Martin
What you say sounds logical – after all to learn something effectively we
have to understand it on some level – and memory must surely always involve
mental processing. As you say, it may be unconscious/even subconscious,
particularly in the experienced learner who has all sorts of automated
patterns and infrastructure for things to slot into.

This is a fascinating discussion.

Frances Nehme


On 2/2/09 19:10, "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 <http://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 distanceâ€

> 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 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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