The Linguist - Learn English, Learn Languages Online

TEOFL TOEIC IELTS, word lists and LingQ

There are a number of important word lists available on the Internet such as

The Academic Word List
TOEIC lists
TOEFL lists

See
http://language.massey.ac.nz/staff/awl/sublist1.sh tml
http://www2.nict.go.jp/x/x161/members/mutiyama/voc abridge-toeic/
http://supervoca.net/toefllist.cgi

These can be used in the following way at LingQ.

• create a Collection in the Import section called Lists.
• import each list as an item in the Collection
• open them as content starting with the one that has the lowest % new words
• go through and LingQ the words that you do not know
• use "Examples" to find appropriate phrases for the LingQ box or wait until the word appears again in another text.
• if you want you can Tag these words TOEFL or TOEIC or AWL whatever you want in order to retrieve a list of the words you still need to learn.

This procedure has a number of advantages
1) You can immediately input a long list of words that are necessary for these tests.
2) You get a sense of how many you already know.
3) These words will now appear highlighted in yellow in future texts at LingQ.
4) You will now have the words you need in your database for review in Flash Cards
5) You can track your progress in learning these words.

Why not give it a try at LingQ.

Learning by Manfred Spitzer

Learning: The Human Brain and the School for Life, by Manfred Spitzer.

A quick summary of the major insights that I found in this book:

I read the book in German, and may have interpreted some ideas to suit my preconceived ideas, but that is the privilege of the reader. I have also not included the detailed scientific explanations of the brain and of various experiments that form a major part of Spitzer's book. I suggest that people who are interested read the book for themselves.

1) The human brain is designed to learn, and it learns all the time.

The human brain is designed to learn, and continues learning throughout our lives. Our brain is constantly forming connections between neurons, or strengthening existing connections, or creating new neurons, in order to deal with the information it receives.

The brain learns best when the input is meaningful and interesting. The brain also prefers new information. Tests have shown that learning takes place best when the information is relevant, and when the information is new and challenging.

Learning is not limited to schools. Learning takes place everywhere and at all times, and throughout our lives. Research has shown that we continue to create new neurons and retain neural plasticity into old age.

Learning is an energy intensive activity.The brain burns over 20% of the calories consumed by the body.


2) The brain controls what it is going learn.

The brain does most of its learning on its own. With the right input, the brain is quite capable of creating the necessary labels and rules required to organize the information it has received and stored.

It is not always necessary, and is sometimes counterproductive, to teach rules explicitly. It is often more effective to let the brain develop its own rules, from the observation of the information received. We all learn to speak our own language and yet most of us are unable to provide rules to explain how the language works. We just know how to speak our language.

We learn better from examples and than from rules. We learn better from stories and episodes than from facts. We develop the"know how"  of how to do many things, but we "know" far less about why. We learn more from observing others, than from explanations, and exhortations.

The brain can prioritize, managing easy input before dealing with more difficult input. Children are exposed to a full range of language content, but focus first on the simpler structures and words they need and can use. They learn more difficult words and grammatical structures later, when they are ready.

3) Attentiveness, Enjoyment and Motivation: The three key factors in learning.

Spitzer describes, in detail, experiments which show how three factors are decisive in learning outcomes.

1) Attentiveness: This refers to both general alertness, and the ability to focus on specific details.
2) Enjoyment: The emotional state of the learner influences the performance of the brain.
3) Motivation: Motivation is a decisive factor in learning.

To Spitzer, schools should focus on these three elements. The best teachers are the ones who can create conditions of attentiveness, enjoyment and motivation. The teacher's academic knowledge of the subject may be of less importance.

Spitzer feels that schools are where young children learn not to like learning. He challenges schools to stop demotivating learners.

4) When we learn, we change

Learning causes a change in who we are. Children are not afraid to change. Young children moving to a new country usually learn the language of their new friends without any hesitation or resistance.

Older learners have a stronger vested interested in their own identity, and in what they already know. This is one reason why adult language learners can have difficulty learning a new language.

Adult learners need to feel comfortable. A friendly community of learners and teachers can form a social support system for adult learners, helping them confront and accept the change that learning brings.

 LingQ, as a learning system and learning community, is very much in line with these insights from Spitzer's book.

European journey part 3

On Friday my Canadian companions left to return home, and I started out on the next leg of my journey, my language journey. The first thing I did was visit Milan's largest book store, to buy a few Italian books and audio books.

It was raining. I took the subway to the Piazza del Duomo, where two major book stores are located. I took time out from my shopping to admire, from the outside and from the inside, the magnificent Duomo, a startling and recently cleaned expression of the religious devotion, artistic genius and craftmanship of Medieval Lombardy. It was awe inspiring, and kind of slowed me down a bit. But then I went off to buy some books.

The next morning, on November 1, I started using my Eurail pass, which was to prove a wonderful way to travel around Europe. Once the train fare is paid for, you just hop aboard any train, and move. Although some train require a reservation and in Italy, some trains are not included, so you have to be a little careful.

My first destination was Zovencedo, a small hill town just outside of Vicenza. Zovencedo is the home of Maurizio Falghera, his wife Cristiana and their two young children. The high speed Italian train took me to Vicenza where I was met by Cristiana who drove me to their home.

Maurizio has a vibrant voice and has devoted himself to recording the major works of  Italian literature.  Hence Il Narratore audiolibri, a great source of audio books in Italian. Maurizio believes in the art of the story teller, and the power of story telling to improve literacy. I heartily support him.

After a pleasant mean and wine, and congenial discussion, I went to bed. Early the next morning I went for a run in the hills overlooking Vicenza, amid the sound of gunfire. The local hunting season was in full swing. The roads were deserted, and I just hoped that none of the hunters would mistake me for a bird or a wild boar, or whatever they were shooting at.

Later in the morning I was driven to the Vicenza train station, where I discovered that the train schedule on the Internet may not correspond to the schedule that the trains actually run by. But I did not care. I had the luxury of having time. I took a slow train to Verona, and then waited for the train that would take me through the mountain passes, through the Dolomites and the Alps, past Tyrol, and into Germany.

I climbed aboard and entered my compartment, where for the next 6 hours I would have the company of a talkative American and equally talkative, and beer drinking, Dane.

My European trip part 2

The old part of Brescia was pleasant to stroll around, older buildings sprinkled with small bars and restaurants. There were mainly younger people about, enjoying the Sunday evening. Dinner is not until 8.00 in Italy, so we began with a drink and snacks at a bar. Our waitress was delighted to practice her English on us, and of course was immediately introduced to LingQ and given a card.

We then moved on to dinner, at a small restaurant which the hotel had recommended. The food was a little disappointing, a little heavy, too much butter. My preference is for that kind of Italian food which uses more olive oil. However, our head waiter made up for the deficiencies of the cuisine by his dramatic and theatrical presentation of the menu. In fact the whole atmosphere in the restaurant reminded me of a theatre play. We were the first to arrive for dinner and we caught the restaurant staff finishing their meal, sort of like catching actors on the stage in final preparation for the night's show. Soon after we arrived and sat down, more customers came in. Our head waiter took his oratory from table to table, and the guests soon started playing their assigned roles of talking with a great deal of animation and doing a lot of gesturing and gesticulating.

The next morning we went to visit the company which manufactures the equipment that we were interested in. The founder and president of the company had developed the technology over 20 years and had at times thought of giving up. Finally in 2000 his fortunes improved as the interest in small scale power generation from biomass received more attention and support from various European governments. Since then his sales and staff had grown dramatically. This gave me some encouragement for LingQ, where we have been working for a long time and hopefully a breakthrough awaits us.

Over the next few days we traveled by car and plane to different sawmills in Austria and Germany to see the equipment in use. I was impressed with how thoroughly these German sawmills are extracting every last bit of energy out of wood waste that we are far from fully utilizing in Canada. Of course, none of this activity would be economically feasible without support and subsidy from government. Our role will be to convince our government to provide a similar level of support for us to the same thing. Wood is CO2 neutral, and utilizing wood waste can contribute to less dependency on oil and gas for energy.

On Friday my companions left to return to Canada, and I started out on the next leg of my journey, my language journey. The first thing I did was visit Milan's largest book store.

My European trip part 1

I intend to spend the next many posts talking about two subjects, my trip through Europe and the book Lernen by Manfred Spitzer. I will just alternate the two subjects.

Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage

Happy is he who has, like Ulysses, made a wonderful journey

du Bellay  16th century French poet.

Travel enriches us, or at least has the potential to do so. Just as in du Bellay's poem, we return home happier and renewed. We rediscover the joys of the home and hearth, yet we are changed by what we have seen. Some trips give us more than others. My most recent trip was wonderful. I feel like Ulysses.

Between October 25 and November 22 I was in Milan, Brescia, Leoben in Austria, Zovencedo (just outside Vicenza), Augsburg, Munich, Prague, Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, Cologne, Heide (north of Hamburg), Berlin, Stockholm,and finally Karlstad (Sweden) before returning home.  I spent a good deal of the time in cars, trains, subways, and just plain walking. I was not on the beach, nor in the mountains. I did not stay at resorts, nor visit cathedrals and museums. I traveled though countrysides, visited cities, and experienced different histories, cultures and languages.

The first week I was with three traveling companions from our sawmill, Real, Robert and Steve (another Steve). We were looking at Italian equipment that would enable us to produce electric power using our wood waste, which consists mostly of bark. We are only utilizing a portion of our waste, or biomass, to dry our lumber, and wanted to see if we could somehow justify a small scale electric power station. An Italian company had develop a technique which uses high temperature oil, rather than steam, to drive the turbines. This would be easier for use to manage than the conventional approach using steam. This company, Turboden, was located in Brescia.

Our flight from Calgary to Frankfurt was late, so we missed our connecting flight to Milan. However, there was another flight a few hours later. From Milan's Malpensa airport we took a bus into the central train station. Sitting in front of me on the bus was an Asian looking gentleman, whom I took to be Japanese or Korean. Then I noticed that he was reading a Russian newspaper. I was curious, and of course always keen to practice my Russian. I struck up a conversation in Russian and discovered that he was Kazakh. We had a pleasant conversation about Kazakhstan and other subjects and I gave him a LingQ card. He was not going to be the last one to get a LingQ card on this trip.

From Milan we took a train to Brescia, and a quick taxi ride took us to our hotel. It was still early afternoon so we decided to rest a little and then go into town.

The Callan method

Does anyone have any experience of knowledge of this method. Apparently this method is quite popular in Japan on a website called english-bell.

From what I can tell the method involves intensive drilling in English. I have never enjoyed drilling as an approach to language learning, since I believe that constant exposure to interesting content will enable the brain to acquire the words and the habits of the language.

I hear people say that they can understand the spoken language and can read but just have trouble speaking. I have never found that to be the case. Those people who say that they can understand the spoken language and can read but cannot speak, in fact do not understand well when you speak to them  and never read a full book in English.

I remain of the view that if you train your ability to understand the spoken language, and the written language, and if you learn enough vocabulary through that process, you will develop the potential to speak well when the need or opportunity arises.

A small amount of speaking and writing from time to time will prime you, and aid in your acquisition of the language, until you finally find yourself in situations where you need to speak. Trying to force people to speak based on a limited knowledge of the language has always seemed to me to be an unpleasant way to force the language on people. It seems that many or perhaps most people are convinced that it takes someone else to teach them the language, whereas in my experience it is up to the learner to learn the language.

Any views on the Callan method or other methods based on drilling?

Why not put your kids in Chinese play school.

There is a lot of parental pressure on kids to achieve these days. In Asia parents put their kids into English play school and in the US I hear of parents wanting to put their kids into Chinese play school, all in the name of giving them some advantage. Now I am all for language learning, but is it really necessary? Don't little kids just want to play with their friends?  They are learning all the time, and it is not like they are going to miss the boat.

I just returned from Sweden. I have two employees there who have young school age children. They are quite frustrated at the fact that in Sweden they do not start teaching reading until the age of seven. The same is true in Finland. Yet Finland consistently scores at the very top in international comparison of 15 year olds in reading and math. Chinese kids study 1200 hours a year and Finnish kids only 800 hours per year and do just as well or better. And the Finnish kids get very little homework. Of course, that Chinese number does not take into consideration the additional hours of "cram school" which is an East Asian tradition. The Finns also learn to speak Swedish and English.

Could it be that hours of schooling do not matter very much, that hours of homework do not matter very much? Apparently Finnish teachers are very well paid. I do not know, but it seems to me that fewer, better paid, motivated and respected teachers, and fewer hours of instruction, and more room for reading and learning, will lead to better results.

I mean it is clear to me that very little learning takes place in Canadian language classes. Can this problem be more wide spread?

I will be talking in other posts about the fascinating book I read in Germany about how the brain learns. I am not sure that our teaching system takes into account what we have learned about the brain in the last few years.

Meanwhile let's give the kids a break. Let's inspire them rather than drill them or pressure them.

Rain in Karlstad Sweden, rail travel in Europe and the high cost of books

I am in Karlstad for the annual Swedish lumber marketing conference. It is raining and it is cold. I have completed my two weeks of wandering around Germany (with side trips to Prague, Paris, Brussels and Antwerp). My two weeks of travel on the magic carpet of a Eurail pass was wonderful. Once the ticket was paid for, the train travel was "free" for as much as I wanted to use it. I think I spent over 30 hours on trains. Most of the time I was very comfortable, reading, and listening, mostly in German, and watching the scenery go by. I will describe all of this in more detail in a report on my travels later. Let me just say that the German cities were a delight, and I really recommend Berlin, where I stayed on the Friedrichstrasse near Check Point Charlie. I walked for many hours in Berlin and would like to go back, with my wife, stay for a week and take in all of what the city has to offer.

Getting back to Karlstad, my lumber meetings begin after lunch. So went to a book store. I bought another book and audio book by my favourite Swedish writer, Hermann Lindquist, who writes about history. I bought his book and CD on Madame Pompadour. I looked at the section on books for language learning. There was a series on learning English. I cannot remember the name but the store only had books 5 and 6 in the series. Each one cost $100 Canadian, although only $80 for students. There was a book for learning Swedish as a second language by the same company and in the same price range. Who would buy these books? If you bought all 6 of the English books, you would spend $480 to $600, and where would you be? I imagine some people will even buy the books and hardly even use them.

At LingQ you pay $10 a month, and you get a chance to see if you like the system first. And for $40 a month or so you get a personal tutor who talks to you and corrects your writing. Once we get our much much delayed new version out, and we are very close, ( I have seen it and it looks great), we really have to make more people aware of who we are and what we have. That is my resolution for the new year, to promote, promote and promote.

Grammar again

About 5 years ago when we began The Linguist, the predecessor of LingQ, I did a video recording in nine languages on my deck, including one in German, which you can see here. I recently received the following email about this German video.

"Dear Steve,

In your German clip you should have said: "Das hat mir ... vielE Türen geöffnet" and "Probieren Sie meine Methoden doch einmal aus." "Versuchen" doesn't mean "give something a try", but rather "make an attempt" or "try to do".

Grammar rules are indeed indispensable.

MfG

Ed Crosby

Technical translator/interpreter -- English, German, Spanish"

I have on many occasions in the last 30 years looked at German declension tables. It has not made much of an impression on me. It was only when I abandoned any hope of learning which endings belonged to which words in which situations, and simply let myself enjoy the language, that I began to speak German. Yes it is a good idea to strive to speak correctly, or to follow common usage. It is not clear to me that learning grammar rules is the best way to achieve that goal. The brain makes its own rules, according to Manfred Spitzer in a wonderful book on how the brain learns. Reading grammar can help, but it is not the most important thing. Listening, reading and using the language are far more important.

What is more, the question of what words mean and how they are used is not a grammatical question, but one of habit and experience and lots of exposure. I do no aspire, like Ed Crosby, to interpret or translate, I just aspire to communicate. Even if I wanted to interpret or translate, I would not worry about grammar rules until I had a good command of the language.

Free US site for immigrants to learn English

I would be interested in hearing any comments on this site set up by the US government for immigrants to learn English. 

Importing lists of terms

I have been doing a lot of reading in German while sitting on trains. I have a Eurail pass so the travel is all paid for. Yesterday I traveled from Koeln to Heide via Hamburg. The first train was late getting in to Hamburg so I missed my connection and had to hang around the train station.

When I read in German there are words I do not understand, quite a few per page. I import them into LingQ as a list of terms. Then I get them emailed to me. I can review them on the computer, or even sitting on the train,where I can read them again on my Blackberry. Very useful!

Livemocha reaches one million members!

Livemocha, the world‘ s largest online language learning community, announced today that its community has reached 1 million members from around the world in its first year of existence.

They also won an award

"NWSource posted its list of winners for “Favorite Northwest Employers” (generally the Seattle area). Livemocha was selected as the winner in the “favorite startup” category!"

 Has anyone used Livemocha? Can anyone give us a comment about it here?

LingQ meet up in Antwerp

A cozier meet up of Lingq members took place in Antwerp at a book fair called Boekenbeurs. I was amazed at how many people thronged into the fair to look at book, listen to authors etc. Fortunately or unfortunately the books were all in Dutch so I did not buy any ( I already have a full suitcase of books and audio books). Members Nicole, and Mom whose name I do no remember but who studies 4 languages at LingQ ( like mother like daughter), Martijn and Vincent all exchanged views on how to make LingQ better before setting off in our different directions.

Polyglot meet up in Paris

Saturday I flew from Prague to Paris to take part in a meet up of polyglotclub.com an award winning website and organization that brings people together face to face to speak various languages to each other. There were over 100 very friendly people talking to each other in a variety of languages in a very cramped space. I would like to set up a branch in Vancouver and elsewhere where our members are active.

Multlingualism in Europe

When you walk around in European cities you really hear a lot of languages. This was particularly the case in Prague but is also true here in Brussels. This morning I visited the European Commission for Multilingualism to explain LingQ and how it could the Commission achieve its goals. They were interested. At least it is a first contact.

The various European member nations have their own language objectives and would like to see their own languages used more internationally, or at least protected and respected. Yet within the European member countries there are language disputes, in Belgium, Spain, and the Baltics just to name a few places.

Prague the golden city of towers and one visiting language nut.

I am sitting in an Internet cafe where I finally have access to the internet. I was promised Wifi at my hotel but that did not materialize. Last night I had a delightful dinner at the home of LingQ member Gabriela, cooked by her husband John!. I cannot wait until we have Czech at LingQ, she would make a great tutor.

Prague is fascinating. Last night after returning by street car from Gabriela and John's place I wandered into a wine bar and had a glass of wine, where I had an interesting conversation with a couple of radio journalists with Radio Free Europe, one English and one Russian, then chatted with my other neighbours who were with the Korean Embassy here. (I dusted off my rusty Korean, limited as it is).

This morning I had an early morning jog, visiting the small and large sqaures of Pragues and the Charles bridge, all at a trot. No city I know of blends the  Middle Ages with the 18th and 19th century in a way that is as spectacular and yet comfortable as Prague. The many pedestrian streets are a big part of the reason.You do not need to be dodging cars all the time.

Then I returned to have breakfast at the hotel where I chatted in Swedish and Chinese with my fellow hotel guests. (and handed out LingQ cards, as I did last night!)

Expolingua was a show directed at high school language learners, who thronged to the show. 90 % girls or so it appeared. I met some interesting people involved in language teaching, language exchange and language promotion, online and through travel and schools.

As for the exhibitors, there were people from Lithuania, young people, who spoke Russian. There were French, Spanish, Romanian, Austrians, Italians, Germans, Chinese (Confucius Institute of Olomouc), Portuguese, Guatemalans, Basque speakers, and one Japanese school whose the representative did not speak Japanese! I probably forgot some.

I had a lengthy discussion in Russian, with the Director of A University at Tomsk. She was very nice and seem to understand what I was saying most of the time,and did not make faces when I mutilated the Russian language, and I understood her.

There might  be some opportunities for cooperation with LingQ in all of this, but mostly I had a good time.

 

Munich is grand and Augsburg is cozy.

Yesterday I had some meetings in Munich and had the chance to wander around the old part of the city. Germany is impressive in its solid modernity ( I find the Deutsche Bahn railway, for example, excellent, with super friendly service), and yet the German towns and cities preserve their past so well. The many Platzes (squares) Munich are grand and attractive. They give you a sense of the importance of Bavaria long before it was Germany. Augsburg, where I am staying to avoid the expensive hotels of Munich, is similar but on a smaller and more walkable scale. 

I find the people very friendly with the exception of people who serve you in shops and restaurants. There again, there are always exceptions. The service in book stores is outstanding!

I am amazed at home many people in Germany walk around with something in their mouth, either a sandwich or sausage of some kind, or a cigarette!

Yesterday for lunch I had a glass of wine in a Wein Stuebe just off the Odeonplatz, in Munich, along with Surhaxe and mashed potatoes..excellent. The last two nights I have eaten dinner in the Ratskeller in Augsburg, reasonable, lively and friendly. Both nights I have been able to strike up animated conversations in German with nearby diners, great practice for my German. The same was true at the Wein Stuebe, by the way, as I spoke to a gentleman who was a retired physicist, who now took tours through the Deutsches Museum. I promised him to go and visit the museum but did not keep my word.

Not everyone likes being ambushed by a language learner, though. I had a table of Russians beside me last night and tried to engage them in conversation in Russian. I do not know if they thought I was going to ask for money, or thought I was a spy, but let's just say they were not interested in amusing me. Ah well, to be a language learner you need to have a thick skin.

Tomorrow I am off to Prague.

Stu Jay Ray accomplished polyglot on youtube

Stu Jay Raj is a very capable polyglot. Check out these videos where he speaks in 15 languages. In particular note what he says at the beginning of the second video about Krashen and the importance of comprehensible input and enjoyment.

http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=csfHuFNlQgY
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr_sWVpsNIg

Audio books can improve literacy

Il Narratore is a wonderful source of Italian audio books. It is headquartered in Zovencedo, a quaint village on the hillside, overlooking Vicenza. Maurizio Fulghera is the voice of Il Narratore and is passionate about Italian literature and the many ways in which audio can be used for enjoyment and for learning. I spent Saturday with the Il Narratore family, Maurizio, Cristiana, Emma and Sol.

Maurizio, Cristiana and I share many views on the power of audio books, and their use in the cause of raising literacy levels.

Here is our discussion about audio books.

Looking forward to Antwerp meeting on the 9th

Thanks to Nicole for posting additional information about where to meet at the Boekenbeurs in Antwerp at 1 pm on the 9th. Hope to see as many as possible there.

http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and/2008/10/looking-forward-to-meeting-up-in-europe.html?cid=137275495#comments