For the past 2 years, I’ve been “learning” English. Well, in my case, learning English is not something I planned to do at first. I don’t even know I was “learning”. I just watched a bunch of youtube videos, and the next thing I know I can speak a little English. But now that I have a little bit knowledge of the English language, I want to actually learn it. Not just by watching random YouTube videos. I have watched and tried different ways to learn like for example flashcards, watch movies, read books, speaking to myself, etc. But I feel like I am not improving. When I speak to other people in English, I feel like I’m not as good as I think I would. So, now I’m frustrated, thinking about how to learn and ACTUALLY improve.

What are your thoughts about this?

  • DessalinesA
    5•3 years ago

    Spot on. I forget which lemmer showed me this, but this video by stephen krashen really changed the way I think about language learning, and made me alter my study plan going forward with mandarin.

    The main points are that ppl only learn languages one way, through comprehensible input ( and there are now lots of different methods geared toward this, even on youtube ), and progress most rapidly through consuming lots of easy, interesting content for them in that language, whether its books, movies, TV shows, news, etc. Also that listening is far more important than speaking or practice, esp in the early stages. You don’t learn languages through grammer and study content, but through easy messages you can understand, on topics interesting to you.

    • @roastpotatothief
      2•3 years ago

      Great video. It sounds like a lot more work for teachers though. There’s nothing easier for a lazy teacher than going through a standardised textbook, giving standardised questions, handing out standardised tests. It’s so easy that much of the process can be automated.

      It’s easy to see why schooling systems would converge on that technique - it suits themselves, not their students.

      The idea sounds like a parallel to Montessori’s methods. Teaching via free undirected play, and the rest. Maybe there’s a combination of the two ideas that could be ideal.