Saturday, April 24, 2010

Getting to Grammar: If you want accurate grammar quickly, Steve Kaufmann's method is not for you

This is the best our graphics department could do.
T
he great language-learning blogosphere battle of the day has been Steve "The Inputter" Kaufmann v. Benny "The Haxor". The latest salvo in this battle comes from Steve:
In my view, there are three divergent approaches to language learning, divergent in terms of their emphasis or principal focus. This is true whether we learn in the classroom, online or on the street. One approach focuses on input, another on output, and a third on what I would call shortcuts and some people call language-hacking techniques. These techniques include grammar study, studying vocab lists and phrase books, heavy use of flash cards, "deconstructing the language", memory techniques, and so forth.
I don't think Steve's division has it right at all. As I noted in my last post, output is input. In other words, it's all just exposure. From there, the only thing you need to think about is what kind of exposure you need to get in order to burn the language into your brain as efficiently as possible.

And efficiency leads me to one of my main points of disagreement with Steve: grammar.

Read more... In a nutshell, here's my understanding of Steve's approach to grammar:
  1. Spend lots of time getting input.
  2. If you figure out the grammar rules, great. If not, don't worry about it.
  3. When you feel like it, try to fill in those gaps in your knowledge by looking up the rules.
Steve's German is good enough to listen to and read fairly tough materials, and yet he still get criticized for screwing up the cases. That tells me that his method is not working as far as his ability to produce correct grammar. (Of course, I'm assuming those criticisms are correct, as I've never heard or read his German myself. If that's not right, I'm sure I'll be hearing about it in the comments soon enough.)

This is a close adult approximation of the inductive "learn like a child" method. Children get years of exposure to a language and still make lots of grammar mistakes, until years of schooling finally iron out the wrinkles. Without extra efforts beyond mere exposure, they end up being able to understand just about everything, even while they may still be speaking incorrectly. Steve's results seem to match that pattern.

And, after all, is it really surprising that a method that focuses on input results in you having a good understanding of input without being able to produce accurate output?

I think a different approach can get you much better results. Here's the rough outline of how I approach grammar:
  1. Get the rule in your head.
  2. Get exposure to the rule in use. Because the rule's in your head, you're seeing the rule in action rather than trying to puzzle out what the rule is.
  3. If you forget the rule, or if you're exposed to something that doesn't fit into your understanding of the rule, go over the rule again.
During the bulk of my German studies, I actually followed a method that was much closer to Steve's, and it resulted in German being one of the weaker languages that I can actually communicate in with some degree of proficiency. (So, yes, I screw up the cases, and probably much worse than Steve.) I'd love to find the time to attack it again, using the approach that I laid out above.

As a final note, I'd also say that I think Steve's and my divergent approaches to grammar may stem in part from our divergent goals in language learning. Steve's goal seems to be enjoying literature and whatever else he feels like enjoying in the language. For me, that's a means to an end while my actual goal is being able to prepare business documents, contracts, etc. I need to obtain a higher degree of accuracy in a shorter amount of time that Steve's method will allow, while Steve can quickly reach his own goal of jumping into content he enjoys without worrying about whether he's producing correct grammar.

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8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I fully agree with your approach to Grammar German is my native tongue and I am at the moment learning Serbian. I have spent and wasted too much time and money with fellow students who are not willing to learn Grammar and teachers who cannot explain it either! I do not know how you could learn a new language which is very different from your own without knowing the Grammar very well, also the Grammar of your mother tongue. We have lots of problems here with children of the second generation of migrant workers who can neither speak the language of their parents very well neither the language of this country. If it was so easy to "pick up the language" why do we have these problems?
As far as reading literature goes, also here you need a profound knowledge of the grammar to understand what you are reading. As a matter of fact the deeper I am "diving" into the Serbian language the more I am also confronted with linguistic issues. I really enjoyed reading Berlitz´s book "the wunderful world of languages" it helped me a lot getting more insight into other languages.
BTW: Thank you for putting all this work into your blog. I enjoy reading it and it gave me many ideas!

Apr 24, 2010 4:59:00 PM  
Anonymous Benny the Irish polyglot said...

Thanks for the detailed post - the main image is funny :P

I agree absolutely that output IS input. I don't like this whole debate at all of me representing "output" as if all I do is speak all day and never listen or study.

And your analogy with children learning is important because one crucial difference that does not allow adults to learn like children (although I think we should as much as possible) is our native tongue screwing up how we think something *should* be said. This is not an issue when learning your native language, but grammar helps you "unlearn" your native language when you get to the second one.

I also think goals are important. Steve's method works great for him and I'd never argue against that (despite the many times he seems to imply that my method might not even work for ME), but your purposes and my purposes for learning languages are different and more time sensitive so we need to do it quickly and efficiently.

Apr 24, 2010 5:00:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I fully agree with you.

If you read "En face d'elle, il y a du café et beaucoup de thé. Voici aussi du sucre. Je prends aussi un peu de fromage.", do you really understand the differences between "de" and "du"?

If you go with Steve's "If you figure out the grammar rules, great. If not, don't worry about it.", you will never speak or write correctly.

Learn grammar, use a lot of input (Steve), use it and start speaking (Benny) - the mixture is the key.

Apr 24, 2010 5:38:00 PM  
Anonymous Amelia said...

What about this method?

1) Get exposure to the grammar rule in a sentence/phrase you already understand the meaning of. This presumes that you already know at least a few basic phrases.
2) Notice that there is some grammar at work there…a case ending, a different form of a pronoun, whatever.
3) Read a clear explanation of the rule so you understand exactly how it works.
4) Get more exposure to (examples of) the rule in action.
5) Practice using the grammar yourself.

You can fit that all in one 45-minute lesson.

For example:
1) You know that in Hungarian jó means good, nap means day, and “Jó napot kivánok” means I wish you good day.
2) You notice that the phrase uses “napot” instead of “nap.” What’s that –ot doing there?
3) You read the rule about the –t ending for the accusative case. Sometimes it’s just –t, sometimes you need to add a certain vowel, sometimes there's a vowel change, and sometimes the word’s form changes. There are rules for all this and you study them carefully. But oy, does it seem complicated!
4) Through input you see and hear things like kéz/kezet, alma/almát, ló/lovat, eper/epret and so on. Lots of variety, but actually, it’s pretty regular and predictable. Now you really “get it.” And you'd never say "kézet" because it just sounds wrong.
5) You speak and write and people politely correct you when you error. Well, ideally.

One plus here is that at step 3 you get that rewarding “Ah-ha! moment” of insight, which reinforces your memory of the rule. It also makes your students happy. :-) Once you get the idea of the rule, it’s a matter of repeating steps 4 and 5 in various ways to get better and better at it.

Apr 24, 2010 7:36:00 PM  
Anonymous Milan said...

I used to be a big grammar fan and struggled for years trying to learn languages but still spoke very broken, slow and inaccurate. Some how you develop a filter that prevents smooth output because you keep checking back through it automatically and so cannot speak smoothly.

From my investigations of all the great polyglots its a common thing that they all got to being fluent FIRST, and then ironed out their grammar after reaching a more fluent and commanding level of the language. Perhaps Steve couldn't be bothered to correct his grammar, but remember he can speak fluently and smoothly. I'm sure if he wanted to he could improve grammar with some concentrated studies, and the good thing is that he has already passed the fluency barrier that stops many people from continuing.

I'm pretty sure if you have lived in China you would know that tons of Hong Kong people spend 20+ years just learning grammar but can't speak smoothly to save themselves.

Anyway, I'd rather speak fluently on all topics with 80% accurate grammar over limited and broken but 100% accurate grammar.

Apr 24, 2010 7:41:00 PM  
Anonymous Katie said...

Whoa, so glad you commented on Steve's blog, or I wouldn't have found this. Greast post. I really like this technique that you describe.

Apr 25, 2010 12:21:00 AM  
Blogger Chris said...

Maybe I am missing the point and I have only focused on the Chinese aspects but I have heard a lot of content on-line youtube and MP3 where Steve SPEAKS Chinese on Radio shows etc, with Chinese people, having real conversations over a long period. Granted his Chinese may not be perfect and sometimes his written Chinese may not be completly natural but having read a bunch of Benny's stuff so far I haven't seen or heard any conversations, just Benny talking at me.

Coff. Benny is the talker but where are the conversations, maybe I have not dug deep enough, links to them appreciated. Talking at people is not communication.

Apr 25, 2010 7:38:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The only stuff I heard from Benny are a few simple sentences in Thai in a video at the end of his Bangkok stay - after 3 months in Thailand this is something really everybody can achieve! Disappointing.

Steve instead speaks very often in Japanese, Chinese, French, etc., e.g. in his YouTube videos!

Apr 25, 2010 5:34:00 PM  

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