I attach the new words to my existing knowledge via a bilingual dictionary,
which is an essential tool for language learning. Since looking things up in
a conventional dictionary is time consuming, and since I almost immediately
forget what I found in the dictionary, an online dictionary is ideal. Words
looked up online can be saved to a database where all kinds of useful things
can be done with them, flash cards, tagging, reviewing by date, by content,
by importance,  reviewing phrases where the words occurred in familiar
content that I have listened to and read etc..but  I digress.

Ultimately I remember words if I see them or hear them often enough in
interesting contexts. Any words that are given to me out of context, lists
of colours, cognates, days of the week, numbers or whatever, I find hard to
learn and distracting. My main motivation is to understand the content I am
listening to and reading, and to meet more words, words that are new and
that I look up, and words that I have already learned and forgotten, which
can appear highlighted in new content.

No in a classroom, with no access to a computer, the problems are different.
However, if all you students are Spanish speaking, you can tell them the
meaning in Spanish.

Steve Kaufmann
www.lingq.com

On 2/2/09, Martin Senger <MSenger at gecac.org> wrote:

>

>  Pax Steve!

>

>

>

> I must take exception with your statement about cognates.  In James Zull's

> excellent book "The Art of Changing the Brain," Zull explains in order to

> learn, we must attach new knowledge to existing knowledge in our brain.

> Without that relationship of new to old, the task of learning becomes well

> nigh impossible.

>

>

>

> In my class, when a new word/phrase/concept is introduced, I work with my

> students to find a correlation to their existing understanding, and build or

> scaffold on that.

>

>

>

> I can't help believe that when you say you disregard cognate information,

> it is because you have already attached it to some existing information,

> albeit unconsciously. My students have not yet developed that ability to

> make the connections, but they work on it every day.

>

>

>

> Martin E. Senger

>

> *Adult ESL / Civics Teacher,*

>

> G.E.C.A.C. / The R. Benjamin Wiley Learning Center

>

> Erie, Pa.

>

> *Co-Director,***

>

> ESL Special Interest Group

>

> Pa. Assoc. for Adult Continuing Education (PAACE)

>

>

>

> *From:* englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:

> englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] *On Behalf Of *Steve Kaufmann

> *Sent:* Monday, February 02, 2009 12:58 PM

> *To:* The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List

> *Subject:* [EnglishLanguage 3824] Re: how difficult is English? (even

> longer)

>

>

>

> I have a different perspective on cognates or similarities to my own

> language, when I start learning a new language. These similarities are often

> pointed out early in language learning books and CDs. I have never found

> this information useful, and in fact find it a distraction, and usually

> ignore this information.

>

>  In my experience the learners are better off discovering the language on

> their own. They will notice the cognates themselves. It is more important

> for them to commit to the new language, listening to it, and if possible

> reading it, over and over, repetitively, until they start to get a feel. The

> cognates are not that big a help at first, since these cognates may not be

> the words they need to understant the content they are learning from. Of

> course, in the long run they are welcome freebees in the gradual discovery

> of the language, and the more similar the vocabulary the faster the language

> can be learner, vocabulary accumulation being the major task in language

> learning.

>

> Steve Kaufmann

> www.lingq.com

>

> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 9:19 AM, Anne Whiteside <awhitesi at ccsf.edu> wrote:

>

> Speaking of language distance, I've found that working with bilingual

> Spanish speakers whose first language is in the Mayan family, those whove

> already bridged the huge divide between Maya and Spanish are relatively

> quick at the early phase of English; I've heard lots of anecdotal support

> for this. Students have told me that word order ( adj. noun) and

> pronunciation is easy for them because it's similar in Maya, whereas this

> aspect of English often throws Spanish speakers off, and cognates are easy

> for them because of Spanish. So I agree with Heide that making teachers

> aware of the linguistic base students come with and drawing attention to

> these resources, rather than those that are undeveloped (literacy) is super

> important for students with less formal education.

>

> Anne Whiteside

>

> >>> heide at literacywork.com 02/01/09 7:51 PM >>>

> Greetings all

>

> I wanted to take up the issue of English learning and “language

> distance† one last time (I promise) and it’s an even longer note. But if

> you just skip to the end and consider the question, we can perhaps move

> toward a thoughtful conversation on the topic.

>

> Mhmm, English does indeed have Germanic roots but over the years, many

> other languages, especially the Romance languages have been grafted onto

> English and influenced both its structure and its vocabulary. For example,

> we've lost all those Germanic verb endings - plus the "thee" and "thous"

> along the way and gained a tremendous amount of Latin-based words, all

> easily accessible to speakers of Romance languages. Since Britain was part

> of the Roman Empire, quite a few new words related to the courts and the law

> came from Latin-based languages and many ended up on our tables after 1066

> and the Norman invasion of Britain (Battle of Hastings, anyone?) - so that

> we now eat beef or, if you are so inclined venison (from the French language

> the nobility used ) but get the meat from cows and deer (the Germanic words

> the farmers used) â€"

>

> In terms of teaching then, it makes sense to capitalize on similarities in

> languages and show Spanish speakers, for example, that there are close

> relationships in sentence structure (Subject-Predicate- Object) and

> vocabulary between the two languages that can be exploited to make English

> easier to understand for beginners (construcion â€" becomes construction;

> integracion becomes integration and inauguration .. well, you get the

> picture).

>

> I am always amazed that teachers who only have Spanish speakers in their

> classes (and there are many of those at the beginning level), start their

> teaching with Germanic based words (which have all those complicated

> spelling patterns) instead of creating early success experiences by

> introducing (oral) texts that use words that students can, with a little

> practice in cognate awareness, understand quite easily â€" The United States

> of America is a nation of immigrants â€"is understood more readily by a

> Spanish speaker than if we use “our country† or “this land† is used

> to refer to the US. While these types of sentences may not be the highest

> priority for everyday functioning, they nevertheless help to build a

> foundation in English that students can build on â€" plus get across a sense

> from the start that learning English, although not easy, may nevertheless is

> “doable† â€" whereas learning all the different sounds that English

> “e† can make, does indeed feel overwhelming.  Â

>

> So I didn't mean to make the case that because my first language is German,

> English was easy for me (it wasn't). I meant to point out that all things

> being equal (which, admittedly, they never are) - "language distance" does

> matter.  That is, if I speak French and Spanish, learning Italian is not

> that much of a stretch and won't require the same effort that say, learning

> Chinese or, for that matter, Tamil would (given the same interest in the

> language, opportunity to learn, and aptitude)

>

> An Eric Digest on language learning cites this example: At the Defense

> Language Institute in Monterey, California, for example, languages are

> placed in four categories depending on their average learning difficulty

> from the perspective of a native English speaker. The basic intensive

> language course, which brings a student to an intermediate level, can be as

> short as 24 weeks for languages such as Dutch or Spanish, which are Indo

> European languages and use the same writing system as English, or as long as

> 65 weeks for languages such as Arabic or Korean, which are members of other

> language families and use different writing systems.

>

> So while “language distance† is not the only factor that makes language

> learning difficult or easy (there may be other, more important, individual

> factors), it definitely is a factor. And for L2 literacy development, not

> just general L2 acquisition which I am focusing on, the level of literacy in

> L1 seems to override other factors. In quite a few classes, I have seen

> educated Chinese speakers pick up English literacy much more quickly (after

> initial struggles) than Spanish speakers whose L1 literacy skills were a bit

> shaky.

>

> I am wondering what the experiences of others have been who teach mixed

> classes where those without much education in the home country are placed in

> ESL Literacy classes side by side with students who are highly literate in

> L1 but have not yet acquired English of any sort, spoken or written. Â

>

> Best

>

> Heide Spruck Wrigley

> Mesilla, NM

>

>

>

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>

>

>

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