tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 12 12:23:35 1996

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Re: Repetition

On 12 Jan 96 at 11:25, Adam Walker wrote:

<pe'>
>      Immersion is wonderful.  It gives the student a feeling of 
> acomplishment that is needed to keep motivation high.  It continually 
> exposes the learner to native-speaker use of the language, and it 
> helps the students to see the usefullness of what he or she is 
> learning.  Unfortunately, it has some very big drawbacks.
> 
>      The most troubling of these is a condition known as 
> fosilization.  Once fosilization has occurred it is a teachers 
> nightmare to undo.  What happens is the student reaches the level of 
> communicative competence long before he or she achieves fluency.  In 
> other words the language learner is able to express the desired 
> meaning in a way that the native speaker can understand, but is not 
> correct native-speaker usage.  The listener understands.  The speaker 
> achieves the desired result.  The impetus for progress is lost, and 
> learning of any significance stops.

This is an excellent point.  I worked for several years at a firm
where a number of the management folks were Japanese (it was a sub
of a Japanese corp), and this was *very* evident, although I didn't
know the term for it.  

There also was a *rough* correlation between the corporate level of
the individual and how rapidly fossilization set in.  ie: The more
highly placed the person, the more likely they were to have
fossilization occur while skills were still low.  In other words, it 
was when others were less likely to correct them, and more likely to 
take on the burden of trying to work out the intended meaning.

>      Instruction through the use of such tools as MONITORED 
> drills is invaluable.  These drills can take numerous highly creative 
> forms.  They need not be mindless droning.  That kind of repetition 
> IS useless.  But for the learner trapped in fosilization it is the 
> only way out.  The students out-put must be compared to a strict 
> standard of compaison till the need for improvement is percieved.  
> Then progress in the target language can commence.  
> 
>      Maybe that's more that two cents worth, but I'll get down off my 
> soap box now.  Thank you. *bows* {{:-)

Well, it may or may not be more than two cents worth, but it is 
certainly worth more than two cents!

'etlhqengwI'
  
Garrett Michael Hayes;  Client/Server Labs
8601 Dunwoody Place, Suite 332,  Atlanta, GA 30350
[email protected],  http://www.cslinc.com
770-552-3645 voice, 770-993-4667 fax

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