Antimoon vs Krashen

Don   Mon Apr 13, 2009 10:17 pm GMT
Tom and Michal always tell us to analyze grammar in sentences (focus on form). On the other hand, Stephen Krashen always tell us to focus on the meaning of the message and not on the form of the message.
Who is right and who is wrong?
Coward   Mon Apr 13, 2009 10:30 pm GMT
Do both.
Danilo   Mon Apr 13, 2009 10:36 pm GMT
Both are correct, in my humble opinion.
/   Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:38 am GMT
Ask in the Language section.
Fabian   Thu Apr 16, 2009 2:26 pm GMT
If you want to acquire english (acquisition is the only way to gain full proficiency) trust Stephen Krashen and focus on meaning rather than on form.
But if you want to learn english (learning is far less important than acquisition) trust Tom and Michal.
My humble opinion is that here on antimoon, they are not interested whether you acquire english or not.
I trust Krashen 100 percent. After all, he has a Phd in linguistics and dedicated his life studying how humans acquire language.
/   Thu Apr 16, 2009 8:10 pm GMT
I'm not against Krashen, but how many languages does he speak fully and fluently? Could he work as a translator as Tom does? I've been curious about this for awhile. Please don't take this as blowing off your opinion. I am interested in truth in language acquisition, and it seems that the best person to suggest language methods is someone who is fully or fairly fluent in several. People like J.C. who write on the Languages forum here sometimes, interest me more than anyone who can simply describe language with symbols, etc. He studied German and Japanese formally, I believe, and yet his written English is very good. Portuguese is his first language.

This doesn't mean that I agree with people who tell people not to worry about grammar, declension, etc. I am familiar with enough languages to know that some people who brag about their languages speak them more poorly than I do.

For me, there has to be a balance for success. I want the linguist who is also a polyglot or a polyglot who has some idea about how he or she got to that level.

Listeners and readers ultimately know if someone has a good grasp of their language. People lie to be polite about someone's accent or written skills, but then when that person meets the non-linguist who is hiring for a job, the truth comes out. In real-life terms, what method produces the best speaker and writer? That's what I want to know. It may be a combination of Krashen, Antimoon, talent, and someone who will tell you the truth.
Xie   Fri Apr 17, 2009 7:43 pm GMT
True. But in reality, I find that actually native speakers may well have learned (or acquired) their native language both by acquiring and learning, though learning is far less important for native speakers. Native speakers have had natural advantages of being in the environment where their language has been spoken, so they receive unlimited support, first by their parents, and then teachers, peers, etc. On the other hand, foreign learners often have no direct support. And especially when they are adults, others will expect something that you might not have.

I must write a bit more about adult learners. Let's say adult means anyone over 18. In fact, a teenager might well find it difficult to acquire a language, since there's not much room for acquiring the language through "unlimited support". At least, when people expect you to act more maturely... you simply can't always ask for corrections, new words, etc. This is exactly the privilege of kids in general (let's say, below 12). Now that I'm in my twenties already, peers of my age wouldn't expect a lot of questions from me too. I simply often have to deal with a foreign language on my own - I mean, by reading a dictionary, a grammar book, a textbook, on my own. If not, I MAY ask a native speaker or hire a teacher, but that's not the same thing as my parents teaching me Cantonese all the time for free and unconditionally. I hope you guys may get my message.

Now that I'm in Germany, I can tell what happens with my German. I'm not a teenager anymore, but an adult, a young man and a university student. Therefore, Germans expect me to be (being) highly-educated and mature enough to do anything - at least anything legal. To put it simply, German students, German learners like me, Germans on the streets, those who sell stuff, the lady at the counter of a museum, any strangers I meet on the street... in most cases, only closer acquaintances will bother to correct my German. But even so, they don't have that much time to be with me all the time and teach me German. I can learn the most German from, instead, a German teacher, but you can expect this is NOT free. You should probably pay for a teacher.

So, in a way, native speakers do acquire their native language for free. No fees, no efforts, no need to ask questions on purpose, no need to ask for corrections.

==

So how may I learn German now? Of coz, I can meet German students every day and make new friends, and in this way I'll be focusing more on spoken language. But other than that, without sympathetic speakers/caretaker speakers (this is SLA research), in other cases I can only learn on my own. For this reason, in an adult world, trying to learn a foreign language may... often sound more difficult, often to an extent of being near to impossible for most people who actually never try to learn well.

In this case, learning a foreign language becomes just as social as how you acquired your native language. As soon as I say "make German friends", or caretaker speakers, it does mean it takes a bit of social skills to learn well in conversations. As a foreigner, not only age and education level will be important, but my identity also, too. German may well be popular enough in Europe, with loads of learners, but it simply doesn't follow that a foreign learner could become the most welcomed person in his/her own social circle filled with Germans. Comparatively speaking, I know very well that neither "Chinese" (Mandarin) nor "Cantonese" are in any way popular. That's not to belittle them, but, it's quite natural that, despite its own huge population and growing economic importance, I won't expect any passion among anyone (esp. westerners who are the most numerous among language learners, in very general terms) about Chinese. To be a bit exaggerated, it's almost like how a person from Scandinavia wouldn't expect others to know his/her language, for example, esp. owing to his/her country's small population.

How important is that? The important thing is, just like a German speaking English to you instead, revealing that you know no German/too little German to go on with your German conversations, when I know you won't learn Chinese anyway, it's convenient to switch to English in a second. It goes perhaps for any person who meets such a situation, where the foreigner/non-native speaker can't learn/speak his/her native language for any reasons. Anyway, it also follows that language learning becomes, in some cases, rather far removed from social interactions. The counterintuitive fact is that, to learn German well, I have to learn on my own first, even before I try to speak German to a real person (not to mention a German speaker). This is contrary to how native speakers learn their native language by listening and talking first. Unfortunate, but this is a fact.

Again, it's counterintuitive to see that adult learners find it much more troublesome to learn in social situations - especially to learn the foreign language as a beginner. It's simply, you know, far too tiring to explain my own native language, and everything of it, to a particular person, even if I get paid. For example, when I know I won't stay with a German professor/student anyway for a long time, what's the point of teaching them? Yep, they can ask me for a few phrases, but everyone has his own business, unless they are really that desperate and unless they show great love for Chinese, how am I going to teach like a granny?

And needless to say, there may well be people who use (native) language as a tool for socializing. That sounds pathetic, but I believe people use this trick without ever saying, and it could work very well most of the time. That is: say, if I want to learn German, I make sure that I stay with German speakers, and better if they teach better, are themselves German teachers, or even even even better if one of them happens to become my lover. I still suspect loads of westerners, and sometimes grumpy guys, also look for Chinese women with the same reasoning. I'm in no way having sour grapes. I acknowledge this to be a kind of, perhaps, prejudice, but I do suspect this is a fact. But so what? Anyway, westerners - this kind of grumpy guys, or political figures, or young people who offer me really good cultural lessons, all of you teach me "this is strictly NOT your own business. Mind you business, shouldn't you?"

And with such reasoning and with such suppositions, in such a case, there's no absolute need of learning that foreign language anyway at all. It may not go for English and German, two of the popular languages there are, but it may for Chinese, unless all that crazy nonsense, predictions of another person out in antimoon all come true. (That person should really make a life...but well, that's not my business either) Having that said, I still maintain that there exists considerable time that you may have to spend alone to learn a language, thus removing it from social situations.

==

But now that I also witnessed how Germans read, what Germans read, what Germans do with their culture or foreign cultures (like museums), I also learned that, for example, Germans might be one of the nations that values reading very much, and it also happens that Germany produces a lot of high quality language books. It doesn't follow that every German is multilingual, but I can tell any diligent German learners can fare very well even in Chinese, which is supposed to be rather intricate for newbies.

For people like the Germans, in whose nation where there are so many high quality books for many subjects at their disposal, it goes without saying that this country could be quite ideal for pursuing knowledge. And also, I don't see any fixed rules about reading or learning or studying or so. I can feel the free air of Germany anywhere (most of the time). Particularly, if I do meet a German who is multilingual, and particularly because s/he can learn languages through using the wealth of good books in his/her language, I'd attribute this to his/her having great luck for being a German/German speaker with such educational background.

Unfortunately, this is well enough to beat Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, some people do judge you negatively for being a keen reader. What a ... my overall impression is just that, whether it's about learning languages or learning many other subjects, the German ways, a kind of Western ways, are good. (To be fair, I don't say "better", just good.)
Robin Michael   Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:24 pm GMT
I read the last post. I can understand most of the sentiments expressed. I think that very long posts are rarely read in their entirety, at best people skim over them.

I am a native English speaker and my partner is Polish. I am constantly correcting her English. I realise that there are all sorts of implications for this in our relationship.

However, she is willing to learn. I live in Scotland. When I hear a Scottish person making a grammatical mistake, I would not presume to correct them. I do regard them as being ignorant.

My partner is an active learner; she is interested in learning English.

When I visit my parents I notice that I pronounce words completely differently to them. I notice this also with my son. He uses the American pronunciation for 'router' for instance.

With my parents it is a rather awkward relationship. My mother used to habitually correct my grammar and pronunciation. There are some words where I really do not agree with my parents. One of their expressions that I found very strange was 'blew it' as in 'blue it'. I would only use the expression 'blown it'.

At the end of the day, language is meant to be 'communicative'.

On a final note, I have become a lot more interested in the English language recently. I have just checked my spelling and grammar with MS Word and I changed a comma into a semi colon; on their suggestion.