In Bangkok, Thailand, teachers are teaching the Thai language using an unconventional method called Automatic Language Growth (ALG). By this method, the teachers speak unceasingly for an hour at a time, acting out stories, using hand gestures and diagrams. They occasionally involve the students by having the students act out parts of the story as well, but the students are forbidden to speak Thai.
ALG tries to parrot the way in which very young children naturally pick up language: listening without responding. In a conventional language class, students try to pronounce words after they have only heard them pronounced correctly once or twice. They grow accustomed to their own erroneous pronunciation and that of their peers, rather than than the perfect pronunciation of a native speaker, and because of this they develop accents. Also, in a conventional language class, students have difficulty memorizing new vocabulary terms because they lack a real-world context in which to apply those words. ALG aims to overcome this by using stories which provide a context for all new words the students learn. Before they ever attempt to speak, babies spend a long time hearing language pronounced perfectly and in context by native speakers. ALG tries to replicate this method of learning.
Going to www.algworld.com, I was able to learn more about this remarkable language learning method. It is founded on the following six principles:
1. Our point of reference or comparison is the native speaker, not other students.
2. Children are teh best examples of how to learn another language
3.The adult ability to translate, memorize, and practice can NEVER produce as good of results as naturally learning a language can.
4. Practice cannot help and in fact hinders the ability to learn naturally
5. Good speaking ability grows out of a good foundation of understanding. Therefore, understanding is what must be gained, not practice speaking.
6. Exposure to understandable, interesting experiences is the key to learning another language.
The ALG teachers found that "Opposite to popular belief, it became apparent that adults could learn just as quickly and nearly as well as children." Apparently after only 700 to 800 hours of class time, students naturally gain the ability to speak. By that time their understanding of the language is more or less fluent. Considering this amount of time in terms of our own education system, I find that it is roughly equivalent to four years of studying a language in school for an hour a day (disregarding time spent doing homework outside of class). After four years using our education system, the students generally come out nowhere near to fluent, so it seems to me that the ALG method is generally a lot more effective than our own method. ALG students spend between two and seven hours a day in language class. I cannot help but wonder if it would be possible to institute this method in our own schools where we generally spend only an hour per day in class.
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3 comments:
Do you think it's possible some students might have the "I can understand, but I can't speak" problem when they learn language with this method? I don't know enough about the specifics of this method to say, but what about grammar structures and sentence formations? I have always thought practice was the best way to develop and ingrain these specific skills.
I think you are on to something here. I agree and hope that this method of learning a language is efficient and effective. I've heard the best way to learn a language is through immersion. Having a context in which to learn give meaning and substance to what you're learning, thus making it worth remembering. What would be interesting to see, though, is why this works for sure (one always has theories...) I've heard that there is a specific "threshold" in which to learn a language, and after that threshold has been crossed, it's hard to learn a new language. How do you think this influences the idea of AGL?
Great post and discussion!
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