The best way to learn another language is to have lots of random and systematic exposure to it, along with lots of spontaneous, ungraded opportunities to use it. This year we’ll begin releasing a number of high-powered academic exercises that can put kids in grades 4 to 8 beyond what students their age usually do. But the main thing we offer is the way our instruction motivates students to think about language and culture. The people who subscribe to our instruction tend to be the ones who do not see language learning primarily as an academic area. Their students and children are the ones who go around using the language.
Archive for July, 2010
The Best Way to Learn Language
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010You Don’t Have to Write to Remember
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010Lots of things make memory strong. I have shown hundreds of times that content can be mastered without writing, without workbooks and tests–tests as they are usually done. When we build interactive environments that rely on different kinds of responses in order for activity to continue, we are testing. We are drawing out responses. We are staying current. We are finding out where the student is all along the way, sometimes every moment. In this regard, writing is about as slow as you can go, unless you use very short responses. I love short, written responses because I can cover and reinforce so much more with the student.
You can work with text in many ways to retain it, and all adults and school-age kids I’ve known like working with text. Writing does add important options, such as making your own greeting card or other message, but the main thing is to learn the processes that are vital to communication in any form. Master those processes–decoding language and putting it together–and you have built powerful memory for text.
Written exercises are often part of an age-old tradition for keeping students busy and managing behavior. Writing eventually becomes very important in communication, but it is one of the slowest ways to learn language in the early stages.
Illegals Remind Me of Citizens
Friday, July 9th, 2010You know those character banners that decorate school hallways and classrooms? Well, I realize the U.S.-Mexico border is way out of control, but I’m so tired of people complaining to me about illegal immigrants that I have decided to create a video series on the painful similarities between citizens and illegals. I want to do this with those character banners in mind. Here are some:
Respect (no putdowns)
Caring (treating people with dignity)
Fairness (allowing people to have what is due them, and not taking what is not yours)
Citizenship (playing a wholesome role in your society and country)
When we take an honest look at how citizens behave, we find plenty of illegality along with bad citizenship and other character flaws. It’s good to examine our own behavior before despising others. Maybe we have a lot in common.
By the way, even the immigrants who cross illegally tell me that the border is out of control. Most of them are just plain desperate.
The series will appear in the Batch 3 and Batch 4 Cultural Insights, which are for 6th grade and up, including the adults who are with them. I think subscribers will enjoy the lessons and take another look at their feelings. We will not agree on an effective solution to our border issues, but at least we can try a little harder to live up to those character banners.
Home, the center of learning
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010The field of education has been pushing lifelong learning for years, and there’s still no place like home for cultivating an attitude of ongoing curiosity and exploration. Education is done best when students go on learning beyond class time, beyond the academic year, and beyond graduation. As elective courses and nonrequired activities are cut from public and private schools, home is more important than ever.
Home is where everyone should grow up with an attitude of lifelong learning. Families can make language-learning a habit around the house, instead of leaving it all up to the school down the street.