This is a response to this post (quoted below), as it was off topic, so it gets a different thread.
Wheylous:I do not think roaming freely does much to help children.
Who said it did?
What I think might be a good idea from personal observation is teaching a phonetic language before English.
English is a phonetic language.
My original post, for convenience:
I am sure we are all attached to our own methods of schooling, but I do not think roaming freely does much to help children. I do like the idea of teaching sounds before names. What I think might be a good idea from personal observation is teaching a phonetic language before English. Why? 1) Spelling in Italian or Bulgarian, for example, is a piece of cake. It's all phonetic! This leads to faster times in learning how to read and write, and hence access to much more material at an earlier age 2) Learning English after another language is not really that difficult. Once you get past the spelling (which is much simplified after you already know how to read any language at all), English is a piece of cake 3) Learning Italian as a first language would be extremely beneficial, as some commonplace words in Italian are more complex words in English. For example, the English "amorous" and the Italian "amoroso." The Italian word is literally translated as the English "loving". To learn to speak everyday Italian, you must know this word. However, the cognate in English is an advanced word. But since you already know it in Italian, you have a gigantic advantage.
I am sure we are all attached to our own methods of schooling, but I do not think roaming freely does much to help children.
I do like the idea of teaching sounds before names.
What I think might be a good idea from personal observation is teaching a phonetic language before English. Why?
1) Spelling in Italian or Bulgarian, for example, is a piece of cake. It's all phonetic! This leads to faster times in learning how to read and write, and hence access to much more material at an earlier age
2) Learning English after another language is not really that difficult. Once you get past the spelling (which is much simplified after you already know how to read any language at all), English is a piece of cake
3) Learning Italian as a first language would be extremely beneficial, as some commonplace words in Italian are more complex words in English. For example, the English "amorous" and the Italian "amoroso." The Italian word is literally translated as the English "loving". To learn to speak everyday Italian, you must know this word. However, the cognate in English is an advanced word. But since you already know it in Italian, you have a gigantic advantage.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kinsella/kinsella22.1.html
In Montessori, there are no desks; students are free to roam about, physically unrestricted, so that they can select the work they are interested in or need to concentrate on.
http://www.englishclub.com/esl-articles/200104.htm
A phonetic language is one that is read as it's written. English isn't. Do you read "thought" as th from thought, ou from mow, g from gun, h from honor, and t from tin?
pho·net·ic adj. 2. Representing the sounds of speech with a set of distinct symbols, each designating a single sound: phonetic spelling.
pho·net·ic
Italian is almost completely phonetic. As is Bulgarian, as is Spanish. English is simply atrocious in this regard.
Is English really that hard to learn? I never had any trouble.
Wheylous: http://www.lewrockwell.com/kinsella/kinsella22.1.html In Montessori, there are no desks; students are free to roam about, physically unrestricted, so that they can select the work they are interested in or need to concentrate on.
Well at least you're getting it in the context of a well fleshed out presentation (with further resources).
a) How much of that did you actually read
b) "I do not think roaming freely does much to help children." Do you have some logical reason for this, or empirical evidence to support it, or is this just something you believe because it's what you were taught?
http://www.englishclub.com/esl-articles/200104.htm A phonetic language is one that is read as it's written. English isn't. Do you read "thought" as th from thought, ou from mow, g from gun, h from honor, and t from tin?
That is a crude and misguided way to define it.
English is made up of symbols that have distinct sounds, called phonograms, which are placed together to form morphemes. Just because there are more rules in English which dictate when certain symbols or groupings of symbols create a certain sound, it doesn't mean it is not phonetic in the linguistic sense. Of course English is more complex and breaks its own rules more often than some other languages, which makes it harder to learn, but that doesn't make it not phonetic.
Chinese is not phonetic. Chinese is made up of logograms that represent entire morphemes. There is no real way to break down a logographic language system phonetically...a phonographic system generally can be.
It seems like Mr Essberger is just trying to get an important point across to new English speakers.
" Learning Italian as a first language would be extremely beneficial, as some commonplace words in Italian are more complex words in English. For example, the English "amorous" and the Italian "amoroso." The Italian word is literally translated as the English "loving". To learn to speak everyday Italian, you must know this word. However, the cognate in English is an advanced word. But since you already know it in Italian, you have a gigantic advantage."
Who has a gigantic advantage in English, the person who learned Italian and is now struggling to learn English? Or the person who is a native English speaker and is now struggling to learn Italian? I would say that the person who is a native English speaker would have the "advantage" in English.
I am a native English speaker and my partner is a native Korean speaker. I'm going to do my darndest to make sure that my kids will be natively bilingual in each language, but by far English is the most important. If I wanted them to learn Italian, a comparatively useless language, it would be as a "studied" language. It is much more important to have native fluency at English than Italian in nearly every country of the world except for a single pipsqueek socialist country where the youth can't get jobs: Italy. Koreans spend 4 hours after school in private English academies, not Italian academies. That's probably because they will grow up to be scientists, engineers, or businessmen, who read material like scientific journals which are almost always published in English, even in non-English speaking countries like Italy. The data they will have available to them on the internet by learning English instead of Italian is much larger.
Living in Korea I've witnessed what its like for people to be linguistically isolated. Koreans treat doctors like "seers" or messengers of the Gods, because they've never looked up an abstract on Pubmed before. The only information they get are medical textbooks translated into Korean, and as we know textbooks are outdated as soon as they're printed. Nobody knows about Mises, Hayek, etc except for a handful of people and their works are extremely hard to get ahold of. Nobody knows about trends in health, science, and nutrition that have been discovered years ago because they don't have access to the journals (they can't read them). I on the other hand just type things into Google or Pubmed and a wealth of information pops up for me free, and it is all available in English online nearly as soon as it is discovered.
So that's why I will want to ensure that my children grow up as native English speakers with a native-level, fluent command of the language. I think that is what actually creates a gigantic advantage.
PS: I travel all over Asia on business and have never met anyone who speaks Italian, other than an Italian-Swiss friend who speaks English and an Italian-French friend who also speaks English. If you want to do business in Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Delhi, Manilla, or any other major hub you either use English or the local language. A Japanese person in Thailand will speak to a Thai in... English.
You should post more often.
"It is much more important to have native fluency at English than Italian in nearly every country of the world except for a single pipsqueek socialist country where the youth can't get jobs: Italy."
That made me laugh out loud.
How much of that did you actually read
Very little
Do you have some logical reason for this, or empirical evidence to support it, or is this just something you believe because it's what you were taught?
As I said, "I am sure we are all attached to our own methods of schooling", hence implying 1) indoctrination 2) intuition. If not, then I do now.
Of course English is more complex and breaks its own rules more often than some other languages, which makes it harder to learn
Regardless, my point is that it is more difficult to learn. Slower learning time = less opportunity to actually read.
Maybe I read http://www.nrrf.org/essay_Illiteracy.html and I was a bit too reactionary. The general feel I got out of the article was that English is difficult to teach to natives.
Duke, I'm not arguing that learning English is bad.
I argue that learning Italian first may be better. At least, I learned 2 languages before I learned English and I'm now at the top of my class in English, so it appears that (at least in my case) learning other languages has not impacted my ability to learn English.
Furthermore, knowing what I do of the two vocabularies, I know that gaining an advanced English vocabulary is easier if you know basic Italian vocabulary.
Since your whole argument is about how learning English is good, I must stop here.
Wheylous:How much of that did you actually read Very little
Well, there you go.
Do you have some logical reason for this, or empirical evidence to support it, or is this just something you believe because it's what you were taught? As I said, "I am sure we are all attached to our own methods of schooling", hence implying 1) indoctrination 2) intuition. If not, then I do now.
I didn't realize you were talking about yourself, and admitting that the statement that followed was likely a short-sightedness on your part. As long as you acknowledge it, I guess.
Regardless, my point is that it is more difficult to learn. Slower learning time = less opportunity to actually read. Maybe I read http://www.nrrf.org/essay_Illiteracy.html and I was a bit too reactionary. The general feel I got out of the article was that English is difficult to teach to natives.
You really think learning a language as a second or third is easier than learning it as your first?
it appears that (at least in my case) learning other languages has not impacted my ability to learn English.
Wasn't your whole argument that it does impact your ability to learn English? I don't even know what you're talking about any more.
In Montessori, there are no desks; students are free to roam about, physically unrestricted, so that they can select the work they are interested in or need to concentrate on. For what it's worth, Montessori was the best of my 'in school' times, although I only went up to Grade 1 (good thing, too.)
For what it's worth, Montessori was the best of my 'in school' times, although I only went up to Grade 1 (good thing, too.)
MrSchnapps:For what it's worth, Montessori was the best of my 'in school' times, although I only went up to Grade 1 (good thing, too.)
The parenthesis doesn't go with the first part. Can you explain?
Yeah, my bad; I was unclear.
I enjoyed Montessori. It didn't even feel like school. We weren't forced into anything or given requirements. Instead, there were a lot of different 'stations' which featured any number of things from many different areas: biology, language, kinesthetic activities, art, etc. etc. If we liked a station, we could ask the teacher for a demonstration, and then we would get started.
Fast forward to grade 1, where I was told I couldn't play with certain children unless I invited all the other children to play, as well. There was no such thing as 'voluntary' association. It was a collectivist, herd mentality, brought on mostly by an over-intrusive school administration interested in 'equality' and what not. What a bloody social experiment on us all. I immediately hated it. There was even an emnity between the kids because of a forced and artificial joining together, rather than the natural ones which formed in Montessori. Ironically, the Montessori produced more 'equal' conditions than did the school in which I took grade 1.
Then I found homeschooling.
That's a nice anecdote (helps support the Montessori method), but that still doesn't make sense. You said those were the best years of school for you, and now you're saying they produced more 'equal' conditions than when you got to 1st grade (which I assume was at a normal public school)...and it's somehow a good thing that you only participated in Montessori for such a short time?...that your best school years ended and you went to this other, collectivist herd school by age 6?
I don't come out of reading that with the understanding you mentioned above.
Summary: I loved the Montessori years, was sad when they ended, hated 1st grade and the egalitarian experimentation, and loved homeschooling.
it appears that (at least in my case) learning other languages has not impacted my ability to learn English. Wasn't your whole argument that it does impact your ability to learn English? I don't even know what you're talking about any more.
Poor wording on my part. Should read "it appears that (at least in my case) learning other languages has not negatively impacted my ability to learn English."
Maybe reading-wise. From the article it appears that learning to read English is a problem. If so, you can learn Italian first. I've found that transfering afterwards to English is not a problem.
Then again, I am foreverunable to go back and learn English as a first language, so...