be able to go beyond saying "this is just the way it is- I am a native speaker- unconsciously learn from me". From my point of view, and experience as a learner of several disciplines (including languages), Dr Abadzi's articulation of the efficiency benefits of learning grammar is robust and she goes at length to explain why this is the case. Furthermore, she does not ignore the central role of implicit memory/pattern recognition/induction as a means of learning languages and her conceptualisation addresses learning for various age groups. As I understood, she views grammar as a complement (aids categorisation, chunking) to natural learning/how the memory works system. She has credibility- she speaks 15 languages, is learning languages at age 65- not at a hobby level and provides a multidisciplinary perspective.
@Al 72 Shut up for Christ's sake. The difference between you & her is she's talking about principles predicated upon actual evidence & known results; you are just another "I did it this way & here's my secret" amateur. Sit down, close mouth, pay attention.
I agree about sweeping away the bullshit. This talk will bore some people because they've grown accustomed (and addicted) to fashionable and dishonest 'in a month' videos that seize on only part of a truth and call it a 'method'. The most popular right now is focusing solely on input: either just audio or audio + transcripts, derived from Krashen's work. His insights are valuable and listening does work, but the fact is if you are an adult learner it is difficult, as Abadzi says, to derive verb conjugations in the way a child does. Or to just ignore the fact that you don't understand 75% of the content. You'll find yourself checking, on a translation app maybe. So it's necessary to hammer-in at least the most basic common verbs and their conjugations - the old-fashioned way and make them second nature. Pimsleur recognised that. Grammar study works, but you have to take only what you need as you progress, rather than going through a book cover to cover. The best courses drip feed you the grammar you need as you go along. She's also right about building up chunks. Language is made up of a lot of set phrases put together in various ways; used as a framework to contain all the content you use to create a specific message. So learning repetitively used phrases in e.g. French like 'à mon avis'... 'c'est à dire'... or key structures like 'Il faut...' build that framework and you can concentrate on fleshing out with vocabulary. And so on. Most of all it takes work and no-one learns at the same pace or exactly the same way.
This is a crazy efficient summary of a lot of stuff. And wow, I’d never heard of the “use your old textbooks” thing before. I knew I hoarded old books for a reason.
One of the best talks on the main topic I have watched so far. In years. Should be recommended to: learners, educators, tutors, language schools, researchers in neuroscience, to people who complain "I'm too old to learn a foreign language" or "I do not have a talent for learning foreign languages". I would welcome any other form of follow up to this talk from this lady. But maybe with some notes or slides downloadable for everyone as well. Anyone who is both learning himself and teaching others as well has a lot to learn from her in my view. She did for sure put some aspects of teaching others and refreshing my own knowledge into perspective for me. I'm would like to thank You her for making to see at some problems I have encountered from a bit different angle. What is amazing given that I keep up to date with latest research in neuroscience as well. So I agree with her, we do need more of good neuroscientific research and we do need it badly. And it cannot be done without an insight like this talk from people like herself. I guess we all should say "thank You" to her husband as well. If he was the one who encouraged her to participate and to present this talk at the Polyglot Conference.
To slow down playback, I use Transcribe! by Seventh String Software. Designed for transcribing jazz music, but ideal for this purpose too. You can quickly highlight sections to loop at any speed you want. The sound quality is pretty good down to at least 70%. For getting native audio, why not find a teacher on one of the many exchange sites and ask them to edit and read your text. It won't cost much - no more than the cost of buying most prepackaged courses. Or many text-to-speech voices becoming pretty good these days.
for slowing down your own personal recordings, put them in audacity and slow the tempo, it preserves tone and everything else.you can also cut pieces of the audio and have it repeat for tricky phrases and save it for practice on that particular phrase.
50:30 - there is such an app. I'm using one called tc.audio (available in iOS). You can upload an audio file, select a portion of it, speed up or slow down that portion, play it on a loop, adjust the pitch, etc.
A quote from Helen's Udemy literacy course that helps address criticisms here that grammar-based teaching doesn't work: "Just because something is new does not make it effective. Demands for innovation are propagated by the belief that ‘traditional’ methods have not worked. However, the culprit is lack of knowledge about the variables that matter the most ... Some ‘traditional’ activities work well with human memory, but it is important to know what these are. "
This excellent talk and I think any possibility of giving a closer look at the content of slides would be priceless. So much for people who claim one can learn without grammar or that translation method of learning or intensive reading methods (all used by translators-to-be in training and recommended to them in courses in translation for special purposes) are useless, boring or make little sense. I also agree- while refreshing after years old textbooks, at the best your own private old ones with your past notes, are indeed priceless. I agree- polyglot community should digitalize old fashioned textbooks which coresspond with her recommendations, especially for most rare languages. And teaching various scripts probably should be more often aimed at youngest kids, by various educational system. At least for most widespread yet very different in this regard scripts- like arabic, chinese, japanese, german, cyrylic alphabet, greek etc. Because looks like if we do not pass on this skill early on later iin life future generations may have little chance to do it on their own, without early brain priming. One more reason for more frequent conflicts, also military ones. Just because people cannot communicate easily.
Time ago I started to accelerate youtube speed, I found this helped me to become more reactive and attentive (I also cover more material) with my own language (Italian) and English. By learning French I often had to slow down the listening speed but then I arrived at a better oral comprehension only by varying the speed also upward, accelerating it for brief periods initially. It was intense, tiring. And then gradually for longer periods. But it paid. I got more and more used to listening to UA-cam videos at a speed higher than normal. I suggest this extension: Video Speed Controller (Firefox and Chrome) You can regulate the speed of the video. Commands: S - Decrease speed D - Increase speed Speed Change Step (I use 0.10 ) R - Reset speed Z - Rewind Rewind Time (s) (I use 1.5 ) X - Advance Advance Time (s) (I use 1.5 ) V - Show/hide controller G - Preferred speed On Android, I found an app Text to speech [ @Voice Aloud Reader application (TTS Reader) ] that is not too bad to listen a text or listen and read. It allows also to vary the listening speed. I became more used to augment the length of time I dedicate to listening.
I don't know if you're still interested on the transcript, but, given that this video have the subtitles on, you can download those subtitles, which are basically the transcript. I don't remember the app to do it, but it was quite straightforward. I hope it can help you!
She's the strict one, because old school and her motivation stems from her professional requirements, must sound terrible to all the young free time polyglots😅 I'm between both groups (like language but do no want to sample languages and have no time constraints, but need a strong personal motivation to stay focused) so I take everything with a grain of salt😂🎉
Watch the very end where she summarizes the entire hour! Her cadence and word choice is still a bit odd in English, like anohter language is dominating her English syntax etc.
@@julia970y6v That's not true at all, stop taking her word as the word of God. I myself can read Russian, Greek and Japanese. All use different scripts. But since Japanese is the only one I'm fluent between these 3, it's the only one I can read at a high speed (roughly the same speed with which I read English). But just like when you were a kid getting used to the latin script, you'll have to read thousands of texts until you can reach a good reading speed.
I was in a bad place then. I think what she was trying to say, but it came across the wrong way, was that you can learn other scripts past the age of 18, but you won't be able to read them natively (you'll have to look at them for a second)
@@julia970y6v And that's exactly what I'm telling you you can do. But it will take a LOT of practice. An amount that can only be achieved through immersion, not through textbooks
I used to tutor illiterate and semi-literate adults. I worked with a 55-year-old Russian immigrant to the US who spoke Russian natively, very good English, and some Polish but couldn't read either Latin or Cyrillic script worth a lick. Now he reads both. Sure he may never be as fast a reader as someone who learned to read when they were a kid, but he holds his own.
Hi, we can learn the script per se. The problem is that we are forever stuck reading letter by letter. Then you can't process any volume, your working memory does not retain the message, and you want to abandon the effort after two minutes. One hypothesis is that the gray matter which was used for automaticity in childhood has turned into white matter, cables that transmit fast. But they can't change their function any longer.
that's completely false, I started learning japanese when I was 21 and I can read it(hiragana( 1 week), katakana (1 wekk) and kanji (1year) ) perfectly. The same with korean and russian.
Perhaps the single best source I've found on rational language learning - especially her advice on the importance of grammar and categorisation. So refreshing to hear someone who's prepared to build from established first principles and call out the bullshit. And she knows her stuff - she's a highly credentialed cognitive psychologist with a lifetime of experience in developing literacy programmes around the world.
As a relative newcomer to language learning with a background in training, I've found it surprising how much of the trendy current advice flies directly in the face of everything that we know about the psychology of skill learning. Helen's advice here is grounded on the principles that we've learned work for other skills. I was wary of the idea that language learning is some kind of special case where these insights don't apply, and this talk gives me more confidence that I'm on the right track. Three hearty cheers - I hope that this authoritative talk reaches a wide audience.
@Al 72 A quack? I'll bet she speaks a lot more languages than you do. Your experience was a special case, and not practical for the vast majority of learners. Luckily there are other approaches that work, as Abadzi points out. If your way was the only way, hardly anyone would learn more than one or two new languages.
@Al 72 I don't know what it is about language learning, but a lot of people find a way that works for them and then develop a quasi-religious view that it's the Only True Way and that anyone teaching any other way is a fraud. But if you read accounts from successful polyglots they use a very wide range of methods - different people learn in different ways. Some don't use grammar, but most do.
Your argument against grammar goes - "I did a course that included grammar and it didn't work so clearly grammar is useless". But that's a logical fallacy - it's HOW you use the grammar that's key. Just because it's not helpful in one context doesn't mean it's useless in all contexts.
I'm currently working with a coach who gets phenomenal results with his approach, which includes the study of grammar. Many of his students achieve C1 within months, working on their own at home part-time surrounded by their native language.
@Al 72 Knowledge/skill (driving a car, swinging a golf club, speaking a language) being at an unconscious competence level does not minimise the need for conscious learning of the rules of how it works. That said, I agree that there is an optimal point of learning grammar- and some evolution of conventional wisdom on the appropriate timing needs to occur.
Btw- even a native speaker's language and understanding of it should evolve including being able to explain why one speaks the way do- otherwise, how does one consistently edit or explain any edits proposed to other people's writing or speech. When correcting others, there is a need for native speakers to be able to go beyond saying "this is just the way it is- I am a native speaker- unconsciously learn from me".
From my point of view, and experience as a learner of several disciplines (including languages), Dr Abadzi's articulation of the efficiency benefits of learning grammar is robust and she goes at length to explain why this is the case. Furthermore, she does not ignore the central role of implicit memory/pattern recognition/induction as a means of learning languages and her conceptualisation addresses learning for various age groups. As I understood, she views grammar as a complement (aids categorisation, chunking) to natural learning/how the memory works system. She has credibility- she speaks 15 languages, is learning languages at age 65- not at a hobby level and provides a multidisciplinary perspective.
@Al 72 Shut up for Christ's sake. The difference between you & her is she's talking about principles predicated upon actual evidence & known results; you are just another "I did it this way & here's my secret" amateur. Sit down, close mouth, pay attention.
I agree about sweeping away the bullshit. This talk will bore some people because they've grown accustomed (and addicted) to fashionable and dishonest 'in a month' videos that seize on only part of a truth and call it a 'method'. The most popular right now is focusing solely on input: either just audio or audio + transcripts, derived from Krashen's work. His insights are valuable and listening does work, but the fact is if you are an adult learner it is difficult, as Abadzi says, to derive verb conjugations in the way a child does. Or to just ignore the fact that you don't understand 75% of the content. You'll find yourself checking, on a translation app maybe.
So it's necessary to hammer-in at least the most basic common verbs and their conjugations - the old-fashioned way and make them second nature. Pimsleur recognised that. Grammar study works, but you have to take only what you need as you progress, rather than going through a book cover to cover. The best courses drip feed you the grammar you need as you go along. She's also right about building up chunks. Language is made up of a lot of set phrases put together in various ways; used as a framework to contain all the content you use to create a specific message. So learning repetitively used phrases in e.g. French like 'à mon avis'... 'c'est à dire'... or key structures like 'Il faut...' build that framework and you can concentrate on fleshing out with vocabulary. And so on. Most of all it takes work and no-one learns at the same pace or exactly the same way.
This is a crazy efficient summary of a lot of stuff. And wow, I’d never heard of the “use your old textbooks” thing before. I knew I hoarded old books for a reason.
a trick: watch series at Flixzone. Been using them for watching lots of of movies these days.
One of the best talks on the main topic I have watched so far. In years. Should be recommended to: learners, educators, tutors, language schools, researchers in neuroscience, to people who complain "I'm too old to learn a foreign language" or "I do not have a talent for learning foreign languages". I would welcome any other form of follow up to this talk from this lady. But maybe with some notes or slides downloadable for everyone as well. Anyone who is both learning himself and teaching others as well has a lot to learn from her in my view. She did for sure put some aspects of teaching others and refreshing my own knowledge into perspective for me. I'm would like to thank You her for making to see at some problems I have encountered from a bit different angle. What is amazing given that I keep up to date with latest research in neuroscience as well. So I agree with her, we do need more of good neuroscientific research and we do need it badly. And it cannot be done without an insight like this talk from people like herself. I guess we all should say "thank You" to her husband as well. If he was the one who encouraged her to participate and to present this talk at the Polyglot Conference.
To slow down playback, I use Transcribe! by Seventh String Software. Designed for transcribing jazz music, but ideal for this purpose too. You can quickly highlight sections to loop at any speed you want. The sound quality is pretty good down to at least 70%.
For getting native audio, why not find a teacher on one of the many exchange sites and ask them to edit and read your text. It won't cost much - no more than the cost of buying most prepackaged courses. Or many text-to-speech voices becoming pretty good these days.
for slowing down your own personal recordings, put them in audacity and slow the tempo, it preserves tone and everything else.you can also cut pieces of the audio and have it repeat for tricky phrases and save it for practice on that particular phrase.
Also the free VLC player has a pull down playback feature that allows you to slow down the speed.
Fantastic idea!
50:30 - there is such an app. I'm using one called tc.audio (available in iOS). You can upload an audio file, select a portion of it, speed up or slow down that portion, play it on a loop, adjust the pitch, etc.
Hello, great talk, I want to mention to Helen that VLC slows down audio quite well
A quote from Helen's Udemy literacy course that helps address criticisms here that grammar-based teaching doesn't work:
"Just because something is new does not make it effective. Demands for innovation are
propagated by the belief that ‘traditional’ methods have not worked. However, the culprit is
lack of knowledge about the variables that matter the most ... Some
‘traditional’ activities work well with human memory, but it is important to know what these
are. "
This is a really good talk is there a transcript for this I would like to have it if that is possible.
I think anyone interested in the topic of slowing down audio should watch this: ua-cam.com/video/ikBhfU4W91E/v-deo.html
This excellent talk and I think any possibility of giving a closer look at the content of slides would be priceless. So much for people who claim one can learn without grammar or that translation method of learning or intensive reading methods (all used by translators-to-be in training and recommended to them in courses in translation for special purposes) are useless, boring or make little sense. I also agree- while refreshing after years old textbooks, at the best your own private old ones with your past notes, are indeed priceless. I agree- polyglot community should digitalize old fashioned textbooks which coresspond with her recommendations, especially for most rare languages. And teaching various scripts probably should be more often aimed at youngest kids, by various educational system. At least for most widespread yet very different in this regard scripts- like arabic, chinese, japanese, german, cyrylic alphabet, greek etc. Because looks like if we do not pass on this skill early on later iin life future generations may have little chance to do it on their own, without early brain priming. One more reason for more frequent conflicts, also military ones. Just because people cannot communicate easily.
Time ago I started to accelerate youtube speed, I found this helped me to become more reactive and attentive (I also cover more material) with my own language (Italian) and English. By learning French I often had to slow down the listening speed but then I arrived at a better oral comprehension only by varying the speed also upward, accelerating it for brief periods initially. It was intense, tiring. And then gradually for longer periods. But it paid. I got more and more used to listening to UA-cam videos at a speed higher than normal.
I suggest this extension: Video Speed Controller (Firefox and Chrome)
You can regulate the speed of the video.
Commands:
S - Decrease speed
D - Increase speed Speed Change Step (I use 0.10 )
R - Reset speed
Z - Rewind Rewind Time (s) (I use 1.5 )
X - Advance Advance Time (s) (I use 1.5 )
V - Show/hide controller
G - Preferred speed
On Android, I found an app Text to speech [ @Voice Aloud Reader application (TTS Reader) ] that is not too bad to listen a text or listen and read. It allows also to vary the listening speed. I became more used to augment the length of time I dedicate to listening.
I don't know if you're still interested on the transcript, but, given that this video have the subtitles on, you can download those subtitles, which are basically the transcript. I don't remember the app to do it, but it was quite straightforward. I hope it can help you!
Should i use e-textbooks to learn a new language?
I use parlatype. (unfortunately linux only)
The only thing missing is the auto repeat. You have to press the play button for every loop.
the best talk in the conference
She's the strict one, because old school and her motivation stems from her professional requirements, must sound terrible to all the young free time polyglots😅
I'm between both groups (like language but do no want to sample languages and have no time constraints, but need a strong personal motivation to stay focused) so I take everything with a grain of salt😂🎉
Watch the very end where she summarizes the entire hour! Her cadence and word choice is still a bit odd in English, like anohter language is dominating her English syntax etc.
And?
What was the most important point of the talk for you?
That it's impossible to read a foreign script after age 18. That destroys all of my desires in language learning.
@@julia970y6v That's not true at all, stop taking her word as the word of God. I myself can read Russian, Greek and Japanese. All use different scripts. But since Japanese is the only one I'm fluent between these 3, it's the only one I can read at a high speed (roughly the same speed with which I read English). But just like when you were a kid getting used to the latin script, you'll have to read thousands of texts until you can reach a good reading speed.
I was in a bad place then. I think what she was trying to say, but it came across the wrong way, was that you can learn other scripts past the age of 18, but you won't be able to read them natively (you'll have to look at them for a second)
@@julia970y6v And that's exactly what I'm telling you you can do. But it will take a LOT of practice. An amount that can only be achieved through immersion, not through textbooks
But this is the method used in public schools in the United States and it has not yielded any noteworthy results 🙁
Wrong
@28:00
1:07 hours is not efficient for me :(
So it's impossible to learn a foreign script at all after age 18? Figures.
Cyrillic is an exception because it's similar enough to the Latin script.
Bullshit. Hangul, the Korean alphabet is very logical. You can learn it easily and it's nothing like the Latin alphabet.
I used to tutor illiterate and semi-literate adults. I worked with a 55-year-old Russian immigrant to the US who spoke Russian natively, very good English, and some Polish but couldn't read either Latin or Cyrillic script worth a lick. Now he reads both. Sure he may never be as fast a reader as someone who learned to read when they were a kid, but he holds his own.
Hi, we can learn the script per se. The problem is that we are forever stuck reading letter by letter. Then you can't process any volume, your working memory does not retain the message, and you want to abandon the effort after two minutes. One hypothesis is that the gray matter which was used for automaticity in childhood has turned into white matter, cables that transmit fast. But they can't change their function any longer.
that's completely false, I started learning japanese when I was 21 and I can read it(hiragana( 1 week), katakana (1 wekk) and kanji (1year) ) perfectly. The same with korean and russian.
1:07 hours is not efficient for me :(
Spend an hour now to save
many hours later