Hesitation and umming as a language teaching tool

The piece of research cited below is interesting - I had in my own language teaching built in things to deliberately give the student time to think, but the idea raised here, is far more elegant.

Speakers naturally do um and ha when speaking. 

If when giving a language lesson, the um is deliberately introduced before the item that the teacher wants to draw attention to, this can be a very elegant teaching tool -  if not over-used.

I will trial it in my forthcoming lesson, and see what eventuates. Used too much, it would, of course, be annoying.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 15, 2011) — A team of cognitive scientists has good news for parents who are worried that they are setting a bad example for their children when they say "um" and "uh." A study conducted at the University of Rochester's Baby Lab shows that toddlers actually use their parents' stumbles and hesitations (technically referred to as disfluencies) to help them learn language more efficiently.

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becomes a much more difficult task and the child is apt to miss what comes next, says Richard Aslin, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester and one of the study's authors.

"The more predictions a listener can make about what is being communicated, the more efficiently the listener can understand it," Aslin said.

The study, which was conducted by Celeste Kidd, a graduate student at the University of Rochester, Katherine White, a former postdoctoral fellow at Rochester who is now at the University of Waterloo, and Aslin was published online April 14 in the journal Developmental Science.

The researchers studied three groups of children between the ages of 18 and 30 months. Each child sat on his or her parent's lap in front of a monitor with an eye-tracking device. Two images appeared on the screen: one image of a familiar item (like a ball or a book) and one made-up image with a made-up name (like a "dax" or a "gorp"). A recorded voice talked about the objects with simple sentences. When the voice stumbled and said "Look at the, uh…" the child instinctively looked at the made-up image much more often than the familiar image (almost 70 percent of the time).

"We're not advocating that parents add disfluencies to their speech, but I think it's nice for them to know that using these verbal pauses is OK -- the "uh's" and "um's" are informative," said Kidd, the study's lead author.

In the study, the effect was only significant in children older than two years. The younger children, the researchers reasoned, had not yet learned the fact that disfluencies tend to precede novel or unknown words.

When kids are between the ages of two and three, they usually are at a developmental stage where they can construct rudimentary sentences of about two to four words in length. And they typically have a vocabulary of a few hundred words.

The study builds on earlier research by Jennifer Arnold, a scientist at the University of North Carolina and a former postdoctoral fellow at Rochester, which found that adults also can use "um's" and "uh's" to their advantage in understanding language. Additionally, work by Anne Fernald at Stanford University has shown that it's not the quality but the quantity of speech that a child is exposed to that is most important for learning.

Language Learning and Methodology.

The piece of research cited below is interesting, in that is seems to reinforce the idea that a learner must do a lot of reading in order to learn how to structure a language.

It also illustrates the danger of using - in a language such as Latin - adapted texts, unless the learner is explicitly made aware that the texts are adapted to English word order, as there is a danger that this word order will be generalised.

Thus,if an adapted text is used - for example, in an interlinear - it is vital that the student moves to the original text as soon as possible.

The text is also encouraging for teachers - for example, the rule in Latin that an adjective always follows a monosyllable probably need not be explicitly taught. With enough examples, the rule will be learned.
We can say bonum vinum, or we can say vinum bonum (with a preference to the adjective coming before the noun in many cases) , but bonum sal is always sal bonum.

New Research Demonstrates Language Learners' Creativity

ScienceDaily (Apr. 4, 2011) — New research published in Language, the journal of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), shows that language learning goes well beyond simple imitation, and in fact that language learners are quite creative and remarkably smart. Not only are learners able to generalize grammatical restrictions to new words in a category -- in this case, made-up adjectives -- but they also do not learn these restrictions in situations where they can be attributed to some irrelevant factor.

But how is the restriction learned in the first place? Drs. Boyd and Goldberg show that witnessing ablim used after nouns (i.e., postnominally, as in the hamster that's ablim) makes participants even more likely to avoid its use before nouns in their own utterances. While this may sound like learners are simply imitating the adjective uses they see in the language to which they are exposed, the authors go on to show that learning is savvy, and only occurs under certain conditions.This point is driven home in an article, "Learning what not to say: The role of statistical preemption and categorization in a-adjective production," to be published in the March 2011 issue of Language. When authors Jeremy Boyd of the University of Illinois and Adele Goldberg of Princeton University asked adult speakers to produce sentences containing made-up adjectives like ablim, they found that people avoided using ablim before the noun it modified, unconsciously treating it like real adjectives that sound similar -- e.g., afraid, which also cannot be used before the noun it modifies (i.e., the afraid cat is a less preferred formulation than the cat that's afraid). This result indicates that speakers readily generalize a restriction against this use -- referred to as "prenominal" -- to adjectives that they've never heard before.

For example, in an analogous learning situation, when children see an adult with his right hand in a cast play a video game using just his left, they do not assume that there is a restriction on how the game can be played -- i.e., that one can only use one's left hand. They immediately infer that the adult would use his right hand (or both hands) if he could, but that the cast is preventing him from doing so. In similar fashion, when a new group of participants witnessed ablim used postnominally, but this time in a context in which there was a reason for its postnominal use that had nothing to do with ablim itself, participants did not learn a restriction against ablim's prenominal use. This indicates that learners carefully evaluate the input they receive, and that learning only occurs when the input is deemed informative.

This research demonstrates that speakers do not learn purely by imitating others, but bring sophisticated and creative resources to bear on the process. This is especially true when it comes to language, where the fact that children routinely produce sentences to which they have never been exposed indicates that they are not simply imitating what they hear.

I'm about 20% on my way through Bellum Helveticum

by Karavinka on 2011-02-07, 20:35

http://www.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=32605

My work contract expired as of Jan. 31 and I've been sleeping a lot since then. And the Chinese New Year fell on the first week of February this year so I had to waste my time visiting relatives etc, losing the precious time that I could have used to... not to learn Latin but to be with my gf.  I still spent some time with Latin and I wanted to make a note before I take off to Jeju, a resort island off the southern coast, in a few hours.

Well, anyways. As of Feb. 8:

* Wheelock's Latin, Loci Antiqui and Loci Immutati : I read through the passages while making a vocab list. Didn't spend too much time with this, though. Both these sections and the reader volume seem too heavy on Cicero imho.

* Chamber's Latin Alive and Well : finished! It is actually awful like Wheelock, and many sentences and some reading passages are shared between the two. However, Chambers was nice enough to add review sheets (with answer keys) every few lessons, and he has more English to Latin exercises. (I don't think I just have the confidence unless I can produce it somehow) Most readings are adapted from classicals, heavy on Livy and Caesar.

* I'm about 20% on my way through Bellum Helveticum, a Caesar-based textbook available online with podcasts from Latinum. There are as many (if not more) English to Latin than just passively reading Latin, starting from a simple noun clause to full sentences. The podcast is helpful as well: though I'm not intent on speaking Latin, I still want to feel at least somewhat natural when I read out loud. I never knew there was elision in Latin. (Gallia est .. to Galliest.., according to the podcast.)



@KingHarvest: Yes, Eutropius reads differently from, say, Nepos or Caesar. But I'm still glad that it exists and there must have been some reason when the Renaissance schoolmasters picked it as the pupil's first Latin author... Thanks for the comment, I'll take a look at Augustine.

Bilingual Readings on Latinum

In 2011 I started a new section of Latinum - composed of bilingual readings of the Classic authors, using the system of texts produced by Hamilton and Underwood, and those produced by John Taylor for the University College London.
These are the links to the current selection - comprising several hours of audio material.

BILINGUAL AUDIO

1. Bilingual Caesar - Invasion of Britain 
2. Bilingual Celsus - De Medicina 
3. Bilingual Cicero - Orations 
4. Bilingual Nepos - De Viris Illustribus 
5. Bilingual Ovid - Metamorphoses 
6. Bilingual Virgil - Eclogues 

These texts have been edited with the syntax adjusted to make an English interlinear possible - thus they are to be considered as intermediate texts, and once the listener has used them to get to grips with the material, they should commence reading the original text, with the words in the intended order.

Bilinguals and Language Learning

An interesting piece of research came out a couple of days ago, about those who use a second language, and perception.

I think it is of great interest to second language teachers: especially those who focus on translation - it should, I think, give pause for thought.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110314132531.htm

Reading over this article, my conclusion was that those students who remain in the 'translation zone' with their Latin - only comprehending it through translation, rendering the Latin into English, and then processing the translation, not the Latin, as their primary source text, are greatly retarded in their ability to understand the subtle gradations of semantic meaning -  the true meaning of Latin words - whose  sematic properties only become apparent through use within the language, on its own terms. 

Constant translation and working with a text in translation would,I think, hamper this process. Perhaps it would take place, but imperfectly, as semantic fields between languages only imperfectly overlap.

This applies I suspect to grammatical structures as much, if not more than to vocabulary.

For example,  the use of the ablative - constantly translating ablatives into their myriad of sub categories - attempting to shoe-horn them into English - probably retard the student's ability to reach an intuitive understanding of ablative usage within Latin - and this understanding only comes through the mechanics of the language itself, on its own terms, without translation.

Through, as many have said, "much reading".

Now, I am not saying some translation is not needed - a modicum of translation can speed up the learning process at the beginning. Interlinear translations can even speed up the process of intial language acquisition, be enabling the student to get through screeds of text in a short time - but the translation is necessarily limited - It can give the 'ball park' of new vocabulary. Some words transpose neatly. Canis and Dog, for example. Many key concepts do perhaps not, such as res publica, virtus, and a host of others. 

Any thoughts?

Evan.

Latinum Update

A few milestones were passed this week - Firstly, my booklet 'Declensions' has turned out to be the most popular title on the Tar Heel reader website, being over 50% more popular than the next title on the list according to Gary Bishop, who runs the site. It says something, that a dry book on declensions has beaten the Alphabet, Obama, and Lady Gaga!

Here is the list of the most popular titles.

1. Declensions
2. Our First Black President
3. The ABC Book
4. Lady Gaga
5. The ABC Book (yes there are two ABC books at the top of the list)
6. I am Michael Jordan
7. Disney Princesses
8. Three Little Kittens
9. Cupcakes

Secondly, my YouTube Latin course just passed its 200,000th  upload view.

Schola now has 1,746 members, and continues to grow at a steady pace.

Latinum is also still proving popular,with between 3 and 5 thousand file downloads per day. Total downloads since inception in 2007 is well over 7 million.

De Vestibulo Comenii

De Vestibulo Comenii

Paene cotidie emissiones electronicas ausculto latinas quas gratis praebet auditoribus ille industriosissimus et bene in interreti notus iuvenis Britannus cuius nomen Evan der Millner vel Molendarius. Has emissiones vel pod-casts invenietis ad I-Pod vestrum aptatas apud I-Tunes sub titulo "Latinum." Ab variis fontibus deducit locos suos Evan noster, amabilis fautor rerum classicarum et, ut videtur, humanisticarum, nam apud situm eius nuper inveni PDF antigraphum illius libri scholaris nomine "Vestibulum Ianuae Latinitatis" a Johanne Amos Comenio conscripti. Libellus quam pulcher est! Exemplar Molendarii Latinas sententias praebet iuxta sententias hungarice versas, quae Latinae procul dubio erunt utilissimae discipulis linguae archaeograecae, quo sermone hic vertam in usu alumnorum carissimorum.

Introitus    ἡ εἴσοδος

1. Venite pueri.            Ἔλθετε, παῖδες,
2. Discite latinam linguam,        μάθετε γλῶτταν Ἀττικήν
3. Pulchram et elegantem.        καλὴν καὶ κομψήν.
4. Comprehendite,            Συλλάβετε,
5. pro vestro captu,            ὥς γε κατὰ ὑμᾶς,
6. varias res,                ποικίλα πράγματα,
7. sapientiae semina.            τὰ τῆς ἐπιστήμης σπέρματα.
8. Deus vos iuvabit,            Θεὸς συνεργήσει,
9. praeceptores amabunt,        οἱ διδάσκαλοι φιλήσουσιν,
10. alii laudabunt,            οἱ ἄλλοι ἐπαινήσουσιν,
11. ipsi gaudebitis.            ὑμεῖς αὐτοὶ χαιρήσετε.
12. Si principium difficile,        Εἰ χαλεπὴ ἡ ἀρχ    ή,
13. medium erit facile,            τὸ μέσον ἔσται ῥᾲδιον ποιῆσαι,
14. finis iucundus.            τὸ τέλος ἡδύ.