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Ideal systematic training in polyglottery | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| Pip Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 6237 days ago 48 posts - 55 votes  Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: French | Message 17 of 43 24 December 2007 at 6:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Professor I have been reading all the threads about your proposal and I must say it sounds rather interesting, and I will definitely be interested in attending such a facility. As you said in your post with our help you will soon have an outline of a serious proposal, so if there is anything I could help with, let me know.
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| KSaku39 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6621 days ago 30 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 18 of 43 07 January 2008 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Reposted
Hello Professor Arguelles, I noticed that at your idealized polyglot school one hour each day is devoted to meditation and focus training. This is one aspect of your regimen I don't believe you've yet explained, and I would appreciate a brief description. Thanks, Kevin Sakuraba Edited by KSaku39 on 07 January 2008 at 8:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6230 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 19 of 43 12 January 2008 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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This post is a restatement of some of the larger questions from my previous post which remain unanswered.
It looks to me as though the current language tracks all include relatively diverse languages, where cultural similarities will be of more help than etymological and grammatical ones. What are your thoughts on this observation? What level are students required to reach in each language studied? How much does this vary from language to language, and between tracks? How much student selection will there be in which great books to read, especially at the higher levels? How important is the study of older forms of the languages and/or how they have changed over time in the proposed tracks, and how much does this importance vary between them? To what extent is practical use of the languages taught a goal of the program? You have clearly stated that it is secondary to building a deep humanistic base, on which encyclopedic knowledge can be layered, based on the great literature (in the widest sense) of the major living civilizations, but I am still in the dark as to what level of achievement is expected. What levels of passive and active proficiency do you consider desirable for a student to have at the end of this program? What are the minimums you consider acceptable? How do you propose to do evaluations, grading, and testing? Specifically, what are the main objectives and criteria? Which integral topics are students expected to study on their own, especially within the first two years? Will study methods ever explicitly be discussed, and if so, to what extent? Regards; Volte 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7047 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 20 of 43 13 January 2008 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ms. Volte,
Thank you for streamlining your main points somewhat. I was very glad for the interest shown in your initial post and I will eventually attempt to cover all the points that you raised, but many of them relate to the actualization or realization of this dream (hopefully in some form in the very near future!), and right now I am still just struggling to articulate the ideal planning stages… Alas, I will not have time this week to address any of your points, or to get to the role of meditation, as I had promised I would, or indeed to do any revising at all… Next week and in future weeks, when I do get to these matters, please note again that it will be in the revised body of the working draft and not in the form of individual answers, in distinction to the way the other threads work. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6329 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 21 of 43 27 January 2008 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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If a student were to truly internalize all those great works; and in addition, know all those languages intimately, then I think some revolutionary new method of teaching would be needed. I think most people could not successfully accomplish all of that in a matter of 4 years under the current educational system.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6230 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 22 of 43 02 February 2008 at 10:46am | IP Logged | ||
Read the first post of this thread carefully, or better yet, all of the posts on this sub-forum. Professor Arguelles is proposing to create an academy, where people study 9 or more hours a day, and proposing that the study consist not only of languages and great works, but also of focus and meditation techniques. This is very, very distant from the norms of the current educational system. The revolutionary new method is simple: have intelligent students who are deeply interested in the topic, and something demanding to aim for. It is far from unknown for people to study at this depth when they are passionate about a topic. The current higher education system is increasingly undemanding and watered down, requiring little more than attendance, occasional perfunctory study, and various amounts of what is often little more than shallow make-work. The proposed academy is, in large part, a reaction to that, in my opinion. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 5939 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 23 of 43 02 February 2008 at 11:59am | IP Logged | ||
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I am also intrigued that it seems to consist mainly of self-study, the ideal way of learning anything. Increasing the hours of contact curriculum time in school does not lead to more learning taking place, most of the top students I know are highly motivated to seek knowledge themselves and often learn topics weeks if not months ahead of the school's pace.
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| rob Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5956 days ago 287 posts - 288 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 24 of 43 02 February 2008 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dear Professor Arguelles,
Further to your proposal for the PhD programme, I wondered if you are aware of the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project at SOAS. I think that you will probably be aware of this due to your interest, but in the case that you are not, I thought I would bring it to your attention. You can access the web page here. Of course, the UK education system works differently from the US one, but basically, it is a 3 year (minimum) course which takes place after a 1 year MA course. While this can be taken by a student with or without a first degree in linguistics, the content of the masters course will vary accordingly. Students are trained in fieldwork and language documentation, then given the funding and resources to construct a complete language course/guide for future generations. This is somewhat of a side note, but while I have mentioned it, the UK system has a 3 year undergraduate, 1 year postgraduate and 3 year doctorate system. Your programme (undoubtedly in line with the US system) consists of a 4 year undergraduate, 2 year MA, 2 year MPhil and 4 year PhD. Do you see any advantage in 12 years of university over 7 years in the UK, whereby one could begin documenting a language sooner rather than learning bredth and depth of languages which one could do independly of the education system once trained in this way? Edited by rob on 02 February 2008 at 12:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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