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Esperanto’s benefit for language learners

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 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto Post Reply
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str0be
Senior Member
Korea, South
Joined 5415 days ago
103 posts - 148 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Dutch, Korean

 
 Message 73 of 78
21 April 2010 at 11:28am | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:
What you said would be common sense, Cainntear, except for Esperanto and beginning
language learners it has been
proven wrong
(details of
the studies). Learning Esperanto for 1 year followed by 3 years of French, students
will master French better than if they learned French for 4 years.


From the 'details of the studies' link:
Quote:
In summary, it was concluded that, among the less intelligent students, those who devoted a year to Esperanto succeeded better in French after four years, without additional study time for that language in the three years spent studying it.

In any case, among the more intelligent students, the best success in French was among those who began it immediately. Those who began with Esperanto achieved a better "passive knowledge" and those who began with French acquired better "active use."


In the UK, the 'less intelligent' students are usually those who are totally unmotivated to study and lacking interest in intellectual persuits. I hardly think this is likely to describe anyone on a language-learning forum.

Edited by str0be on 21 April 2010 at 11:30am
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hvorki_ne
Groupie
Joined 5197 days ago
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Icelandic

 
 Message 74 of 78
21 April 2010 at 12:05pm | IP Logged 
In terms of esperanto threads getting derailed- would it be better to have one big esperanto debate thread so that anything off-topic can get redirected there without derailing the thread?

mrhenrik wrote:
Personally I'd assume Esperanto's main benefit for language learning is motivation, especially for monolingual learners. It would show them that it is indeed possible to speak two languages and probably open up for highly motivated language study later on. I guess this could be somewhat along the lines of what furrykef mentions about the point where languages "click" as well - that could be a motivational boost indeed.

I think this is true. I know I have the problem that I can't imagine what it'd be like to think in another language, so trying to learn any language is daunting. I saw someone describe the "first language hump" to go from monolingual to bilingual- something that helps new learners get over that could help a lot.

Edited by hvorki_ne on 21 April 2010 at 12:06pm
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 5822 days ago
4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 75 of 78
21 April 2010 at 1:55pm | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:
What you said would be common sense, Cainntear, except for Esperanto and beginning
language learners it has been
proven wrong
(details of
the studies). Learning Esperanto for 1 year followed by 3 years of French, students
will master French better than if they learned French for 4 years.

Notice the use of the word "school" throughout this page. This is for students who have not chosen French as a target language -- in this case, French can be considered a "gateway" language in itself.

Furthermore, the school environment is vastly different from the environment that an independent learner would be in. A schoolchild's discourse community is his class, the independent adult learner's discourse community will be completely different, and in the case of Spanish, finding native speakers to talk to is generally a lot easier than finding speakers of Esperanto.

Finally, as I seem to be saying a lot these days, Esperanto was designed when structuralist theory was the principle means of understanding grammar. Esperanto as a gateway appears to have been tested against classes teaching French etc from a structuralist perspective. Modern grammar though is functional, and the value of structuralist training before a non-structuralist course is unproven.

Worse still, as far as I can see, the outcome of the research is how well the students did in school, which doesn't necessarily relate to competence in the language. We all know that school exams are a pretty poor indicator of competence in a language -- this is perhaps the only point on which the entire membership of the site is agreed. The big complaint is that they normally test knowledge about language, and not language in use, which brings us right back to structural grammar.


And as str0be says:
str0be wrote:
From the 'details of the studies' link:
Quote:
In summary, it was concluded that, among the less intelligent students, those who devoted a year to Esperanto succeeded better in French after four years, without additional study time for that language in the three years spent studying it.

In any case, among the more intelligent students, the best success in French was among those who began it immediately. Those who began with Esperanto achieved a better "passive knowledge" and those who began with French acquired better "active use."


In the UK, the 'less intelligent' students are usually those who are totally unmotivated to study and lacking interest in intellectual persuits. I hardly think this is likely to describe anyone on a language-learning forum.


I'm not saying that Esperanto has no educational value. I think it's overstated in general, but that's just a personal opinion.

In theallstar's case, I thought the research was merely inapplicable, but the text str0be's cited suggests that the research itself throws the benefits into doubt.

I'm not Esperanto bashing.
2 persons have voted this message useful



dmaddock1
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5244 days ago
174 posts - 426 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek

 
 Message 76 of 78
21 April 2010 at 2:48pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:

Notice the use of the word "school" throughout this page. This is for students who have not chosen French as a target language -- in this case, French can be considered a "gateway" language in itself.


Just about every school in the US offers several language options from which the student can pick, even if they are required to choose something, though perhaps this isn't the case elsewhere. So, it's not entirely accurate to say they haven't chosen it.

What I wondered is how the kids were selected for the Esperanto studies. It seems likely that the student would have to agree to participate which would introduce a bias in the study. In high school I was in a trial for a 1-year Russian distance learning class. It was a bunch of nerds and me (ok, I was one of the nerds too). It went really well because everyone was smart, on-task, and behaved. Fun, but an unrepresentative sample.

1 person has voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 5822 days ago
4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 77 of 78
21 April 2010 at 8:44pm | IP Logged 
dmaddock1 wrote:
Just about every school in the US offers several language options from which the student can pick, even if they are required to choose something, though perhaps this isn't the case elsewhere. So, it's not entirely accurate to say they haven't chosen it.

A) There really isn't that much free choice in there and besides, I'm not talking about free choice as an independent motivating factor. This has been used as an excuse for poor teaching for far too long -- "if the student drops out, he wasn't really interested in the first place". No, that's a naive and unproductive viewpoint. The initial motivation for a language is usually accompanied by opportunities to experience and use the language. If you're interested in Swahili because you've got a Swahili-speaking flatmate, for example, the presence of the Swahili flatmate will be a contributory factor to success in Swahili. The notion that "Esperanto will help you learn Swahili" + "Wanting to learn Swahili" isn't really going to guarantee much success with Esperanto.

B) Looking at the studies in question (which is what I was talking about, not about your school), the very structure of the investigation militates against student choice.
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dmaddock1
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5244 days ago
174 posts - 426 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek

 
 Message 78 of 78
21 April 2010 at 10:42pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
B) Looking at the studies in question (which is what I was talking about, not about your school), the very structure of the investigation militates against student choice.


Thanks, here I thought we were all discussing my high school experience! My point was that this summary does not state how the students were chosen for these studies. Perhaps the studies are generally positive toward Esperanto because the sample size is not sufficiently large or random. The article says very little about the structure of these investigations so I think you're projecting a little bit there. I think what you mean is that the adoption of a mandatory Esperanto introductory curriculum would militate against student choice, but I see no such structure or conclusions advising such in that document.

Cainntear wrote:
The initial motivation for a language is usually accompanied by opportunities to experience and use the language. If you're interested in Swahili because you've got a Swahili-speaking flatmate, for example, the presence of the Swahili flatmate will be a contributory factor to success in Swahili. The notion that "Esperanto will help you learn Swahili" + "Wanting to learn Swahili" isn't really going to guarantee much success with Esperanto.


I made no claim that Esperanto would help either. You seem to be asserting two things:

1. these studies are not applicable to independent learners who are personally motivated. Maybe so, I don't know.

2. structural competence is not language competence. You don't seem to dispute the findings that some found a positive, measurable impact--just that the "structural" improvement does not foster language competence. Maybe so, I don't know. However, here is a page of real, scholarly, published studies saying it has some value in certain conditions. Where is your evidence for:

Cainntear wrote:
Modern grammar though is functional, and the value of structuralist training before a non-structuralist course is unproven.


You give none, save the general poor state of "forced, structuralist" language teaching. Is this the militating structure referred to in B)? Regardless, please describe what a non-structuralist classroom would look like.

Cainntear wrote:
A) There really isn't that much free choice in there and besides, I'm not talking about free choice as an independent motivating factor. This has been used as an excuse for poor teaching for far too long -- "if the student drops out, he wasn't really interested in the first place". No, that's a naive and unproductive viewpoint.


That's not my view, but... It isn't that students don't care, it's that the teaching is terrible? Fine, but there are just as many board members complaining that the kids don't care because they are forced to be there. (Of course, it can often be a combination.) Given that not studying a language typically isn't an option (I can't opt out of math, history, phys. ed., etc. either), a US student can generally choose between French, Spanish, and German, sometimes more, and choose 2 or 4 "years" of study. That's more choice than you get in other subject tracts.

I think it is naive and unproductive to think that schools are going to implement any of the following possible solutions:

1. make language optional
2. allow everyone to "independent study" whatever language they want
3. import a Swahili flatmate for everyone

This board likes to dump on the schools, but the techniques propounded herein are not conducive to implementation in primary and secondary schools. I don't see a class consisting of 35 kids walking a track and shadowing Assimil being more effective.

But, is all that relevant to theallstar's situation? It depends. For one, he didn't state if he'd be learning Esperanto solely for pedagogical value. Also,

Quote:
In any case, among the more intelligent students, the best success in French was among those who began it immediately. Those who began with Esperanto achieved a better "passive knowledge" and those who began with French acquired better "active use."
str0be wrote:
In the UK, the 'less intelligent' students are usually those who are totally unmotivated to study and lacking interest in intellectual persuits. I hardly think this is likely to describe anyone on a language-learning forum.

Cainntear wrote:
In theallstar's case, I thought the research was merely inapplicable, but the text str0be's cited suggests that the research itself throws the benefits into doubt.



Actually, it suggests that if his aim is solely to excel in active French, then no, perhaps Esperanto won't help him. However, if he does have interest in Esperanto or prefers a passive knowledge of French, then perhaps it would.

Also, Sprachprofi said for "beginning language learners" which also doesn't apply to many (most?) in this forum.


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