Learning any language - a perspective...

I read something recently about teaching and learning australian indigenous languages which discusses techniques that actually have a surprising broad applicability. The link is here:


Grammar rules, OK? 
What works when teaching a highly endangered 
Aboriginal language versus a stronger language?

It's interesting for its discussion of how to learn a language in the process of being revived, but it also has this overview of how to learn a language with access to good material and native speakers (which the paper terms "strong" languages) and since this is the situation for most languages average people are interested in learning, I figured I would repost an excerpt here:


The following list outlines just some of the sound teaching methods and
techniques that are possible when teaching strong languages:

  1. Being an active listener, constantly listening to the language at home on pre-recorded CDs of narratives and language drills.
  2. Constructing long texts in class with all the discourse markers and styles of a healthy language that is still spoken fluently.
  3. Looking, thinking and listening to the teachers as he/she models natural dialogues.

  4. Mimicking the teacher as he/she models natural sentences with fluent speech, using the intonation and pragmatics of the language.
  5. Getting the teacher to record long sentences onto student iPhones.
  6. Consulting the many sentence examples in the contemporary dictionary which outlines the different senses and uses of words in natural sentences.
  7. Putting away the books and pens, on a regular basis, and having longer and more sustained oral language sessions in just the target language, with no English.
  8. Seeking out speakers in an effort to develop an ear for the language and gaining a good passive knowledge of the different genres of the language.
  9. Being prepared to go outside student comfort zones, and practise regularly speaking the language with fluent speakers, and making mistakes in front of others in an effort to learn the correct usage of the language.
  10. Trying to learn idiomatic usage of the language and practise using idioms in one’s speech.

A lot of this list applies at all stages of learning. You will just get different outcomes from each approach depending on your current level, but all should help move you forward.

Pretty straight forward, right? So let's all get on with it :-)