I have always noticed how many people seem to think that first language acquisition is somehow better or more natural. I think it is somehow connected with the myth of the golden childhood:) But people who are learning their second language, unlike children, have a fully functioning first language system in their heads which is helps enormously to “install” the second system (or sometimes just to understand it, like the Italians and the Spanish understand each other). Adults can make connections, compare, deduce, understand abstract concepts and do so many things little children can’t do:)
I think the SSI might be making its small revolution here. I’m a notoriously harsh teacher, but just on Wednesday I went into my beginner class and said happily: “You all made the same mistake in your homework, this is absolutely fantastic”.
And fair points about people learning in different ways (despite the lack of robust evidence for ‘learning styles’) - to me, it’s an emotional thing more than anything. I don’t really believe that anyone learns a language better/faster by (for example) reading initially instead of focusing on speaking/listening - but I do believe that there are plenty of people who strongly prefer a written approach, to the extent that they wouldn’t keep working on an audio-only approach… etc…
Most of what we do is based on the central idea (which steps slightly out of the main stream of thought in language acquisition theory) that languages aren’t actually a special case - that they’re just a variant on the (much better understood, for my money) ‘how do we create memories’ problem. So we get to strip away a lot of the extra work that most courses do to ‘help’ the learner ‘understand’ the language, and just focus on building strong memories for the key structures, in the confident belief that once a learner starts communicating in their new language, they’ll (rapidly, in most cases) fill in the gaps.
One of the most refreshing things about SSiW was that feeling of being given “permission to make mistakes”, in contrast to traditional approaches which leave people tongue-tied, not because they don’t necessarily know what to say, but because they are terrified of making a mistake. And then later feeling guilty because they have done, especially with written work (which traditional approaches are also very heavy in) when seeing almost more “red pen” corrections than there was original writing.
To borrow and mutate a line from a once-famous film: “Being an SSiW learner means never having to say you’re sorry”.
I was just wondering where music might play in this mix, if at all - people always swear by music as a tool for learning English. Personally I find it very useful and it is obviously a tool used to develop kids language skills. I don’t think it helps with my lack of vocabulary, but singing along in the car to different patterns in folk songs gets my brain working at a higher speed I think and I have sung some of the answers on the SSIW, before Cat comes in and that helps when sometimes it can be a bit of a mouthful, but if you sing it, it suddenly becomes very easy. When wela i di, first came up I switched to almost singing back the answers in the style of Weli di weli di Mari bach. Welais i is a really familiar one now after lots of exposure to mi welais jac-y-do. Hen fewnyw - easy peasy after loads of exposure to hen fenyw fach cidweli.
After a very short period of time the words became as clear as a bell and I don’t have to think about them, but initially I remember thatall of the songs were just noise - Weli di, Weli di mari bach, fuoch chi rioed yn morio, gee cefyll bach yn cario ni’n dau, mi welai jac-y-do etc etc etc - I think it helped - but don’t do it much now and don’t watch Cyw any more either, but would like to…
I think there probably are good ways to include songs in the overall learning mix - I’m not sure if they’re necessarily on the path of maximum efficiency, but they clearly have a lot of soft value around enjoyment and (hence) repetition.
One of these days, I hope to find time to map out the complete lyrics for some albums against the content of our lessons - I think a set of lessons for a particular album would be an interesting addition to the mix…
My comment may be in the wrong place; I am not very often here these days, and am not very IT aware.
I want to ask a question, and it is meant to be a very serious one, not a wind up; I find that many people are swearing by SSIW; I see many positive comments on such as Facebook , and so on. For me, though I still pay money each month cos I am keen in principle, I find the format mindnumbing and offputting; " I am going to the town/ I am going to the village/ I am going to the dogs" ( small attempt at humour there) just turns me off, and I do not really think that the research backs up the methodology all that strongly. But clearly many people like it. I like it, I just cannot face it. It winds my anxiety level up to the point of tears . What would help… and maybe there was a way to do this… would be if I could stop at a certain point and go for a sleep and start again from there next time I log in; it starts all over again. That aside, has ANYONE else found the format a massive , context-less, hurdle to cross? How does one face the " brain switching off" tedium? I already know pretty much all the vocab, form way back, it is the just the sentence construction/ verbs that I have no clue about. Can anyone make any suggestions beyond stick at it you fool?
Both the iOS and Android apps remember lesson position so you can start from where you left off before your nap. If you can’t use either of those options then another option is to download the lesson files to your computer or MP3 player. Very often these will also remember playback position, and even if they do not there is generally a way for you to skip to a specific point in the lesson.
I’m glad you asked! I’m new here myself and have been getting a little worn down trying to remember where I left off, since I get overwhelmed too after about five minutes’ worth of vocabulary. I’ll look for the app.
I’ll bear this in mind, should I ever get hold of something to download them to. I have a £6 pay as you go phone ( not kidding) and an ancient computer with ancient systems on it. TBH I doubt I will any time soon, as I am clueless, but perhaps it could happen when I get my new house, and have internet connection. Currently I am camping out in holiday flats and so on on the Lleyn.
Does the system know how far one has got? I THINK I did lesson 4 or 5 before my wheels dropped off.
This isn’t what you asked, Kay, but I strongly recommend doing something else at the same time as the lessons if your technology will allow it. I simply can’t focus on one thing like this at a time - it would also do my head in. I found that doing something that doesn’t need the language centres of the brain (like washing the dishes, walking the dog, ironing) gave me just enough distraction to stop me losing the plot but not so much that I couldn’t produce the words needed.
Of course, this might not work for you (you might even have tried it already!) but I just thought it was worth sharing, just in case…
That sounds like a valuable idea Aran. Though I always personally seem to have a problem deciphering words in songs. After working as a guitarist in a four piece for a number of years I couldn’t ever remember the words to songs. It was always just the sounds that predominated. I was listening to some hymns that were on the radio a few days ago and out of three I didn’t pick out a single word. They were in English (my native language)??? I even have problems picking out some of the words in ‘coffi du’. So far I’ve managed ‘Dw i ar y coffi yn y bore’ (I think). As for the rest… . A program on TV last night (Andrew Marr: My brain and me) showed how a woman after having a stroke had real difficulty articulating but could sing songs without even a hint of hesitation. So maybe your idea could be fruitful for many learners. Maybe even me?!
It has lyrics in the description in plain text, and lyrics on-screen (with translation into English).
I’m not sure whether those are official, though, or what some fan thought he heard.
Note that the spelling there is rather colloquial northern Welsh (e.g. bora for bore, representing this typical northern E to A in a final syllable, or dwisho for dw i isio or yr ydwyf eisiau or however you’d spell it).
Thanks very much for the link Philip. Most helpful. I also found a series on YouTube entitled ‘Pethe’. It has a number of personalities e.g. Bedwyr Williams, ‘yn y gadair’. Each session lasts about three or four minutes and features each person answering questions posted on a laptop/tablet. They might be useful short listening exercises for members not able usefully to cope with longer sessions. It might be great if one of the members able to identify accents could list the personalities together with whether their accents tend towards North, South etc. I know there are about eight in the series. There may be more.
