Reading and writing

ESL   Fri Mar 23, 2007 8:56 am GMT
I learned my first language by just listening to people around me.
I have not read a single book in my native language. I have also not written very much in my native language except taking notes from a blackboard.Still I am a fluent speaker of the language, I listen and I speak.

my question is that just listening to a target language and looking up unknown words from listening sessions would make me a fluent speaker of a language. I dont understand why people and tutors emphasize so much on "Reading" and "Writing". Effective communication takes the front seat at the end of the day.

so I believe stehphen krashen's theory for extensive reading or pleasure reading is not a surefire approach for acheiving fluency in the target language.

What are your thoughts on this? This website is based on his principles. And authors of the site advocate for accumulating a lot of inputs through reading (which is easy to do) before speaking and writing.

For next six months, I am going to apply my own technique which was suggested above. I'll stop reading, writing and speaking. I'll just listen 2-for 3 hours daily and maybe one hour self talking. Then I'll post my results. Has anyone tried my approach before? pls lemme know.
Josh Lalonde   Fri Mar 23, 2007 12:41 pm GMT
I can't say anything about your approach, but your logic is flawed. The way that we learn languages changes dramatically after puberty. Children learn language at an astounding rate without being taught anything; as much as 90 words a day, if I remember correctly, not to mention grammar, etc. However, as we get older, we lose this ability to learn effortlessly. If you look at instructional courses for any language, you'll find that each lesson has maybe twenty words, and these are supposed to be done once or twice a week. The reason reading and writing are included in most ESL programmes is a) because they are both vital to effective communication and b) to use as many different approaches to learning at the same time. Just thought you should know. Good luck anyway.
ESL   Fri Mar 23, 2007 10:23 pm GMT
I know my logic might be flawed. But there is no harm in trying it. People can discover a lot of things by just trying different approaches. If children has the ability to learn at an astounding rate but they lack cognitve skills. Can they read a novel, Reader digest at an ealier age? but adults can read it with the help of a dictionary. They can comprehend so much in the language by watching programmes where kids lack. My cousin's son was born in toronto to an Indian mom. He is now 7 years old. He moves in and out from Canada to India or vice versa. I listened him to speak. He sucks at both English and Hindhi. He speaks a mixture of sentences that involve both English and Hindhi words that makes him incomprehensible. He is not fluent in any language and talking to him is a pain in the ass. If I started now learning a new language, I'd be fluent atleast in it after seven years. So much talking about learning at an astounding pace for children. I am an adult, aged 23.. I am able to write here something in the language after learning it for 4 years. Can kids write like this whose native language is English?