Preface
‘One of my students has been doing amazingly well in Norwegian. Would you like to
talk with her? Maybe you can find out how she does it,’ a colleague said to me one
day.
‘Fine,’ I replied. ‘How about Tuesday between ten and eleven? Maybe we can
tape it.’
That conversation led me to a series of interviews with seven outstanding adult
language learners. The accounts given here are based on hour-long recorded
conversations I had with them. Later I conducted similar interviews with a number
of other learners about whose overall ability I knew nothing. Readers are invited to
become acquainted with all these people, and in this way to test and develop their
own understanding of how second languages are learned. Names and a few
unimportant details have been changed, but the interviewees are not fictional, and
they are not composites. They are real individuals.
When I began the interviews. I was hoping to find out what the successful learners
did alike. If we could teach their secrets to our students, I thought, then everyone
else could become as successful as the people I had talked with. It soon became
apparent, however, that learners are even more different from one another than I
had expected. Success with foreign languages, I found, does not come by one simple
formula. Although this fact was negative, it was useful.
But as I listened to those good learners, I also found something very positive:
many of the things they were describing fitted well with one or another abstract,
theoretical concept in the field. Yet they do not provide unambiguous vindication for
any one model of second language acquisition. Each model will find in these
interviews some confirmation, but also some challenge.
In the first seven chapters, I will first let you hear what the learners themselves
actually said. Then I will provide a few comments on some of the principles
illustrated, and suggest how you may work critically with the ideas, perhaps in the
company of one or two friends or colleagues. There are also step-by-step
descriptions of some specific techniques. The book ends with a summary of what I
thought I saw these learners doing, a sketch of how I myself would probably
approach a new language, and a brief statement of what these interviews have meant
to me as a teacher.
xi
xii Preface
As a group, these interviewees differ from many other language learners. I think.
however. that the most significant lesson to be learned from them is their diversity. I
assume that comparable contrasts in special abilities and individual preferences
would be found among any group of language learners, no matter what their ages or
occupations.
As with all self-reports, we must of course keep alert for possible self-deceptions
in what these interviewees tell us. I am confident, however, that their intentions
were honest. and I believe that most of what they said was accurate. As we spoke, I
tried not to put words into their mouths, but only to reflect what 1 thought they were
telling me. In editing the tapes, I have occasionally omitted material for the sake of
brevity, and have felt free to reorganize or rephrase in order to improve clarity.
Throughout, however, I have been careful not to change emphases or to tamper
with the wording of key points.
We still must keep in mind certain limitations on such data. For one thing, in
interviews of this kind we hear not what people actually did, but only what they
thought they did - or what they claim they thought they did. For another, although I
tried very hard not to lead the interviewees, they still may have been telling me what
they thought I thought they should be saying.
These interviews are - or claim to be - accounts of experiences. Popper seemed to
think that hypotheses or myths or ‘conjectures,’ as he liked to call them, can in
principle come from almost anywhere including experience (1976). According to
him, what is essential about conjectures is not their origin, but that they be stated in
a way that allows for potential falsification, and then that they be tested in ways that
honestly try to falsify them. McLaughlin, on the other hand, believes that ‘recourse
to conscious or unconscious experience is notoriously unreliable and hence cannot
be a source of testable hypotheses about the learning process’ (1987: 152).
Even if McLaughlin is right, however. I think such interviews can be of real and
legitimate interest to students of second language learning.
n To begin with, we must remember that the interviewees’ statements are in fact
data - not. to be sure, data about what they did, but data about what they said
they did. And these data too are to be accounted for. So, for example, Frieda’s
statement that memorized words became permanently available to her after she
had once used them for real. but also that memorizing them ahead of time was
useful, is a datum - a datum that can be explained in one (or perhaps in both)
of two ways: Either she was trying to demonstrate that she had been
conforming to some norm that she thought was correct, or she was reporting
fairly accurately on what she in fact frequently did. In this book, I am not
presenting the accounts of Frieda and the others as descriptions of ‘the learning
process ,’ but only as data - data which may possibly become sources for
conjecture about learning.
n As data, these statement sometimes fit in with various theories of second
language learning, and sometimes challenge them. Whenever there is an
Preface xiii
apparent inconsistency between one of these statements and a given theory,
then the theory must either show that the statement should not be taken
seriously, or it must show how the statement is in fact consistent with it after all,
or the theory must modify itself accordingly.
On a purely practical level, in the reactions of the hundred or so language
teachers who have looked at and commented on these stories, I find, time and
again. frequent strong identification with one or another of the interviewees.
Again on the practical level, the personae of the interviewees have turned out
to provide convenient pegs on which my students have often been able to hang
some of the more abstract ideas about second language learning.
And finally, becoming acquainted with these gifted learners has frequently
opened my students’ minds to the diversity of learning styles that they are likely
to encounter in their own classes.
Other books I have written have been for language teachers only. Here, I am
writing also for learners. If you are a language teacher, the experience of working
through this book will make you better acquainted with the language learner in
yourself. Then you will be more clearly aware of the preferences and prejudices that
you bring to your work. The experience may also make some of your students’
differences from you seem less strange. It may even make strangeness itself less
threatening. Not least, it should give you a solid skepticism at any simple conclusions
of any methodologist, including me.
If you are in the process of learning a new language, you can use this book in
three ways:
1 As you read each description, ask yourself, ‘How am I like this successful
person? How am I different from her or him? Which of them is most like me?
In what ways am I different from all of them?’ Your answers to these questions
will help you to understand your own individual abilities more fully. The better
you understand your abilities, the more effectively you can use them. And of
course the more effectively you use your abilities, the more easily you will
learn.
2 As you work through the other parts of each section, ask yourself, ‘How can I
apply this principle or this technique in my own study?’ Your answers will give
you a better understanding of language learning in general. This understanding
may help you to add to your natural abilities. It may also make you more
patient with your fellow students. And it will help you to see why your teacher
sometimes uses techniques that do not exactly fit your own style of learning.
3 After you have worked through several of the interviews, ask yourself, ‘In
spite of the diversity, is there after all some pattern that emerges from what
these people are saying?’ I hope you will consider that question carefully
before you look at my tentative answers to it in the last chapter.
But in the end. we will not arrive at any simple formula or set of gimmicks. A few
readers may find it helpful to pattern themselves after Carla or Derek or one of the
other successful learners. Most of us, however, will profit best from carefully
xiv Preface
observing all of them and then drawing on our observations, the better to
understand and guide our own language-learning selves or those of our students.
Earl W. Stevick
Arlington, Virginia
前言
Preface One of my students has been doing amazingly well in Norwegian. Would you like to talk with her? Maybe you can find out how she does it,’ a colleague said to me one day.‘Fine,’I replied. ‘How about Tuesday between ten and eleven? Maybe we can tape it.’前言: 我的一位学生在挪威做了一件令震惊的好的学习方法,你想跟他谈谈吗?也许你可以找到他问问他是怎样做的,一位同事对我说了一天,好吧,我说,那十号或者十一号怎没样,也许我们可以带上她一起谈谈。这样的语言就是标准的谈话语言,描写的是心里的思考过程的英语,你用汉语和应用于写出来都是一样的,这样的语言的写作方式,你要学会写出汉语日记,就等同于英语日记。
That conversation led me to a series of interviews with seven outstanding adult language learners. The accounts given here are based on hour-long recorded conversations I had with them. 这些对话让我做成了一个系列专访,叫做七个成功的语言学习者。这些案例都是我真实的同他们一个小时谈话的记录。
Later I conducted similar interviews with a number of other learners about whose overall ability I knew nothing. Readers are invited to become acquainted with all these people, and in this way to test and develop their own understanding of how second languages are learned. Names and a few unimportant details have been changed, but the interviewees are not fictional, and they are not composites. They are real individuals.后来我有做了一次类似的采访,对方都是一些不知道真实能力的学习者,请读者一起结识他们,并用这种方式来测试一下,如何理解第二语言的习得而来,虽然一些名称和具体的细节进行了更改,但是被采访者是真实的个人,不是拼凑在前一起的。
When I began the interviews. I was hoping to find out what the successful learners did alike. If we could teach their secrets to our students, I thought, then everyone else could become as successful as the people I had talked with. It soon became apparent, however, that learners are even more different from one another than I had expected. Success with foreign languages, I found, does not come by one simple formula. Although this fact was negative, it was useful.当我开始采访的时候,我希望找出什么是成功的学习者,但是实际上是没有一样的。如果我们可以教给学生这些秘密的话,我想可能每人都会成为一个非常成功的学习者,来和我家交谈,他很快就会进步明显,但是学员们语我的预期是不同的,他们并不仅仅满足语这些进步,我又发现外语学习的成功,没有一个公式,尽管这是消极的,但是也很有用。
But as I listened to those good learners, I also found something very positive: many of the things they were describing fitted well with one or another abstract, theoretical concept in the field. Yet they do not provide unambiguous vindication for any one model of second language acquisition. Each model will find in these interviews some confirmation, but also some challenge.但是就像我听到的这些好学生,我也找到了一些积极地意义,很多的事情自己装着一个具体的例子,总比一些抽象的概念要好得多,在这个外语学习的理论概念的领域里,但是他们并没有提供一些相反的模型,来进行第二语言的学习,每一种学习方法的采访,都会得到一些实证,同时也会遇到挑战。
In the first seven chapters, I will first let you hear what the learners themselves actually said. Then I will provide a few comments on some of the principles illustrated, and suggest how you may work critically with the ideas, perhaps in the company of one or two friends or colleagues. There are also step-by-step descriptions of some specific techniques. The book ends with a summary of what I thought I saw these learners doing, a sketch of how I myself would probably approach a new language, and a brief statement of what these interviews have meant
to me as a teacher.在前七章里,我首先让你听到学习者的真实说法究竟是什么,然后,我会提出一些原则性的意见进行说明,并建议你如何开展工作,如何进行思考,提出自己的批评意见,可能是一个公司里面的几个和几个朋友或者同事,还有一些具体的操作步骤的描述,在该书的结尾的总结里,你可能看到我描述学习者是如何做的,我的想法是什么,以及我提供了怎样的一种新的学习方法,以及这些访谈有什么意义,作为一位老师我的简短的声明。
xii Preface As a group, these interviewees differ from many other language learners. I think. however. that the most significant lesson to be learned from them is their diversity. I assume that comparable contrasts in special abilities and individual preferences would be found among any group of language learners, no matter what their ages or occupations.第十二前言:作为一个群体,这些受访者是不同语言学习者,我想,但是,他们最大的教训是学习的多样性,我假设这些学习这是可以对比的话,他们的学习爱好和特殊能力之间,你就会发现在任何的学习语言的群体里,不管他的年龄和职业都是这种差异造成的。
As with all self-reports, we must of course keep alert for possible self-deceptions in what these interviewees tell us. I am confident, however, that their intentions were honest. and I believe that most of what they said was accurate. As we spoke, I tried not to put words into their mouths, but only to reflect what 1 thought they were telling me. In editing the tapes, I have occasionally omitted material for the sake of brevity, and have felt free to reorganize or rephrase in order to improve clarity. Throughout, however, I have been careful not to change emphases or to tamper with the wording of key points.正如所有的自我报告,这些受访者告诉了我们什么呢,就是所有的人都让我们保持一种自我欺骗,这一点我是深信不疑,然而他们的意图是诚实的欺骗,我相信他们说的是准确的,当我们说话的时候,总是努力不在口里说出这些话,而是一些反应了他们以为怎么怎么的话,告诉我们,在编辑这些磁带的时候,我为了简洁的原因,偶尔会省略一些内容,为了清晰度,可能会进行组合和整理,不过,自始至终,我一般不轻易删除一些觉得重要观点的说法。
We still must keep in mind certain limitations on such data. For one thing, in interviews of this kind we hear not what people actually did, but only what they thought they did - or what they claim they thought they did. For another, although I tried very hard not to lead the interviewees, they still may have been telling me what they thought I thought they should be saying.我们仍然需要记住一些数据的局限性,在采访的时候,我们听到的一些人的说法,实际上并没有做,只是他们想的应该怎样做,就声称他们想的的已经做过了,我一直努力使自己不要暗示什么,他们仍然一直告诉我的是,以为我想得到的什么,才是他们应该说的是什么。
These interviews are - or claim to be - accounts of experiences. Popper seemed to think that hypotheses or myths or ‘conjectures,’ as he liked to call them, can in principle come from almost anywhere including experience (1976). According to him, what is essential about conjectures is not their origin, but that they be stated in a way that allows for potential falsification, and then that they be tested in ways that honestly try to falsify them. McLaughlin, on the other hand, believes that ‘recourse to conscious or unconscious experience is notoriously unreliable and hence cannot be a source of testable hypotheses about the learning process’ 这些采访是,或者说是一些经验,似乎认为是一些假设了,神话了,或者猜想什么的,因为他喜欢这样称呼他们,这些原则几乎来自任何地方,或者经验,据说,什么是必不可少的猜测,不是他们本身要这样,但是他们通过说明的方式,或者不自觉的伪造了事实自己还不知道,然后在测试他们的方法的时候,是一种诚实的伪造,不是故意的,另一方面可能这些有意、无意的经验也是不可靠的,因此不能很好地对一种学习方法进行假设。这个问题其实是很普遍的,这些不自觉的造假自己是不自然的,也无法预防。
Even if McLaughlin is right, however. I think such interviews can be of real and legitimate interest to students of second language learning.尽管存在着上述的假设可能是正确的,但是,我仍然认为,这些采访的结果,对于学习第二语言来说,是真实、合法、有效的。
To begin with, we must remember that the interviewees’ statements are in fact data - not. to be sure, data about what they did, but data about what they said they did. And these data too are to be accounted for. So, for example, Frieda’s statement that memorized words became permanently available to her after she had once used them for real. but also that memorizing them ahead of time was useful, is a datum - a datum that can be explained in one (or perhaps in both) of two ways: Either she was trying to demonstrate that she had been conforming to some norm that she thought was correct, or she was reporting fairly accurately on what she in fact frequently did. In this book, I am not presenting the accounts of Frieda and the others as descriptions of ‘the learning process ,’ but only as data - data which may possibly become sources for conjecture about learning.首先,我们必须牢记,这些被采访者是陈述,实际上是数据,不,是真实的,是关于他们做了什么的数据,但是这些数据他们说他们做到了,而这些数据就被计算在内,因此,举例来说,比如有人说他背单词以后永久地记住了,他们在用的时候是真实的记住了,但是记住的前提是有用,是在这样的基准条件下,一个可以解释一个单词,或者2个数据,两种可能,要么他想表明,符合一种规范,是正确的,要么就是他经常做,所以记得就非常准确了。这本书里面,我不认可这种说法,我只是将他作为一种数据。可能作为学习猜想的来源。
As data, these statement sometimes fit in with various theories of second language learning, and sometimes challenge them. Whenever there is an Preface xiii apparent inconsistency between one of these statements and a given theory, then the theory must either show that the statement should not be taken seriously, or it must show how the statement is in fact consistent with it after all, or the theory must modify itself accordingly.作为一种数据,这些陈述有时各种第二语言的理论,有时会面临一些挑战,无论如何,在第十三序的时候,就出现了生命和理论明显不一致的情况,那么理论必须证明是不严重的问题,或者必须证明事实必须是一致的,或者理论必须进行相应地修改。
On a purely practical level, in the reactions of the hundred or so language teachers who have looked at and commented on these stories, I find, time and again. frequent strong identification with one or another of the interviewees.在一个真实水平,在反应一百种语言的老师,这个老师评论过这些故事,或者研究过,看到过,有人学会了100种语言,我发现,一次又一次,你会认同其中的一个或者另外一位受访者。
Again on the practical level, the personae of the interviewees have turned out to provide convenient pegs on which my students have often been able to hang some of the more abstract ideas about second language learning.再说实际水平,一位受访者,可以比较方便地提供,经常放弃一些比较抽象的想法,对于第二语言来说。这就是说,学习第二语言,对于受访者来说,他们不喜欢一些抽象的想法,所以也阻碍了他们试图的努力。
And finally, becoming acquainted with these gifted learners has frequently opened my students’ minds to the diversity of learning styles that they are likely to encounter in their own classes.最后,随着越来越熟悉这些自治优秀的学生,慢慢开阔了我的学生的头脑,以及各种学习方式,他们很可能说多样的,但是总会遇到自己同类的学习方法。
Other books I have written have been for language teachers only. Here, I am writing also for learners. If you are a language teacher, the experience of working through this book will make you better acquainted with the language learner in yourself. Then you will be more clearly aware of the preferences and prejudices that you bring to your work. The experience may also make some of your students’ differences from you seem less strange. It may even make strangeness itself less threatening. Not least, it should give you a solid skepticism at any simple conclusions of any methodologist, including me.在其他的书里,我只为语文老师而写,而在这里我的写作也是为了学习者,如果你是语文老师,你的工作经验,再加上通过这本书让你的学生更好地认识自己,然后你会更加清醒地认识到,喜好和偏见,会带到你的工作中,这些经验你的学生也可以做到,从你的有很大差异的学生那里也不会太陌生了。她身世会使得自己变的不再陌生,远离危险,同样重要的是,在任何固有的怀疑的方法中,你应该下这样一个结论,包括我自己在内。方法对不对,先不要下结论,不妨试试再说。你就不会在对那些感觉特别优异的学习方法敬而远之了。
If you are in the process of learning a new language, you can use this book in three ways:如果您在学习一种新语言的过程中,你可以使用这本书
三种方式:
1. As you read each description, ask yourself, ‘How am I like this successful person? How am I different from her or him? Which of them is most like me? In what ways am I different from all of them?’ Your answers to these questions will help you to understand your own individual abilities more fully. The better you understand your abilities, the more effectively you can use them. And of course the more effectively you use your abilities, the more easily you will learn.当你读到每个描述的时候,问问自己,我怎样才能喜欢上这些成功的人,我怎么就和他或者她不同呢?其中我更喜欢哪一个?在所有的方案中,我与他们有什么不同?对这些问题的自我回答,你将会对自己了解地更充分,你能更好地了解自己的能力,更有效地使用他们,当然,更有效地使用自己的能力,你会更容易地学习。
2. As you work through the other parts of each section, ask yourself, ‘How can I apply this principle or this technique in my own study?’ Your answers will give you a better understanding of language learning in general. This understanding may help you to add to your natural abilities. It may also make you more patient with your fellow students. And it will help you to see why your teacher sometimes uses techniques that do not exactly fit your own style of learning.当你的工作时,通过每一节的其他部分,问问自己,'我怎样才能适用于自己学习这个原则或这项技术?'你的答案会使你更深入的了解语言学习的一般规律。这种理解可以帮助你增加你的自然能力。它也可能让你与你的同学看到学习很多毛病。它会帮助你明白为什么你的老师有时使用的技术,不完全适合您自己的学习风格。
3 After you have worked through several of the interviews, ask yourself, ‘In spite of the diversity, is there after all some pattern that emerges from what these people are saying?’ I hope you will consider that question carefully before you look at my tentative answers to it in the last chapter. 在通过一些采访以后你的工作,问问自己,尽管学习方法是多种多样的,但是从这些人口里面说的一些方法中,毕竟用一些模式适合自己,你能认真地思考这些问题,在你看完我最后一张的答案之前。
But in the end. we will not arrive at any simple formula or set of gimmicks. A few readers may find it helpful to pattern themselves after Carla or Derek or one of the other successful learners. Most of us, however, will profit best from carefully xiv Preface observing all of them and then drawing on our observations, the better to understand and guide our own language-learning selves or those of our students. Earl W. Stevick Arlington, Virginia但是在最后,我也不会提供简单的公式,少数的学习者,可能会发现对自己有帮助的模式,在卡拉、德里克,或者其他成功学习者的经验以后,我们中的大多数,最好会仔细地阅读十四前言,遵守所有对我们到意见而收益,更好地理解并引导自己学习,或者我们的学生。
伯爵W.施特维克
弗吉尼亚州阿灵顿