David, Janet and others,

I have not experienced any difference between learning a language as a
second language, or as a foreign language. I have seen people live where the
language is spoken and not learn, and I have seen people learn very well in
places where the language is not spoken.

My experience with immigrant ESL practitioners in Canada has been a very
strong resistance to teaching outside the classroom, and a resistance to
anyone, such as LingQ, not in the "public sector", getting involved in
language instruction.

I run a lumber and software business. Six years ago, while learning
Cantonese on my own, I heard on local Cantonese radio about a Chinese
immigrant to Canada who had all his money stolen at the airport. I hired
him, basically to help him out. He had high TOEFL scores but could really
not communicate in English. I discovered that there were many like him,
educated professionals with poor communication skills in English, and no
time to go to class. That was why I started developing and online language
learning system, six years ago.

I have been met with indifference or resistance by the teaching
establishment. I was told on more than one occasion that language learning
can only take place in a classroom. I was told by one government source that
they would only fund e-learning if the learner could prove that they could
not come to class. I guess the concern is that the e-learner cannot be
relied on to study on his or her own. On the other hand I regularly hear
from adult ESL teachers that if attendance at class is not compulsory,
people stop coming, and when it is compulsory learners often ask the teacher
to say that they came, when the did not. If a person is not committed to
learning, a class will not help. Human nature is human nature, and
immigrants are no exception.

Of course learning will happen faster if there is an opportunity for face to
face contact, or some kind of direct encouragement and pressure from a
friendly teacher. We have a higher attrition rate amongst the majority of
learners who use LingQ free, compared to those who pay to interact with a
tutor.

E-learning is not competition for the classroom, but a means of extending
the influence of the teacher, of leveraging classroom time. It is obviously
convenient for the learner, and  less expensive to incorporate some
structured self-learning, the degree and nature of that independent learning
to depend on the situation of the learner. However, the reaction of teachers
here was one of professional protectionism and annoyance that someone
without any academic background in their field, was invading their turf.

As for proof of what works, David, I can point to testimonials of our
students. One, an immigrant engineer from Venezuela, spent 14 months at an
ESL school and was totally frustrated. After 4 months with our approach he
regained his confidence, improved his language skills, went on to attend a
Community College to upgrade his engineering skills, outperformed many
native speaking Canadians in his communication class and is now happily
employed.

You can find my view of the recent CAL study <goog_1216665349833>
<http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dhr5gc97_43ftt5bvfd&hl=en>on the impact of
instructional hours on language improvement amongst immigrants. The poor
results from classroom language instruction in Canada is well documented. In
one case less than 1% of students in New Brunswick could achieve even an
intermediate level of oral proficiency after 12 years of daily French
instruction.

Most people who learn to speak another language well, do it largely on their
own. Somehow language classes should have as a major part of their goal, to
transform their learners into more independent, and therefore more
successful independent learners. If political activism helps to achieve that
goal, then it is a good thing. But the goal of a language class should be
language improvement.

Steve



-- 
Steve Kaufmann
www.lingq.com
1-604-922-8514
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