Yesterday I came across an interesting article entitled “On the mortality of language learning methods” which discusses how methods for learning foreign languages appear, prosper, disappear, and then reappear.

Over the past century many different methods or approaches have been applied to the teaching and learning of foreign languages. Since the 1960s, for example there has been a shift from approaches that concentrate on learning grammar, vocabulary and on translation, to approaches the emphasise communication, especially speaking. The same thing also happened in the second half of the 19th century.

Much research has been undertaken into language learning and teaching, but as far as I can discover, no single approach or method has been found to work significantly better than any other, in spite of claims to the contrary by the inventors, founders and promoters of particular methods and approaches. Moreover, each new development in technology, whether it be the phonograph, radio, television, computer or internet, is expected to transform the way people learn languages. However this doesn’t necessarily happen.

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

I watched some more of the polyglot videos I mentioned yesterday, and a few others, and one thing I noticed is that in most cases they people in them are talking about things like their languages, and how and why they learned them. One exception is this one by Richard Simcott in which he mentions 50 interesting things about himself in a variety of languages and accents. I also found some videos of a multilingual singer and actor from Vancouver who speaks four languages and sings in eight, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog, French and English.

Today I thought of a few other things you could try on videos and audio recordings in languages you’re learning: talk about a subject that really interests you, make a video/audio diary, read poetry or prose, tell stories or jokes, sing songs, or make lessons for languages or other subjects or skills that you’d like to share. They say that a good way to learn is to teach, and learning how to explain the intricacies a language or other subject in a foreign language is good way to improve your command of that language.

For example, I’ve been thinking about making some Irish lessons in Welsh, some Welsh lessons in French, or maybe even some tin whistle lessons in one or more of my languages. Don’t hold your breath though – I’m good at coming up with ideas, but it can take we awhile to do anything about them.

A number of people have posted videos on YouTube featuring them speaking various languages. In some cases they speak many different languages in the same video, in others they speak different languages in different videos. Some videos appear to be spontaneous, while others have a more scripted feel to them. There is also perhaps an element of showing off and one-upmanship involved.

Some examples include:

• Burkhard Lee: speaks German, English, French, Mandarin, Thai, Japanese and Indonesian
• Richard Simcott: speaks English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Macedonian, Swedish, Italian, Portuguese, Welsh, Catalan, Czech, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, Romanian, Esperanto, Icelandic, Russian and has some knowledge of quite a few others
• Steve Kaufmann: speaks English, Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese and Swedish
• Stuart Jay Raj: speaks over 15 languages, including Thai, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi, Indonesian and Vietnamese
• Luca the Italian Polyglot: speaks Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Engilsh, French, German, Dutch and Russian
• Benny the Irish Polyglot: speaks English, Irish, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Esperanto

There are quite a few others and you can find more examples here.

Videos like this, and audio recordings, are one way to demonstrate that you can speak the languages you claim to speak, and your level in each language. They could also be used to demonstrate your progress to yourself and others. You could make one or more every so often and compare them to see improvements in your language abilities.

According to an article I came across today in the Financial Times, computer games designed to improve your brain have only negligible effect on your mental ability and cognitive function.

Researchers at Cambridge University, Manchester University and King’s College London have carried out large-scale clinical trials of brain training games and found very little or no improvements in the participants who played the games. In some cases the control group showed more improvement than the brain training group. The conclusion is that while there’s no harm in brain training, apart from the cost of buying the programs, it doesn’t have any significant benefit either. The lead researcher, Dr Adrian Owen of Cambridge University, commented that,

“Brain training doesn’t do you any harm but you might as well do something else mentally stimulating, like learning a new language – it’s as good as brain training and you will be able to speak a foreign language.”

Have you tried any of these brain training programs? Have they been effective?

Yesterday I came across some interesting discussion on Keith’s Voice on Extreme Language Learning about the hodgepodge approach to learning languages, which he describes as follows:

“It’s a kind of do-it-all approach and can be constructed in various ways. Absolutely no plan whatsoever is needed! Try some technique out and if you don’t like it you can just discard it. Then try something else. When you get bored with that, pick a new activity to go to work on. There’s one caveat though. Results will vary!”

This is pretty much how I learn languages, and the results certainly do vary. I don’t go in for plans or methods very much, and just try to practise all language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing – as much and as often as possible. Often I think to myself that perhaps I should be a bit more systematic in my approach, but rarely do anything about it.

Keith goes on to explain why he’s not keen on this approach:

“For a language learner like myself, the hodgepodge method is unacceptable. We do not want varying results. We all want the same thing. The only standard of speaking a language is the native speaker. This is what we want to reach. This is the only acceptable result.”

Achieving a native-like proficiency in a language is certainly worth aiming for, however it may not be for everybody. Some people are happy to acquire a good reading ability in a language, others might be content with an ability to understand it, or to communicate in it at a basic level. It depends why you’re learning the language and what you want to do with it.

Are you a hodgepodger or do you use a particular method to learn languages?

Last week I came across a useful-looking new site called RhinoSpike, where you can request recordings in a wide variety of languages and make them in your native language.

The way it works is that you submit text in the language you want to be recorded by a native speaker. It goes into a queue for that language. Native speakers see your request, make the recording and upload the audio file, which you can then download.

You can also record texts in your native language for other people, and doing so bumps your own requests forward in the queue, so native speakers will see them faster.

It’s free and the recordings are accessible by anybody.

This is a great idea and I plan make regular use of the site.